Your new personal health assistant: Apple AirPods
The latest reports show that Apple is investing more in health as AirPods may come with hearing-based health features by 2025.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has shared interesting information on the upcoming AirPods features. He believes Apple will "upgrade AirPods to become a health tool in the next year or two. The company is looking to add "the ability to get hearing data of some sort." The feature will be added to the upcoming devices by 2025, but nothing is official yet.
AirPods already comes with a bunch of health features, like Live Listen and Conversation Boost. Both features are hearing-focused, but Gurman noted that none of them are approved by FDA nor designed to serve as a hearing aid replacement. More health features will benefit the customer and is expected to help the sales as it has the potential of becoming an important helper. Gurman also added that he anticipates these uses for AirPods to become "more officially" available in the near future.
Before Gurman, another Apple insider, Ming-Chi Kuo reported the intention to add biometric health monitoring to the upcoming AirPods models. Back in 2016, MacRumors shared Apple's patent filings that hint at next-generation AirPods with biometric sensors. "The patent describes an earbud-based fitness monitoring system which integrates an advanced biometric sensor that can detect physiological metrics including temperature, heart rate, perspiration levels and more, through skin contact and via built-in motion sensors," says the report.
AirPods' current hearing assistants are working "OK," but with additional features, the product has great potential to help detect different health issues. Currently, Apple products can detect some health issues as well as helping users with fitness trackers and such.
Recently, Apple started a worldwide campaign where Apple Watch is used for different studies by researchers and professors. Moreover, it was revealed that the company has plans to integrate a new no-prick glucose monitoring technology into its smartwatches. Almost all Apple products have health features, and the company is looking to add more in the upcoming years.
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