New Apple AirPods Pro Can Act as Hearing Aids
The proliferation of technology is such that those with health issues are finding more and more ways to take advantage of the advancements. The Apple Watch Series 4 introduced the ability for the device to take electrocardiogram readings, for example, whilst a blood-oxygen monitor was added for the Series 6 in 2020.
Now it looks as though Apple are changing the game once again, this time thanks to developments to the AirPods Pro.
The latest release of the device gives people the ability to use them as a hearing aid, which could move to save people thousands of pounds if they can make use of the improvements.
What’s Happened
Apple’s wireless earbuds have been on the market for years now, going through numerous changes and alterations along the way. Regardless of the improvements that have been made, the aim has always been to allow people to listen to music on the go, as well as taking calls and getting Siri to do things for you.
In the latter part of 2022, the Food and Drug Administration in the United States of American said that people could begin to buy hearing aids over-the-counter, having previously limited them to being issued by physicians. Apple took that as a sign that they could begin to do something special with their AirPods.
@tomsguide AirPods Pro to become Hearing Aids pending full clearance this fall #airpods #hearingaids #airpodspro #airpodspro2 #techtok #tech #tomsguide #amazingtech #appleevent #applenews #technology #hearingprotection #hearingtest #hearingaid ♬ original sound – Tom’s Guide
The AirPods Pro 2 will give customers that suffer from mild to moderate hearing loss the ability to hear more of what is going on around them, potentially at a fraction of the cost of a general hearing aid. The AirPods Pro will have a built-in hearing test, as well as a function that the company is calling ‘Hearing Protection’.
Most importantly, the over-the-counter hearing aid feature is what people will be most interested in, with Apple saying that it ‘helps make access to hearing assistance easier than ever at an approachable price point’. Though not approved by the FDA yet, it is still a massive step forward.
A Move to Ensnare an Older Audience?
Whilst Apple have always made changes and improvements to help people get healthier where possible, with the aforementioned ECG and blood-oxygen alterations to the Apple Watch being added alongside the likes of Accessibility options on the iPhone, this is a different mode altogether.
The more cynical out there might find themselves wondering whether it is just an attempt to get an older audience spending their money on Apple products. There is little question that Apple’s wares have tended to be taken up by younger people on the whole, so does this start to change that and allow them to buy into the purple-rinse pound?
Apple just announced AirPod features to turn them into hearing aids. Having experienced a harder time talking to my grandparents in their later years due solely to hearing loss, this is such a brilliant idea it’s crazy.
— Aaron Levie 🇺🇸 (@levie) September 9, 2024
The fact that AirPods Pro look a lot cooler than a hearing aid will also make them more appealing to people that are older but don’t see themselves as old. Tim Cook and his team have done what they can to encourage people to use the Apple devices when they want to improve their ability to hear things that might not otherwise have been able to hear.
There are more than a billion people that have mild to moderate hearing loss, with the majority of them being what you would call ‘older’. They are being aided in their move into the older market by the FDA, which still requires people under the age of 18 to get a standard hearing aid.
They Were Already Doing It…Sort Of
The interesting thing about Apple’s decision to make a song and dance about the new hearing aid aspect to the AirPods Pro 2 is that they were basically already doing something similar. In the December of 2022, iScience published a study looking at the fact that the AirPods Pro met four of the five electroacoustic standards that the ANSI/CTA-2051 have in place for personal sound amplification products.
PSAPs, as they are sometimes referred to, are designed for people with normal hearing, but they can make a difference for those that suffer from the mild to moderate hearing loss that Apple are now aiming the product at.
Although it was in a laboratory setting, the International Journal of Audiology found that speech intelligibility performance increased by nearly 12% when using the AirPods Pro. Another study discovered that the Live Listen feature on the second generation of AirPods Pro saw word recognition increase from just shy of 82% to more than 94%.
In other words, those with mild to moderate heating loss that already own AirPods Pro (second generation) can use them to improve what they hear when they’re out and about. All they need to do is set up Listen Live and they’re golden.