The AirPods Pro 3 are packed with features. For starters, you’ll get all the features from the previous-generation model. That includes Automatic Switching (which is awesome for those with multiple Apple products), Spatial Audio, head gestures, and more.
There are also improved hearing health features. Hearing health features have been huge for the AirPods, which can now actually bridge the gap for those who aren’t ready to use hearing aids full time, but still suffer from hearing loss. Hearing Test, Hearing Assistance, and Hearing Protection are all here, allowing you to test the state of your hearing in a few minutes. You’ll get a breakdown of the results based on frequency, and your device will then apply a profile to your system-wide Headphone Accommodations to compensate for your hearing. They’ll also let you set up a Hearing Aid feature, which is kind of like an enhanced version of Transparency Mode that boosts the frequencies you struggle to hear. Last but not least is a Hearing Protection feature, which uses noise cancellation to lower the volume of loud sounds -– a feature that’s even better given the improved ANC on offer by the earbuds.
Before diving into other new features, it’s worth quickly mentioning the battery. The battery is improved from the previous-generation AirPods Pro 2. You now get eight hours of continuous listening with ANC on, and a total of 24 hours of listening time including the charging case. That’s pretty good. Eight hours of continuous listening is on the higher end of earbud battery life, and while 24 hours with the charging case is close to the middle of the pack, it’s certainly not bad -– and if the trade-off is the case’s portability, I’m fine making that trade. I generally keep my AirPods Pro on a wireless charging pad on my desk when I’m not using them, so I never have an issue with battery life.
Live Translation
Of course, there are also tons of new features. For starters, there’s a new Live Translation mode, which is in beta, but allows users to hear real-time translations of speech in different languages during a conversation. At launch, the feature supports English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish, but more languages are set to roll out by the end of the year.
The feature worked quite well. It accurately translated speech from French into English, and it used ANC to effectively block out the real voice of the person speaking, helping eliminate distractions. It wasn’t as quick as you might assume, but it was still reasonably fast, and works the same whether you’re connected to the internet or not — it’s completely offline.
The feature is actually designed to have a bit of a delay. Why? Well, instead of literally translating each word one at a time, which would yield results that don’t really make sense, it waits for complete sentences before translating, so it can accurately translate the meaning of the sentence itself. While there is a delay, it’s a shorter delay than it could have been -– the system works entirely offline, translating on your connected iPhone rather than in the cloud. That’s great for privacy (though I wouldn’t personally have a problem with cloud-based translations), but more importantly, it eliminates lag and means that you can use it when you’re in another country and might not have cellular or Wi-Fi connectivity.
There’s only one change on my wish list for this feature: the ability to give someone else one of my AirPods and initiate a two-way translation. You can use Live Translation with your iPhone to translate what you say into another language, and that works great for short conversations, like ordering food. But what if you’re in a business meeting or catching up with a friend? Sure, sharing earbuds isn’t the most hygienic, but it could be useful.
That’s a minor issue though, and one that I only really care about in concept (since I was just reading about the new Timekettle W4 earbuds, which offer an earbud-splitting feature). I actually probably wouldn’t use it, since I don’t like the idea of sharing my earbuds with someone else. Sorry, friends. Buy your own AirPods. The good news is that Live Translation isn’t actually an AirPods Pro 3-exclusive feature -– it’s also available on AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 2.
Health-tracking
The other big new feature is heart rate monitoring, which puts the AirPods Pro 3 in fitness-tracker territory. There are heart rate monitors in each AirPod, meaning you can track heart rate without needing an Apple Watch. Note, you will need to have your iPhone nearby for heart rate monitoring, but that’s unsurprising -– and if you were running with an Apple Watch, you’d have a heart rate monitor on your wrist anyway.
The addition makes sense. Given how well the AirPods Pro 3 fit in the ear, they make excellent earbuds for running and working out. Why not make them even better for that purpose?
According to Apple, the heart rate monitor in the AirPods Pro 3 is a new custom sensor that pulses infrared light at 256 times per second to read heart rate. It couples with accelerometers and gyroscopes already built into the earbuds, and the end result is an incredibly accurate heart rate reading. It’s worth noting that I didn’t have medical equipment to test against, but DC Rainmaker, a well-known health-tracker blog, tested the AirPods Pro 3 against a range of other fitness trackers and found the heart rate monitor to be incredibly accurate -– much more accurate than the heart rate monitor found in the Powerbeats Pro 2.
If you do have an Apple Watch, Apple will use the data from both of them to get the most accurate reading, combining the data to fill in gaps from the other. AirPods can be used to track over 50 different workout types, which can be initiated in the Fitness app on an iPhone. Again, it doesn’t just use the heart rate monitor -– it also leverages the accelerometer and gyroscope in your AirPods to better track some information, combining it with other data from your iPhone, like location, to track distance.
There are still some things you might want an Apple Watch for. The Apple Watch has more sensors for things like blood oxygen, ECG, and more. Also, you can’t track steps with just your AirPods -– you’ll still need an Apple Watch for that.
The AirPods Pro 3 can also work with Apple’s Workout Buddy feature. This feature is powered by Apple Intelligence and designed to analyze your data as you work out while providing personalized motivation, spoken through your AirPods. The feature isn’t exclusive to AirPods –- it works with the iPhone and Apple Watch too — but it’s nice to have access to. You can opt to use Workout Buddy or not, so if you’re listening to music and don’t want to be interrupted, it can be disabled.