# AirPods Pro 3 can run a gym workout without the watch

Source: https://idevice.com/airpods-pro-3-can-run-a-gym-workout-without-the-watch
Published: 2026-09-02

> A treadmill test on the iOS 27 beta came back with the numbers a watch would give. The earbuds have to be in, and their heart-rate permission has to be on.

GymKit is the handshake between an Apple Watch and a gym machine. You tap the watch on a treadmill, the machine gets your heart rate, and the watch gets back the things a wrist cannot know, like incline and exact belt distance. It has been a watch feature since 2017. In iOS 27 it works without the watch.

Zac Hall at 9to5Mac tested the new version on a GymKit treadmill with an iPhone and [AirPods Pro 3](https://idevice.com/earbuds/apple-airpods-pro/roadmap/airpods-pro-3). He tapped the phone to the machine, chose Indoor Walk, and started the workout from the treadmill. The earbuds sent heart rate to the machine, and the Fitness app on the phone took in distance, pace, incline and calories. His 16-minute walk came back as 0.66 miles, 65 active calories, 32 feet of elevation gain and an average of 115 beats per minute, which is the same shape of data a watch produces.

Two parts make that possible. AirPods Pro 3 are the first AirPods that read heart rate, after Apple tried the idea on the [Powerbeats Pro 2](https://idevice.com/earbuds/beats-powerbeats-pro-2/roadmap). The treadmill is the only thing in the room that knows incline and precise belt distance. Take either one away and the workout goes back to being an estimate.

The failure modes say as much as the successes. Start GymKit on the phone with no AirPods in and the phone drops the connection as the workout begins, because nothing is reading your pulse. Start it while wearing an Apple Watch and iOS points you back to the Workout app on the watch, though you can carry on without it. The AirPods heart-rate permission also has to be switched on, and Hall had turned his off to save battery before this test made him turn it back on. On iOS 27 beta 1 his Exercise ring sat still during the workout and only caught up after he put the watch back on.

None of this replaces an Apple Watch for someone who wears one every day. It is what you reach for when the watch is dead, charging or at home, and it is the first time that fallback produces real numbers instead of a guess from a phone in your pocket.

It also changes what AirPods are. Apple sold heart rate on AirPods Pro 3 as a fitness extra for people who already run. Put a machine on the other end of the tap and the earbuds become the sensor in a system whose other half you do not own, while the phone does the job the watch used to do. That is a wearable doing a wearable's work somewhere other than your wrist. One writer, one beta, one treadmill, so the numbers above are a demonstration rather than a verdict.