Future AirPods, cameras, proximity and gesture detection

It could be a complicated saucepan instead of AirPods, but this detail from the patent shows it’s got cameras — image credit: Apple

Newly-revealed Apple research details just how AirPods could have cameras added to them — and exactly what benefits that would bring.

Back in June 2024, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claimed that infra-red cameras would come to AirPods, specifically to help enhance Spatial Audio in the Apple Vision Pro. He then doubled down on this a year later, saying that camera-equipped AirPods will be launched in 2026.

Now a newly-granted patent called “Wavelength mixing for optical systems,” proves that Apple has at least been investigating the idea. As ever with a patent, it seeks to describe technology without particularly giving examples of its practical use, but for once, it gives a little list of devices such cameras could be fitted to.

“In some examples, the optical systems described herein may be included in various handheld or portable electronic devices, such as mobile devices and wearable devices,” says the patent, “(e.g., smart phones, tablet computers, electronic watches, fitness monitors, health monitors, earbuds, or any type of device that may be worn by a user (e.g., a cuff, bracelet, or earpiece).”

The patent is also concerned specifically with “smaller, more compact electronic devices,” which therefore limit the size and positioning of components. Those components are summarized as optical systems, or cameras.

Apple says that the optical systems would include detectors, or lenses, but also “multiple light sources, each of which is intended to illuminate a common target.” So these sources would emit light, and the camera can see the result.

Detail from the patent showing proximity detection using cameras — image credit: Apple

It would be so that the optical system can recognize proximity to an object — and “determine a type of matter” that is being observed. So the camera would equally easily spot when you’re next to a wall, or when you wave your hand in a gesture.

And use it could “determine whether the earbud is positioned in a user’s ear or lying on a table.”)

The majority of the patent concerns housing of the components, which are then illustrated in several ways beyond their use in AirPods-style earbuds.

This patent is credited to four inventors, each of whom has previously been listed on Apple patents for similar technologies to do with AirPods. They are not the only inventors working on optical uses for AirPods, though, as in June 2025 it was revealed that Apple has researched using lasers to read a wearer’s lips.

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