Strava Adds AirPods Pro 3 Support for Live Heart Rate on iPhone

https://apple.gadgethacks.com/news/strava-adds-airpods-pro-3-support-for-live-heart-rate-on-iphone/

Publish Date: 2026-05-13 17:48:00

Strava updated its iPhone app today to enable AirPods Pro 3 support, streaming live heart rate data from the earbuds directly into recorded workouts. The update requires iOS 18 and AirPods Pro 3, works with or without an Apple Watch, and is rolling out now, 9to5Mac reported today.

AirPods Pro 3 are the first AirPods with built-in heart rate sensing, 9to5Mac noted. That was a hardware capability without much platform support until now. “When you wear AirPods Pro 3 during a workout, Strava can stream your heart rate live to Mobile Record straight from your ears,” the company says. For iPhone users who train with AirPods Pro 3 but don’t own a Watch, the sensor they’ve been carrying for months just became functional inside a platform they were already using.

Who benefits, and how much depends on your setup

The clearest beneficiary is the iPhone user who works out with AirPods Pro 3 but skips the Apple Watch. Getting heart rate data inside Apple’s ecosystem previously required a Watch. AirPods Pro 3 remove that barrier for the duration of a recorded workout, and Strava now converts that sensor into a logged metric. Heart rate flows live to the recording screen and saves to the Health app when the session ends, AppleMagazine reported two weeks ago. The earbuds already go to the gym, the track, and the bike with many users, AppleMagazine noted. The relevant comparison for that user isn’t AirPods Pro 3 versus Apple Watch. It’s heart rate data versus none at all.

Apple Watch owners get something more incremental but genuine. Wearing both devices gives the system three heart rate streams left AirPod, right AirPod, and wrist and Apple’s software continuously evaluates signal quality from each, selecting whichever source has been most accurate over the preceding five minutes, Wareable reported last September. The system switches between ear and wrist mid-workout without any input from the user. That matters most during exercises like bench presses or kettlebell swings, where…

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