Cameras in AirPods may arrive as soon as AirPods Pro 4, according to a new report

• Cameras may arrive as early as AirPods Pro 4
• IR cameras will reportedly assist unspecified Apple Intelligence features
• Inclusion in AirPods 5 and AirPods Max seems unlikely, to us

We've been hearing tales of AI camera-equipped AirPods for many months now, and the predicted launch date has been swinging forward and back for a while: it's 2027! It's 2026! It's 2027 again! But a new report suggests that there's a more solid timeline now, and that the cameras might arrive in the AirPods Pro 4 and perhaps the AirPods 5 too.

That "might" is doing a lot of heavy lifting, however. It comes in a report by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman who says that now the AirPods Pro 3 are done and dusted, Apple is working on the next generation and the H3 chip to power them and add new AI features. And as part of that, Apple has been "exploring the idea of embedding cameras in the device."

So are we getting camera-equipped AirPods next year?

The short answer is "maybe".

The first camera-equipped AirPods were reported back in 2024 by respected analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who said that embedded infra-red cameras would help deliver more precise spatial audio in the Vision Pro. And the story was apparently confirmed by an Apple patent filing unearthed the following summer (although Apple files many patents, only some of which make it into production hardware).

Kuo returned to the topic last year, saying that the cameras would be able to see gestures that could then be used to control app or system features. It's also been suggested that the cameras will work with unspecified Apple Intelligence features, most recently by Mark Gurman: he said that the camera exploration was part of the "bigger deal" of "turning them into AI devices."

If the cameras are indeed coming to AirPods' next generation, it seems very unlikely to me that Apple will put them in the AirPods 5: those are the less premium versions, and Apple likes to differentiate the Pros from the more affordable models. Gurman says that it's unlikely Apple will bring heart rate sensing to that product line, and that makes cameras seem even less likely.

I don't see embedded cameras coming to AirPods Max either, because those headphones are in the limbo between "too popular to discontinue" and "not popular enough to justify big investments".

So we're left with AirPods Pro 4 as your ear-powered AI pals. And that means even 2027 seems awfully optimistic. The first generation was from 2019 to 2022, and the AirPods Pro 2 ran from 2022 to 2025. If Apple sticks to that timescale then we shouldn't expect to see the replacement for the 2025 AirPods Pro 3 until 2028. If cameras are indeed coming to AirPods, they'll take a while yet.

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