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Airpods, new medical assistant with respiratory rate measurement?

After smartwatches, headphones are in the running to help us keep tabs on our health.

A team at Apple's Machine Learning Research Center recently discovered that headphones can be used to estimate an individual's respiratory rate.

Long-term respiratory measurement

Concretely, the headphones can hear inhales and exhales during physical exertion thanks to on-board microphones. This capture offers a low cost and non-invasive method to, for example, follow the progression of diseases, and cardio-respiratory health in the long term.

AirPods, new medical assistant

The document does not cite AirPods, but one suspects that if this research materializes, it will materialize first on Apple gadgets. Especially since rumors have already indicated that the company is working on integrating a heart monitor into its wireless headphones.