Review of the Apple AirPods Pro 3 with Heart Rate for Exercise and Sports

It’s rarely a dazzling feature that blows the rest of the world away when Apple surprises me. Rather, it usually involves them doing something that deviates slightly from their norms or their typical swim lane. For instance, several years ago, running efficiency metrics were added. This year, the AirPods Pro 3 team surprised everyone by achieving incredibly high heart rate accuracy. To put it bluntly, this is a remarkable improvement over the PowerBeats 2 Pro’s poor accuracy earlier this year. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

There are a ton of new features in the AirPods Pro 3 that improve sound quality and reduce noise, among other things. The sports and fitness features they have added, however, are more significant to this website. Along with a new feature in the Apple Fitness app that allows you to record your workout (including GPS data from your phone) and utilize Apple’s new Workout Buddy feature, this also includes adding heart rate sensing to the tiny little buds so that you can measure your heart rate.

However, a lot has changed here, and some features have even been eliminated, even though they still had the PowerBeats 2 Pro foundation to work with. The decision may be more complicated than you initially believe. Now, let’s examine every detail.

Although I have already ordered my own pair of AirPods Pro 3, please take note that Apple has provided a loaner set. Heck, I only want them for the much better noise cancellation, regardless of any fitness benefits. For someone who travels by air frequently, that in and of itself makes it worthwhile. Anyway, they will return to Apple after I finish these.

After a brief review of the latest developments, let’s open the box.

What’s New.

AirPods Pro 2 are on the left, and AirPods Pro 3 are on the right.

In terms of appearance, the AirPods Pro 2 and Pro 3 are nearly identical, as can be seen above. “Nearly” is the crucial word. This is a brief summary of the distinctions between the AirPods Pro 2 and Pro 3 models.

In-ear heart rate monitoring was added.

– The noise cancellation of the AirPods Pro 3 is twice that of the Pro 2 (and four times that of the Pro 1).

According to Apple, they improved the transparency mode and adaptive EQ by altering internal airflow components.

The overall design was altered to make it smaller and better fit.

The eartip design was altered to be “foam-infused,” which essentially improves fit and retention.

The fifth included eartip size (XXS, which also includes XS, S, M, and L sizes) has been added.

The U1 chip was replaced with Apple’s U2 (Ultra Wideband) chip to improve FindMy support.

The IP54 to IP57 water resistance specification was raised.

– Extended battery life from 6 to 8 hours in ANC mode.

– Extended battery life from 6 to 10 hours in transparency mode.

The battery life for the hearing aid mode has been extended from six to ten hours.

Overall case charge was lowered from 30 to 24 hours.

During a workout, it now logs your steps, movements, and calories to the Apple Fitness app and your rings.

Furthermore, a few features that were revealed for the AirPods Pro 3 will also be available for the AirPods Pro 2.

Language translation in real time has been added.

– Added live HR recording with AirPods Pro 3 (and all HR sensors) to the fitness app.

The AI Workout Buddy feature with AirPods Pro 3 (and all headphones) has been added to the Fitness app.

The Fitness app has been expanded to incorporate live workout recordings (a much wider variety of workout types can be unlocked with the AirPods Pro 3).

AirPods Pro 3 and Apple Watch can fuse sensors to get heart rate data (the best 5-minute rolling average is chosen).

It can now be used as a phone camera remote.

In conclusion, I would like to highlight two significant distinctions between the PowerBeats Pro 2 and the AirPods Pro 3.

The AirPods Pro 3 lacked the PowerBeat 2 Pro’s Android configuration app.

– Unlike PowerBeat 2 Pro, standard Bluetooth HR profiles do not broadcast heart rate.

Consequently, there is no support for fitness machines or gym equipment, unlike PowerBeat 2 Pro.

After all of that, the AirPods Pro 3’s price stays at $249 USD, which is greatly appreciated in a year when prices rose everywhere due to both general inflation and tariffs.

In The Box:.

This is a brief overview of the contents of the box. First, here is a high-level overview of every piece.

After that, a close-up of the ear tips. Take note of the addition of an XXS size to the current XS, S, M, and L sizes (the Medium is already on the units).

I’m okay with the lack of a USB-C charging cable. You probably have a USB-C cable lying around if you’re a global citizen purchasing AirPods in 2025. I’m sure your friends do if not. Higher-power devices (e.g. 3. Considering all the shakiness on higher-power delivery devices, taking laptops and similar devices into consideration is still crucial. It simply doesn’t require a lot of power for this kind of thing, so any cable will work perfectly.

The fundamentals.

There are countless resources available to read about the AirPods Pro 3’s sound quality and other features, most of which are written by audiophiles. It’s not really me, and I have a feeling it’s not really you either. Additionally, most of us won’t be able to distinguish between the new model’s sound quality and the already superb sound quality of the previous generations, let alone do so halfway through an interval while breathing heavily and experiencing some crosswinds. I don’t mean to offend the Apple engineers.

