Apple's Camera-Equipped AirPods: All the New Rumors
Apple is working on AirPods that have cameras for feeding data to
Siri. The new earbuds will be Apple's first AI wearable, and they're expected to
launch sometime in 2027.
Leaked Video
Apple accidentally
left a demo video featuring its rumored camera-equipped AirPods in
macOS Tahoe 26.7 in mid-August. In the demo, a man holds up a book so the cameras in the AirPods can see the title. "With
Visual Intelligence, your world becomes savable. See something you like? Just ask me to save it for later," says the voiceover.
The cameras on the AirPods will feed information to Visual Intelligence, and Siri will be able to answer questions about the wearer's surroundings and log information. There is a direct reference to setting up Visual Intelligence on the AirPods.
If hair is covering the AirPods up, you'll receive an alert. "To get the most accurate information about things in your environment, make sure AirPods are not covered," it says.
Two Versions
Rumors about camera-equipped AirPods have been a little confusing. Most of the rumors about the AirPods with cameras were about a
product with the codename B798. In June, Gurman said the camera AirPods
had been delayed because of issues with Siri AI, and would not launch until September 2027 alongside the 20th anniversary iPhone.
In early August, Gurman revised his launch timing and said Apple was close to debuting camera AirPods with the codename B790. The B790 AirPods had apparently been progressing alongside the B798 model, and Gurman said the company "famously creates competing versions of the same product internally," with B790 closer to launch than B798. Then in mid-August, multiple references to the B790 version were spotted in macOS Tahoe 26.7. After B790 was discovered, Gurman claimed the AirPods were no longer on Apple's release schedule, and Apple has no plans to release camera-equipped AirPods before 2027.
Gurman said B790 is a version of the
AirPods Pro 3 with cameras, while B798 is a future AirPods Pro model with cameras.
Design
The AirPods will look similar to the current AirPods Pro 3, but with cameras embedded in the stem. Apple may include a light that will come on when visual data from the AirPods is being sent to the cloud. The LED will let people around the wearer know the cameras are in use.
Size, design, and fit are expected to remain largely the same for the earbuds and the charging case, with the exception of the changes to the stem.
Features
The cameras in the AirPods will be used for sending data about the wearer's surroundings to Siri, giving Siri more information about where the user is and what's nearby.
Siri will be able to answer questions about objects or whatever the wearer happens to be looking at. The camera-equipped AirPods could be useful for more exact turn-by-turn directions when walking, contextual reminders, 3D mapping, and more.
The iPhone already has Visual Intelligence, which uses AI to identify plants, animals, landmarks, art, books, and more. Camera-equipped AirPods will be able to supply data for Visual Intelligence without the need to use the Camera app.
H3 Chip
Apple is working on an upgraded H3 chip and it could make its first appearance in the camera-equipped AirPods. The H3 chip is expected to bring latency improvements and better audio quality.
Technical Details
Code in macOS Tahoe 26.7 shows how the
cameras in the AirPods will work. Of note, there's no mention of an infrared sensor, despite rumors
suggesting there would be one.
- Two cameras - There are individual camera sensors in both the left and right earbuds.
- Paired color images - The cameras take synchronized RGB still images of up to 1 megapixel, each with the same frame ID. The cameras give Visual Intelligence a look at the same scene from two angles.
- No video - The cameras can take a series of pictures for Visual Intelligence, but there is no video recording option.
- Resolution - There's an "active" mode that's likely triggered when the wearer activates Siri where the AirPods capture a 640x640 image. In a separate passive mode, they capture a 320x320 image. The sensors are capable of higher-quality images, but Apple appears to be capturing a specific image size.
- Passive image capture - Passive capture mode appears to be for background environmental awareness, triggered by nearby speech, audio changes, posture changes, head rotation, and more.
- Head movement - The cameras in the AirPods have distortion correction to account for head movement, and can reject images that have excessive movement.
- On-device processing - Some content is processed directly on the AirPods, such as person detection.
- Indicator lights - Code suggests the AirPods have a hardware indicator light to let people know when still images are being captured.
Naming
There were rumors suggesting the new AirPods could be called the "AirPods Ultra" instead of the AirPods Pro, but the macOS Tahoe 26.7 file we found that references the new AirPods is labeled "AirPods Pro" and not AirPods Ultra. It's possible that's a placeholder name, so AirPods Ultra isn't entirely out of the question. Apple may have also planned to use AirPods Pro for a version of the camera-equipped AirPods that won't ultimately make it to release.
Bloomberg's
Mark Gurman said in March that Apple was considering several devices with the Ultra name, including the foldable
iPhone Ultra, AirPods Ultra, and an
OLED MacBook Ultra, but that may or may not be a term we see for the new AirPods.
Pricing
Pricing is unconfirmed, but the current AirPods Pro 3 sell for $249. Camera hardware could make the new version more expensive.
Compatibility
Since the AirPods will feed data to Siri, an iPhone that supports
Apple Intelligence will be required to use the features. Apple Intelligence is available on the iPhone 15 Pro and later.
Release Date
Despite showing up in macOS Tahoe 26.7, the camera-equipped AirPods aren't going to come out until 2027. They'll likely launch alongside the 20th-anniversary iPhone in September.
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