Why own a thermometer when you can buy earbuds instead? Honor, the Chinese smartphone company formerly owned by Huawei, announced its latest earbuds, the Earbuds 3 Pro, during its MWC 2022. While noise cancellation and ergonomics are worth noting, an “industry first” feature that measures your temperature is what really catches the eye.
Honor’s earbuds may be the first buds to include a thermometer, but earlier rumors suggested Apple was looking into a similar design for its AirPods. Incorporating temperature checking into earbuds isn’t totally far fetched — other wearables have had the ability to do so for a while now.
It may seem a bit unnecessary at the moment, but with the world moving towards living with COVID-19 or viruses like it, it does seem like a convenient way to stay on top of your temperature and detect early symptoms.
More standard features —
Besides the temperature-checking capabilities, the Honor Earbuds 3 Pro were built with adaptive active noise-cancelling technology that can drown out up to 46 dB. Honor programmed several modes into the earbuds, including ultra mode for maximum noise cancellation, cozy mode that filters out surrounding noises, awareness mode, and general mode.
Honor also designed the Earbuds 3 Pro to improve call audio quality with a call voice enhancement feature, ambient noise reduction, and an anti-wind noise design. Honor said the earbuds offer 24 hours of battery life and that five minutes of charge can give you two hours of music playback, according to Honor’s lab tests.
Rest of the lineup —
Honor said they’ll announce the availability of the Earbuds 3 Pro at a later date, but so far we know that the earbuds will start at €199 ($223). The Earbuds 3 Pro will come in some standard color options, including white, black and gray. During its MWC 2022 event, Honor also revealed its latest Watch GS 3, which will start at €229 ($257) and will come in black, blue and gold. Like the earbuds, Honor has not announced when the smartwatches will be available.
Of course, the headliner announcement from Honor was for its latest flagship smartphone, the Honor Magic4 series. The new smartphones are expected to hit the market in the second quarter of this year, with the base model starting at €899 ($1,009), and the pro model, which starts at €1,099 ($1,234).