Instead, while briefly reviewing the fundamentals, I want to concentrate on the unit from a fitness standpoint. Because even though I might use the AirPods a lot for sports, I actually use them *FAR* more for other dull activities like conference calls, video editing, and listening to music while flying.

Let’s start with the new fit aspects. There is no denying that they are different. When you first insert them, you’re like, “Wow, these fit completely different.”. You forget about it and it feels normal after 87 seconds.

After pairing the iPhone, you have a variety of options, but the most popular one is the top one, which allows you to switch between Transparency Mode, Adaptive Mode, and Noise Cancellation mode. You will be able to hear all of the sounds and conversations around you when you are in transparency mode. Noise Cancellation mode, on the other hand, eliminates all sound. Adaptive Mode is essentially the compromise. In order to avoid listening to other people, I use Noise Cancellation mode 99 percent of the time. That would not apply in a city or similar setting, where I do want to be conscious of my surroundings.

There are a plethora of settings after that. You can adjust settings on a little over four pages.

Naturally, these appear in your FindMy network in the event that you lose your case (not each AirPod, just the case). If you’d like, you can also turn off heart rate monitoring completely here.

I chose the default size, which fit my ears perfectly, but as previously mentioned, there is an additional eartip size. Even though the HR sensor cannot measure through the eartip, accuracy will be determined by how well the AirPods fit. The accuracy will be compromised if it is excessively loose or flops around.

It does a pretty good job of canceling out noise. Even though I haven’t had a chance to test these on an airplane yet, I tried something better: a pool party for kids. In particular, my daughters were among the more than six young girls who spent hours splashing around while yelling various incomprehensible things. It wasn’t perfect at keeping the madness at bay, but it did provide me with enough peace of mind to finish some editing.

Nevertheless, noise cancellation during wind or sports is a completely different situation, which I will discuss below.

This is a new Live Translation article. You can converse with someone and hear their words almost instantly thanks to this. Since it groups their phrases together rather than word-by-word, I say “near.”. Given that word orders vary from language to language, that makes sense. You are looking for the phrase’s intended translation, not the exact words in the exact order they were said. You can show the other person your iPhone, and it will translate what you say in real time.

Additionally, you have the option to download languages for offline translation (using your phone without connectivity).

I have not had time to thoroughly examine this article. The demos I’ve seen first-hand were all at very slow spoken speeds, and very good there. As demonstrated by Apple, that’s fantastic if you need to make a slow transaction in a store or similar establishment in a foreign country. or even a leisurely discussion for professional reasons.

On the other hand, it has a lot of trouble translating scenarios that happen more quickly. For instance, the Live Translation piece did not work well when watching French-language portions of the Tour de France and listening to the commentators. It mistranslated the meaning of other pieces and missed the great majority of what was being said. It should be noted that the translation is displayed on the phone and is audibly translated through the AirPods Pro 3.

It would be useful to have translation available and to be able to hear some of the announcements in the background, even though my French is adequate for many of the daily tasks I perform at the Tour de France.

Don’t get me wrong, I think all of the businesses in this industry are doing really amazing things. It goes without saying that you must begin somewhere. However, simply adjust your expectations appropriately.

Anyway, let’s examine the sports section now.

Heart Rate and Its Application in Sports.

The most significant development in the Apple Fitness space this September is, quite honestly, the addition of a complete app function for recording data from your AirPods—or, for that matter, any heart rate sensor. The current Fitness app has this feature under the new “Workout” tab. There are many different workout options available when you open that tab (once you’ve paired an Apple fitness device; otherwise, it’s a more basic selection for just a general HR sensor).

There are basically three options below each type of workout.

– Music.

Workout companion.

The objectives (e.g. G. Distance, Time, and Calories.

It’s not that complicated. However, it works well. After inserting your AirPods, it will take your heart rate and allow you to press the star button. After a three-second countdown, you’ll be ready to go. You will receive the Pep Talk at the beginning of the workout, updates during the workout, and the Walk Off at the conclusion of the workout if you have enabled Workout Buddy. It is necessary to have your phone with you and to have internet access of some kind, whether it be WiFi or cellular. The Workout Buddy, which I described and tested on the Apple Watch, is identical to this.

But first, it’s important to note *how* it records heart rate data. Two infrared sensors that pulse light 250 times per second are located beneath a small black area on the pods’ sides. That’s a significant contrast to the PowerBeats 2 Pro’s more conventional green LEDs, which weren’t very effective.

These infrared sensors measure the movements of the blood in your ears by examining the blood flow there. After that, this data is fed into a variety of algorithms that try to determine your heart rate in contrast to your thunking footsteps, which is usually what causes HR sensors to malfunction. For the majority of businesses, the algorithms are the secret ingredient. However, we’ll return to accuracy later.

