Anker has one-upped Apple by launching new Soundcore Liberty 4 earbuds with in-ear heart rate sensors – a feature that was rumored to be coming to the AirPods Pro 2 but ultimately never made the cut.
Anker's new earbuds feature a stemmed design reminiscent of Apple's AirPods, while the right-hand earbud includes a special sensor that can monitor your heart rate continuously or just when you're working out. The HR data is linked to Anker's Wellness app, which also features tracking options for guided, freestyle, and custom exercise routines.
The Liberty 4 also come with spatial audio support, active noise cancelation, a customizable equalizer, and support for AAC, LDAC, and SBC codecs, but not aptX. The earbuds also include support for multiple connection switching.
Battery life is stated at up to nine hours on a single charge, but this decreases to seven hours with noise canceling enabled, six hours in LDAC mode and no noise cancelation, and five hours with spatial audio on.
The wireless charging case has a USB-C port for wired charging, provides up to 28 hours of battery life, and it can fast charge the earbuds in 15 minutes to provide three hours of playback, or fully charge them in an hour.
Anker's Soundcore Liberty 4 earbuds cost $149.99 and come in either black or white, with the latter available from today on Soundcore.com. The black earbuds are also coming to Amazon on October 10, while the white set it due to go on sale on October 7 on Soundcore's website and October 17 on Amazon.
As for Apple, it's not clear whether heart rate tracking was a feature the company pulled from its second-generation AirPods Pro or if it's something Apple is developing for future AirPods models. Apple has been rumored to be developing health-monitoring functions for AirPods for some time, with even Apple executives hinting at the possibility.
According to documents seen by The Wall Street Journal, prototypes of AirPods with temperature sensors for monitoring a wearer's core body temperature from inside the ear are being developed by Apple, but which model they are for and when they will make an appearance, if ever, remains unknown.
