Apple Explores Health Features for AirPods to Help Take Temperature and Monitor Posture: by Sources

The new Apple AirPods features “are not expected next year and may never be rolled out to consumers or the timing could change.”

Apple is reportedly exploring new health-focused features for its AirPods. Features may include wearing headphones to measure users’ temperature, monitor posture, and improve hearing.

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, it is unclear whether this latter feature differs significantly from AirPods’ existing “Conversation Boost” feature.

These features are reported as “not expected next year and may never be rolled out to consumers or the timing could change.”

In other words, it appears that the iPhone maker is only exploring these new health features, rather than actively working to integrate them with products coming out in the next year or two.

Adding these sensors would make sense for Apple. The company has increasingly marketed its products based on the strength of its health and fitness apps, although so far, most of this attention has focused on the Apple Watch.

Reports last month suggested the company was considering adding various sensors to the wearable device, including monitoring blood pressure, temperature, quality of sleep, blood oxygen, and blood sugar.

However, integrating health features into commercial products is a complicated job, mainly due to the difficulty of meeting the high standards of medical regulation. This inevitably leads to delays.

It was reported in June, for example, that the next Apple Watch would add temperature monitoring, but this feature never appeared on the Apple Watch on September 7.

However, taking someone’s ear temperature is common and there are many posture devices on the market that use digital sensors to alert users when they are hunched over.

Apple has already shown that it is interested in using AirPods as a hearing aid of some kind, although the earbuds are not approved for this purpose by the FDA.

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