In any event, you will see one page of statistics during the workout. Here is an example from three distinct workouts: an outdoor track run, an indoor bike, and an outdoor ride.

Once more, there is *ONE* page of status information, and it is not customizable. I can only see the average speed and pace for the duration of the ride, for instance, and not my current speed and pace. I can view my heart rate right now, my caloric intake, and my total distance traveled. I can make laps, too. Apart from that, that’s about it.

Keep in mind that this will show up as a live activity on the lock screen. Additionally, you can mute Workout Buddy and complete a Check-In by swiping up while in the Fitness app.

You can hit pause to stop the process when you’re finished. This will display a variety of summary statistics.

One of the options available to you is to rate your effort, which will update the data related to your training load.

If you would like, you can then view or plot this data over a longer period of time.

A quick discussion of noise cancellation during speed/wind workouts will follow. In general, I advise against riding outside with in-ear headphones (bone induction headphones would be an exception). Being unable to hear traffic passing you—or anything else, for that matter—usually poses a safety risk.

In any event, Apple claimed to have altered some parts of the headphones’ wind flow, which might or might not increase the amount of wind you can hear. As you can see, one of the difficulties with either the transparency or noise cancellation modes is that they rely on the microphones on the outside of the AirPod to transmit the audio to you. However, it must distinguish between wind and other noises before eliminating the latter.

Although there are a few enhancements over the AirPods 2 Pro, I don’t think they are significant. Even so, the audio is typically audible for all but the fastest descents, though it will still sound like a tornado in your brain.

Nevertheless, there is absolutely no awareness of cars passing you in either case. Normally, my cycling radar would warn me when I was about to pass traffic, but on this particular ride—long story, it was rare—it simply wasn’t with me. On a comparatively quiet country road, though, it was astounding how fast cars (in either transparency or noise cancellation mode) could sneak up on me. didn’t hear them. It’s great for indoor use, but it’s definitely not suitable for riding outdoors. Although there was some wind noise when the wind blew in particular directions, it was still good for running.

Alright, let us briefly discuss waterproofing. In fact, the IP54 and IP57 water proofing ratings of the AirPods Pro 3 have been raised.

While the second number in the IP number covers water resistance, the first number (‘5’) discusses dust resistance. Additionally, it was raised to “7” in this instance, meaning that it can support 30 minutes at a depth of one meter. However, technically, Apple’s website advises against submerging it.

Since Apple claimed to meet that standard, I will undoubtedly verify it. So, we’re off.

Here are a few noteworthy items. No sound or music is audible. This is due to the fact that it drops the signal as soon as it loses contact with my phone, which was actually with me in the orange openwater swim bag nearby. When it hit the water, it did this right away. The music might also be pausing because of the water. In any case, unlike other swimming-specific headphones that do have offline playback modes, this one is inoperable.

Secondly, the fit was excellent. My wife said, “You are definitely going to lose these,” but I had no chance of losing them because I haven’t had a good summer and I’ve lost things when I swim in open water. At any rate, they were trapped there, both above and slightly below the water.

I then rinsed the devices off with fresh water, as is customary when submerging them in saltwater. See, safety comes first, err, last.

After I gave them some time to dry, they were ready to use. Since then, everything has gone smoothly. This makes sense because, once more, it states explicitly that they support it on paper.

The AirPods Pro 3 headphones *NOT* emit a typical Bluetooth heart rate signal (BT HR profile signal), which is a significant discrepancy between them and the PowerBeats Pro 2 headphones. On the other hand, the PowerBeats Pro 2 do emit a standard Bluetooth HR signal that works with almost all apps and third-party devices manufactured in the past ten or so years. This is crucial for devices like the Peloton Bike, which pairs with the PowerBeats Pro 2’s heart rate but not the AirPods Pro 3. Similarly, you won’t be able to obtain the heart rate signal on other devices, such as specialized bike computers or even just an Android phone.

It appears that Apple sees the PowerBeats Pro 2 as a component of the larger Beats brand, which is intended to be a little more device-neutral (thus continuing to attract Android users). Of course, that’s okay. However, the truth is that this is also making them less appealing to real iPhone owners. The vast majority of Peloton users are iPhone users. iPhone users make up the majority of Garmin bike computer users. For over ten years, the iPhone has dominated the market for these high-end devices, ignoring their best customers in the process.

And that leaves the Android world alone. The AirPods Pro 3 won’t cause any Android user to switch phones. However, if they fit their fitness use cases, they might just go ahead and buy them. They won’t, in fact, if they require heart rate. Once more, this decision is puzzling.

Alright, let’s move on to the details of accuracy.

Heart Rate Precision.

