Future EarPods May Have Noise Canceling Features

Your next set of Apple EarPods may be a bit different. A recently published patent filing shows that Apple is working on some interesting new features for their earbuds, including bone conduction. The headset may also have noise canceling features, but lacks something many have been wanting to see.

Apple is proposing using accelerometers to detect vocal chord reverberations through the head. When you speak, sensors in your EarPods would detect as much, and actively move to block noise around you. Essentially, noise canceling via voice detection.

The accelerometers would detect noise or vibration at certain frequencies, so particularly low or high voiced individuals may be out of luck, here. The EarPods may also have front and rear-facing microphones to serve the noise canceling purpose. Additional microphones along the wires would create an array of noise cancellation, effectively capturing you and your voice in a bubble.

This means that future EarPods will likely continue to be wired, where some were hoping for Bluetooth. We also don't learn from this if there will be a new design or not, as the very generic patent only details the tech involved.

Since 2012, Apple's EarPods have gone largely unchanged, so something like this would be a welcome sight. Could we see these with next year's iPhone? Time will tell.

Via: Apple Insider