AirPods can learn to measure heart rate - Apple research
The Apple Research team conducted a study that showed that artificial intelligence is able to accurately determine the pulse by heart sounds, even if the models were not specifically designed for this purpose. This opens up the prospect that AirPods will someday be able to monitor health.
Here's What We Know
Scientists have tested several popular AI models trained on audio and found that they can determine heart rate from recordings of heart sounds (phonocardiograms) with high accuracy. Apple's own CLAP model, trained on millions of audio samples, showed the best results.
More than 20 hours of real heart recordings from the hospital were used for training. They were divided into short fragments so that AI could learn to determine the heart rate in beats per minute. Interestingly, larger and more complex models did not always perform better. The best results were obtained from the middle parts of the models, which better "understand" heart sounds.
The combination of classical sound processing methods and AI gives the most accurate results. Apple plans to improve the models, make them lighter, and explore other body sounds.
Although this is still research with no guarantees of product release, the potential is obvious. AirPods can already "hear" your heartbeat thanks to the built-in microphones, so in the future, they may become a personal AI health monitor.
Recently, Ming-Chi Kuo, a reputable Chinese insider and analyst, reported that Apple will not release the AirPods Pro 3 wireless headphones until 2026, and the AirPods Max headset will only be available in 2027.
Source: Apple
