Apple brings heart rate monitoring to Powerbeats Pro 2

Apple Tuesday announced the long-awaited debut of Powerbeats Pro 2 earbuds. The new headphones arrive nearly six years after the original Powerbeats hit the market. The new model maintains the familiar ear hook for workouts, while delivering upgraded sound, better battery life, and a wireless charging case.

The earbuds also mark a major next step in the company’s bid to expand its health care features, with the addition of built-in heart rate monitoring. The feature triggers during workouts, offering real-time data via LED optical sensors.

In addition to Apple’s own health app, the monitoring is compatible with a number of leading fitness apps, including Open, Peloton, Runna, Slopes, Ladder, Nike Run Club, and YaoYao. One of the most popular running apps, Strava, is conspicuously absent from the list.

The Powerbeats expand an Apple health portfolio that currently revolves around the Apple Watch. While elements like step tracking have been around since the early days, Apple has since gone all-in on health. The Watch now features ECG readings, fall detection, sleep tracking, and various other features aimed at providing a full picture of the wearer’s health.

Apple’s health suite further branched out in 2024, with the addition of a hearing aid feature for the AirPods Pro 2. The arrival of heart rate monitoring on the Beats line could herald the feature’s addition to upcoming AirPods updates — though doing so would require a major hardware refresh.

Apple-branded headphones are also more general lifestyle products, compared to the Powerbeats’ fitness focus.

The new headphones have been upgraded from Apple’s W2 to its H2 chip, which debuted on the AirPods Pro 2 in 2022. That continues to be the top-of-the-line Apple headphone chip until the company introduces AirPods Pro 3 at a future date.

Apple cites the proprietary silicon as the driving force in battery life improvements. The buds themselves sport a stated 10 hours of battery, compared to their predecessor’s nine. More impressive, however, is the case, which improves total battery life from 24 to 45 hours, a feat the company managed while reducing the footprint of the original Powerbeats Pro’s infamously massive case.

Apple is also touting improvements to sound quality, thanks to the addition of Spatial Audio with head tracking — the same noise-canceling found on the AirPods Pro 2 — and to its Adaptive EQ technology, which adjusts audio quality to match the wearer’s ear.

The familiar ear hooks now sport nickel alloy, for improved strength, while the buds’ overall weight has decreased by 20%.

Apple says it tested the Pros on 1,000 athletes in an attempt to create a more universal fit. The headphones also sport an IPX4 sweat resistance resistance rating – the same rating found on AirPods. In addition to wireless charging, the headphones swap their predecessor’s Lightning port for USB-C.

The Powerbeats Pro 2 are available online starting today, priced at $250 – same as their predecessors, back in 2019. They hit store shelves this Thursday, February 13.

Apple just missed the Super Bowl with its announcement, but that’s not stopping the company from spending a load on ads, with endorsements from star athletes, including LeBron James, Lionel Messi, and Shohei Ohtani.