AirPods Pro 3 offer live translation and heart rate monitoring

Today’s Apple event wasn’t just about iPhones and smartwatches. The company also announced the long-anticipated refresh of the AirPods Pro earbuds. The AirPods Pro 3 arrive a full three years after the company released the second-gen earbuds.

This is a serious upgrade with updated audio drivers and plenty of high-tech bells whistles, like active ANC and the ability to play spatial audio. Apple says these earbuds offer the best ANC of any in-ear headphones on the market.

There’s a heart-rate sensor built right into the earbuds, which is pretty nifty for workouts. I’m loving this effort to stuff health sensors into earbuds. The battery life here is great, offering eight hours per charge. This shoots up to 10 hours when using just the transparency algorithm.

There’s a new live language translation feature, which is something that Pixel Buds have been doing for a while. This tool will also be available for other models like the AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation and the AirPods Pro 2. The Live Translation software will be available in English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish at launch, with more languages coming by the end of the year.

As for the physical design, everything looks mostly the same, though they are a bit smaller to accommodate more ear canals. The company said it scanned more than 10,000 ears to make sure these new earbuds are “the most secure and best-fitting AirPods ever.”

Apple