Apple Patent Details Potential AirPods With Fitness Tracking Abilities

Apple’s wireless AirPods are typically used for music playback, but according to a new Apple patent, they could possibly be used for a lot more down the road. A new Apple patent details a potential AirPods model that features fitness tracking abilities, according to Patently Apple.

As the patent details, the possible AirPods could do much more than track your heart rate. The AirPods could also include hardware that could detect your body temperature, along with galvanic skin response, electrocardiogram and impedance cardiography sensors. An EKG is typically used to track the electric activity in your heart, while an impedance sensor is used to analyze additional data about your heart’s performance like blood flow amount.

Read: AirPods Will Surpass Apple Watch In Profitability In Next 10 Years, Analyst Says

While patents are rarely a confirmed indicator of a company’s future plans, the patent filing does fit with Apple’s current turn towards the fitness and wearables markets. Higher-end biometric sensors have been a central feature on products like the Apple Watch, allowing users to track additional information about their bodies beyond basic step counting. Health tracking has been a similar focus on the iPhone, as Apple has explored ways to make personal health data more accessible on their smartphones.

With their wireless specifications, AirPods have already been a boutique item within the Apple product family. But with higher-end health and fitness tracking abilities, the earphones could potentially get another selling point that could appeal to sports and fitness-conscious users. If your AirPods could also track your body performance, it’d potentially remove the need for another tracking device or provide more detailed information.

Read: Don't Rely On Your Fitbit Or Apple Watch To Tell You How Many Calories You Burn. It's Probably Wrong

The rumored AirPods wouldn’t be the first headphones on the market to provide biometric scanning, but on Apple’s end, adding smarter health tracking features is yet another way the company wants to expand its hardware and software ecosystem into users’ daily routines.

For Apple, the fitness accessory market has been a steady, if modest, performer for its bottom line. But among other companies, the trend for product releases amid some early signs of market stagnation has been to consolidate features and move beyond single-use devices like step trackers. In particular, Fitbit has been working on its own Apple Watch-like smartwatch that will combine biometric tracking with other features tailored for non-fitness users.

Outside of health and biometric scanning, the patent also includes a smaller potential tidbit for future AirPods models. According to the filing, Apple is exploring a design with “ a symmetric geometry that allows the earbud to be worn and operated interchangeably in either ear of a user.”

This could mean that that individual AirPods units could be placed into either ear without having to worry about if you’ve misused the left or right unit. It’s a tiny potential update, but could be useful for AirPods users who’ve frequently mixed up their earbuds.