Here, I had different phones and devices recording the data for all of the heart rate accuracy. The Apple Watch was therefore on a completely different phone or account (and thus might as well be a friend’s phone) when it was also involved. Every other watch or gadget recorded independently, while the AirPods Pro 3 recorded straight into the Apple Fitness app on an iOS26-updated iPhone.

We’ll begin by doing something that ought to be fairly simple: indoor cycling. I say “easy” because, although my heart rate will vary rather a lot, my head isn’t actually moving all that much overall. In the grand scheme of heart rate monitoring (of all sensor types), indoor cycling is very simple. It doesn’t have to distinguish between my heart rate and heavy footsteps running down a hill, and there isn’t much signal noise, etc.

And it does a great job on this. Congratulations. Nevertheless, the PowerBeats 2 Pro also did. Once more, testing this bar is the simplest option.

With a steady-state run, we will raise the bar. Simply put, this is just running outside at a steady, even pace. This is what we can see.

The fact that it is nearly identical to the other units shows how excellent that is. Although this isn’t regarded as a difficult task, the PowerBeats 2 Pro would have also failed.

After that, we’ll add an outdoor ride to make it more complicated. This is one of the areas where optical sensors, especially those that are worn on the wrist, can be particularly challenging. The vibrations of the road are often absorbed by your stiffly flexed wrists. It is therefore quite remarkable when a watch does this correctly. Since the rest of the arm serves as a shock absorber, upper arm band devices typically perform exceptionally well in this situation. As a result, your entire body functions as a shock absorber when you look at ear-area devices for optical HR sensing. Anyway, this is the data.

It’s pretty damn good all around. There are a few times (shown in purple) when an interval peaks when it struggles a little. Interestingly, this was at the steady-state part, which is a bit of a peculiar failure, whereas typically the struggling occurs on the ramp up into the interval.

We’ve finally set up an interval training session. After 4×800, 4×400, and 4×30 seconds, there was some dull warm-up and cool-down.

Oh my god, that’s amazing. Good by everyone, to be honest. Everyone was spot on, with the exception of a small and inexplicable blip from the Polar 360 band and the Whoop 5.0/MG on one of the intervals. In this situation, I fully expected the AirPods Pro 3 to perform poorly, but they excelled.

Note: I suggest checking out DesFit if you’re looking for some lifting/gym sets. Because your head isn’t moving, bouncing, or anything else much—if at all—and because lifting tends to have relatively low heart rates compared to other cardio-focused activities, it’s truly one of the easiest things you can do with something like the AirPods Pro 3. In a CrossFit-style scenario, where there are many rapid movements and intensity changes, you might see potentially more complexity. From the perspective of HR processing, however, it would resemble the intervals I previously identified.

Anyway, I am in complete awe. Like, I’m truly amazed. It’s not that Apple couldn’t do it; rather, I had kind of written off Apple’s ability to get optical HR right because the PowerBeats 2 Pro were so awful (and only released about eight months ago). Additionally, recent attempts by other businesses (e.g. G. Polar (with Sennheiser) has also been dreadfully awful. Over the years, many other businesses have tried and failed horribly.

Apple has created a fairly reliable heart rate sensor for your ears, something that very few other companies have been able to accomplish. Although it isn’t flawless, it is incredibly powerful. In addition, chest straps are rarely flawless, despite urban legends to the contrary (you’ll notice problems in the first 5–10 minutes, especially in the cool fall temperatures when there isn’t quite as much perspiration).

(Note: The DCR Analyzer tool was used to create all of the charts in these accuracy sections. Power meters, trainer apps, heart rate, cadence, speed/pace, GPS tracks, and much more can all be compared with it. More information about how to use it for your own device comparisons can be found here. ().

Conclusion.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m impressed. I’m really impressed. in part because no other business has ever been successful here, or even close. It’s also quite surprising that Apple has returned to a very strong product after being so far from success in February. It also includes every other component I use on a daily basis in my old AirPods Pro 2 units, which my wife and I purchased the last time they were released. They’re fantastic and my daily drivers.

Nevertheless, I sincerely regret Apple’s decision to remove the default Bluetooth HR sensing profile. This seems to run counter to the fact that a variety of people use the device for fitness. This even breaks the straightforward and typical use case of a Peloton bike (for HR). Five million Peloton users are also iPhone owners. Meeting these customers where they are seems like a simple way to boost sales because the majority of them aren’t switching to Fitness+ (because they would have done so by now). The same is true for other cycling and non-cycling platforms that require precise HR data but are unable to use Apple’s (slightly erratic) APIs to obtain it on the Apple platform (problems that the PowerBeats 2 Pro does not have).

In any case, if you want high-quality sound for heart-rate workouts, this seems to be the only button—not just the easiest one. There are no other heart rate-capable headphones that are nearly as accurate—or even functional, for that matter. Apparently, this checks the audio and accuracy boxes.

Thank you for reading, and bye!