Wearing a pair of headphones isn’t a good idea when riding your bike around other trail users. However, many of us spend hours on an indoor trainer listening to music, podcasts, or that meeting that could have been an email. To that aspect, Apple just introduced some interesting tech that might appeal to the indoor training, Peloton, or spin bike crowd.
It seems that the new Apple AirPods Pro 3 feature a custom photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor. That means the new AirPods Pro 3 utilize invisible infrared light to measure your pulse and calculate the calories burned. Pretty cool.
We got excited thinking the new AirPods Pro 3 could possibly eliminate the need for a smartwatch, fitness band, or chest strap to monitor your heart rate. However, that seems to be a bit of wishful thinking. Without that connection with the phone nearby (or iPad or Apple TV), the AirPods apparently won’t be able to analyze heart rate data.
Properly secured, you would think an AirPod won’t be moving inside your ear. So our first thought was that this could also lead to more accurate HR measurement since the fit and movement of chest-mounted and wrist-mounted readers can affect their accuracy. However, the accuracy of the AirPod 3 heart rate sensor is still unknown, and early reports from other in-ear HR sensing headphones like the Powerbeats Pro 2, suggest that accuracy can be affected by the fit of the headphone in your ear as well.
Still, for those that don’t want to deal with a chest strap, and are OK with a (potentially) less accurate HRM for indoor training, these have some potential – especially if you’re going to be using headphones anyway.
What’s Apple Say?
“With AirPods Pro 3, the most popular headphones take a massive leap forward, providing fantastic sound quality and the world’s best ANC of any in-ear wireless headphones,” said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering. “Combined with an improved fit that provides greater stability for even more people, heart rate sensing, extended battery life, and Live Translation enabled by Apple Intelligence, AirPods Pro 3 take personal audio to the next level.”
How it Works
As mentioned earlier, the AirPods Pro 3 contain a custom photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor that sends out an invisible infrared light that pulses extremely fast – 256 times per second. This light is absorbed by your blood flow, which corresponds to your heart rate. Note that Apple goes out of their way to not call this a heart rate monitor, but a heart rate sensor.
That seems to correspond to the fact that the AirPods require an on-device AI model on the iPhone, which then takes that data from the AirPods to track the user’s heart rate and estimate calories burned during your workout. Then your Apple Fitness app gathers the information and integrates it there.
This would provide the Apple Fitness+ user with real-time data while working out. And if you use or pay attention to your Move ring, this data will contribute to its progress.
The Fine Print
The key here is that Apple seems to be only offering all of these features if you stay in the Apple ecosystem. That includes the requirement of using an Apple Intelligence-enabled phone with all of the latest updates and using the Apple Fitness apps. The preorder page does note that heart rate monitoring will include compatible third-party apps, but does not specify which apps and when it might be available. According to the fine print, “Heart rate sensing with AirPods Pro 3 and Powerbeats Pro 2 during workouts is available in the Fitness app on iPhone with iOS 26, iPad with iPadOS 26, and Apple TV with tvOS 26 when also paired with iPhone or Apple Watch. Apple Fitness+ requires a subscription.”
So if you’re using the Fitness app on iPhone to track your indoor cycling, or are a Fitness+ subscriber, you’ll benefit from the new heart rate sensor on the AirPods Pro 3.
For cyclists using other platforms to track their training, it’s not yet clear if you’ll actually be able to use the HR feature of the AirPods, and you may be better off sticking with a chest-strap HRM.
But… improved battery life and better noise cancellation are both good things for those long winter sessions on a trainer (not to mention IP57 dust, sweat, and water resistance).
AirPods Pro 3 Retail & Availability
Retail: Starts at $249
Apple customers in the US, and more than 50 other countries and regions, can pre-order AirPods Pro 3 as of September 9th, 2025, with availability in stores on September 19th, 2025.
For more details, features, and compatibility, hit the link below.
