AirPods Pro 3 beat every smartwatch except Apple Watch at heart-rate tracking

If you've been putting off buying an Apple Watch just to track your heart rate during runs, the AirPods Pro 3 may make that decision easier. Independent testing by CNET found that the £249 earbuds ranked second overall for heart-rate accuracy — behind only the £400+ Apple Watch Series 11, and ahead of every competing smartwatch in the test. For workout tracking, the gap between a pair of earbuds and a premium fitness watch has effectively closed.

The results

CNET editor Vanessa Orellana ran four laps of a university track — roughly one mile — at varying intensities, with a Polar H10 chest strap serving as the reference standard. The Polar H10 is widely used in sports science as a benchmark for consumer heart-rate monitoring.

Apple Watch Series 11 came first with a 0.63% average error (0.89 BPM deviation). AirPods Pro 3 placed second at 1.23% error (2.02 BPM deviation). Every other device trailed significantly: Garmin Venu 4 (3.89%), Google Pixel Watch 4 (5.6%), Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 (6.6%), and Amazfit Bip 6 (7%).

Those results aren't an outlier. A peer-reviewed study published in PLOS Digital Health by University College Dublin researchers recorded the same 2.02% mean absolute error across 16,735 paired readings from 40 adults on a treadmill — a much larger sample than the CNET field test.

Why the ear wins

The ear canal turns out to be a better location for optical heart-rate sensors (called PPG, or photoplethysmography) than the wrist. Blood vessels sit closer to the skin surface, and there's far less movement interference during exercise. The AirPods Pro 3 sensor fires infrared light 256 times per second, and Apple trained its processing algorithm on 50 million hours of Apple Health Study data, per The Next Web.

What it won't do

The heart-rate sensor in AirPods Pro 3 is not FDA-cleared for clinical use. It measures workout heart rate only — no ECG, no atrial fibrillation detection, no blood oxygen, no skin temperature. Those features remain exclusive to Apple Watch.

The bottom line

At £249 (available at Apple, John Lewis, Currys, and Amazon UK), the AirPods Pro 3 delivers near-Apple-Watch accuracy for heart-rate tracking at a £150+ saving over the Series 11. If you already own or plan to buy both devices, Apple Health automatically selects whichever source has the higher-confidence signal in real time — so wearing both together only improves the data.