Apple’s Powerbeats Pro 2 Have a Built-In Heart Rate Monitor

Wireless earbuds are great, but they can be pretty same-y from one brand to the next. Most adopt the classic AirPods design language—small buds, usually with some sort of stem, all of which travel in a charging case. Each has its own list of pros and cons, of course, but the product category has certainly homogenized.

The newly announced Powerbeats Pro 2 seem a bit different, though. Of course, these new buds do all the things you’d expect from a pair of $250 headphones: They have active noise cancelling and transparency mode—the latter of which pumps in sounds from the world around you so you can hear what’s going on with your earbuds in. They’re IPX4 sweat- and water-resistant, and have a respectable 45-hour battery life when you consider the extra boost from the charging case.

But they look different than other earbuds, thanks to the buds’ “earhooks.” (I’d argue the Electric Orange color also helps in this department.) If you find that traditional wireless earbuds tend to fall out of your ears, the hooks in the Powerbeats Pro 2 (carried over from the original Powerbeats Pro) might offer some extra support. But, then again, if you’re used to the feeling of traditional earbuds, the extra pressure from the earhook could be different. I’d recommend trying both types of earbuds on if you’re unsure. But, either way, the visual differences definitely make the Powerbeats Pro 2 stand out.

Powerbeats Pro 2 can track your heart rate

What caught my attention, however, was the built-in heart rate monitor. These sensors sit on the side of each earbud and track your heart rate through your ear. It’s like having a little Apple Watch in each of your ears—which is a little weird, but also really cool. They’re not the first earbuds to do this: As CNET’s David Carnoy pointed out, Sennheiser’s Momentum Sport Earbuds came with similar sensors. Those heart rate monitors were fairly accurate in Carnoy’s experience, as are the ones on the Powerbeats Pro 2.

Beats says that the heart rate monitors in its new buds work across a number of platforms, including Apple, Android, and other Bluetooth-enabled fitness equipment. However, it’s worth noting that if you use the Powerbeats Pro 2 with an Apple Watch, the Health app on your iPhone will pull from the watch rather than your earbuds. You’ll have to take off your Apple Watch or disable the heart tracker on the watch if you want to rely on the heart rate monitors on your Powerbeats.

If you don’t like the earhooks on the Powerbeats Pro 2, or you’re just a dedicated AirPods fan, don’t worry: This tech is coming to Apple’s flagship earbuds as well—just not immediately. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, these new AirPods are “still many months away,” so the Powerbeats Pro 2 will remain the only Apple-produced earbud with heart rate tracking for a bit longer.

Other Powerbeats Pro 2 perks

While Powerbeats work with many platforms, they’re definitely designed for Apple’s own ecosystem. If you have other Apple devices, your Powerbeats will switch between each device as you play an audio source, just like other Apple earbuds. There’s also Personalized Spatial Audio, audio sharing (RIP headphone splitters), and hands-free Siri, if you like to ping the assistant while wearing your earbuds.

The buds also have physical playback controls through the “b” button on each bud, as well as volume rockers on both. As someone who still uses a first-gen pair of AirPods Pro, physical controls embedded onto the buds is very tempting.

In Carnoy’s review for CNET, he found the Powerbeats Pro 2 to be quite similar to the AirPods Pro 2 in audio quality and noise cancellation performance, although he thought the AirPods had a more consistent performance overall. The Powerbeats Pro 2 are missing some AirPods Pro 2 features, such as Adaptive Audio, which automatically blocks out noises over a certain decibel, or Conversation Awareness, which lowers the volume when it detects you’re talking to someone.