Apple is ready to go a step further when it comes to headphones. Not only do you want your AirPods to have excellent sound quality and good connectivity with your devices, but now you also want to focus it on the health area as it happens with the Apple Watch. How do they want to do it? Well, through new and sophisticated sensors.
Future AirPods plans unveiled
DigiTimes, a medium close to Apple’s supply chains, has released a report in the last few hours stating that the Californian company hopes to incorporate new ALS ambient light sensors in its popular headphones. The when is more difficult to know, but everything points to that it will not be something immediate but it will be for 2021 or 2022.
Not much additional information is provided about what specific functionalities these would provide, but the truth is that they could be closely related to the measurement of pulsations and even the determination of oxygen levels in the blood of the ear.
The current AirPods have optical sensors capable of detecting whether they are worn or not, pausing playback in those cases. This is useful functionality, but nothing new these days. However the new sensors would not only allow this, but would also be able to interpret health data like those mentioned above. Not surprisingly, similar sensors are used in hospitals to carry out these diagnoses.
Why focus AirPods on health
It has been a year and a half since the same media claimed that Apple was developing plans to adjust its AirPods to the field of health. These new features may seem to be a substitute for those of the Apple Watch , but the truth is that they could serve to connect between them and be able to carry out a more accurate diagnosis than would be obtained with just one.
It seems very futuristic and even for many it would be unprofitable news, but it is still interesting to have something like this in accessories as common as headphones. We have already been able to check with the watch how hundreds of people have been able to discover heart conditions that have subsequently been confirmed by medical specialists, so that in the end it is an extremely important field even for those who do not initially believe they need these functionalities.
It remains to be seen also the compatibility of these sensors with Android equipment, but everything indicates that it will be an exclusive function for iOS. All the data could be dumped into the iPhone‘s medical data, as is the case with the data now obtained from the Apple Watch.
Caution with the information
We always use the phrase of catching rumors with tweezers and we do this because in the end there is a lot of information that is known. There are more reliable means and sources than others, but on many occasions we have seen how some rumored functionalities for the devices have ended up being nothing.
DigiTimes has a great record of successes behind them thanks to its good sources, but this does not mean that we should give absolute truth to everything that is discussed. It is true that more analysts have already predicted this type of news for AirPods, but when we are talking about products from 1 to 2 years from now, the most sensible thing is to be cautious and not take it for granted. In any case, we will continue to be attentive to information that sheds a little more light on the matter.
