Apple’s future generation AirPods may feature Ambient light sensors


Apple could soon be expanding their health monitoring capable devices from their Apple Watch to include the Apple AirPods soon. A new report has surfaced today, claiming that Apple is working on incorporating an ambient light sensor into future designs of the AirPods, possibly for health monitoring reasons.

With an ambient light sensor, Apple could enable functions like measuring heart rate and blood oxygen saturation straight from the ear. Currently, ear-based clip-on pulse oximeters shine light on the earlobe and collect the reflected light to make observations.

The Apple AirPods could function similarly, however incorporating this sensor for accurate measurements would likely require a redesign from the current AirPods model. Apple could also incorporate this design into their more premium Powerbeats Pro earphones which has an over ear design.

These AirPods are expected to arrive in market in about 1-2 years, based on information that revealed that Taiwan’s ASE Technology may handle the backend process for the new component. There might be other sensors that could be added by Apple to the new design that can measure other statistics like temperature, perspiration levels, etc.

Source | Via