GoKawiilI wore the AirPods Pro 3 for months before I remembered they could even track my heart rate.
I remember sitting in Apple's September keynote, when the company announced heart-rate tracking through your ears. Measuring the rate of your heartbeats from a pair of earbuds sounded futuristic, and the announcement drew one of the loudest rounds of applause of the keynote.
Then I got home and went right back to recording every workout with my Apple Watch.
There wasn't much reason to change. The Apple Watch Series 11 beat out every smartwatch I tested in our CNET Labs heart-rate comparisons against a Polar chest strap (designed explicitly to track heart rate), so I wasn't expecting a pair of earbuds to come anywhere close.
Spoiler: They did.
The Apple Watch Series 11 still takes the crown for heart rate accuracy, but if I'd included the AirPods Pro 3 in my previous comparisons, they would've beaten out every other smartwatch on my list.
The Apple Watch is our top-rated smartwatch for heart-rate tracking. raditya/Getty Images
Health tracking moves beyond the wrist
Consumer health tracking started on the wrist, but it isn't staying there. Fitness trackers and smartwatches have made 24/7 heart-rate monitoring mainstream to aid in training and recovery. They've since evolved to almost clinical level of precision to help flag serious heart conditions, sleep issues and even alert emergency services with features like loss of pulse detection (on the Pixel Watch).
Now we're seeing similar sensors in smartrings, earbuds, smart earrings and soon even smart glasses that can do the same from different parts of your body.
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