I built an app that finally makes AirPods Pro 3 heart rate tracking useful
You have AirPods Pro 3 and want to them to track your heart rate all the time? I made it possible! Here is my story.
It all startet with Apples September Event in 2025 where they presented the AirPods Pro 3 with their ability to track the heart rate.
Since I don‘t own an Apple Watch yet and was already considering buying new headphones this seemed to be a perfect fit.
What I didn‘t knew until I bought them was, that I have to start a workout to make them actually track my heart rate.
That means:
unlock phone → open app → start workout
And it also tracks calories, even when you’re just sitting in the office. After a few days it completely messed up my calorie tracking and honestly made the feature feel pointless for everyday use. And also the manual steps I couldn’t get rid off really annoyed me.
I thought there must be an App for that, but I couldn’t find one. So I just accepted it… until February 2026 where there still wasn‘t an App to fix this issue. I really wanted this functionality so I started experimenting with it by myself.
I‘m a Data Engineer as my main job so App building isn‘t my main discipline but I already had some previous experience with building small Flutter Apps for myself. So I used Flutter… which turns out is not the best idea when you want something like shortcuts and LiveActivity or even the AudioRoute handling. But it works, even in Flutter.
I posted the first prototype on Reddit to see if other people wanted this feature too:
https://www.reddit.com/r/airpods/s/tplWlNZxwk
Turns out a lot of people did.
So I kept improving my small prototype and turned it into a real app.
Now heart rate tracking starts automatically when you put your AirPods in. A Live Activity shows your current heart rate directly on the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island, including a graph of previous values.
You can also configure audio feedback for heart rate zones and use quick actions directly from the Live Activity without opening the app. And you can even define locations where the tracking should not start at all.
And the best thing, no calories are being tracked! So you can also track your heart rate in the office or when you are simply at your phone
The app is live now for about 1,5 months and the feedback is amazing. Here is the Link if you want to try it
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/airpulse/id6760625679
I'm happy for any kind of feedback :)