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In November 2022, the US Food and Drug Administration issued a ruling allowing Americans to purchase hearing aids without a prescription. The move has launched a mini-industry, as companies rush to provide technology that was previously mired in health care restrictions.
Consumer electronics companies saw an opportunity, too. In September, Apple announced that it would be bringing hearing aid features to the AirPods Pro 2, as part of an upcoming iOS update.
I had the opportunity to test a beta version of the feature at the iPhone 16 event. The demo was designed to provide insight into how users test their hearing at home, although those results were not complete. However, recently, Apple gave TechCrunch access to the upcoming feature in its final form.
I admit I’m a little worried. I’ve had tinnitus all my life, and although I’m pretty good at packing earplugs, I was fairly convinced that decades of rock shows had taken a toll on my overall hearing health.
As these processes go, Apple’s new hearing test feature is painless. It’s been a very long time since I’ve taken any kind of formal testing, but the feature instantly took me back to elementary school tests. Wait to hear a tone and raise the opposite hand. You get my drift.
This feature can be accessed immediately from the settings menu when you have a pair of AirPods Pro 2 connected in your ears. For now, the feature is only available on this specific model. That’s because they’re the only member of the AirPods family to have the new chip and silicone tip for passive noise cancellation. Absolute silence is key, after all. The tones are faint and can be easily masked with minimal ambient noise.
After some basic questions – Are you over 18? Have you attended a loud concert in the past 24 hours? – The system will play a general music track to make sure your AirPods fit properly. If the seal is out of place, the system will prompt you to repair it before testing again.
Next, the tester monitors the room to ensure absolute silence. The first time I tried it, I knew my surroundings were too loud. Turns out the air filter in the corner of the room was high enough to blow. Once the room becomes silent, the test will begin. But lucky for me, there was a man outside fertilizing the grass. He walked past my window every 45 seconds, and each time the tester would pause and wait for things to calm down.
The hearing test is performed on one ear at a time, starting with the left ear. The system then plays a series of tones, twice in each segment. When you hear the tone, tap the screen. It’s pretty much that simple. The test measures not only how quickly you tap the screen, but whether you tap it every time.
Tones are played across a range of frequencies to identify parts of the range that may be affected by hearing loss. The whole process takes about five minutes.
Results are published quickly. I was surprised when my results came back as “minimal or no hearing loss.” The app rated my left at 18 dB (hearing loss in decibels) and my right at 19. Mild hearing loss is about 25 dB. The hearing aid benefit will only be available to those who test within the limits of mild to moderate hearing loss.
If your hearing loss is more severe, Apple recommends professional testing. On the other hand, if you test within the normal range, the system will provide you with the ability to turn on Media Assist. The new feature amplifies certain elements such as speech, distinguishing them from background noise. It’s similar to the new hearing aid feature in that it aims to improve a person’s daily life, although the amplifications are not as obvious.
Even so, this feature takes some getting used to. I found that some things, like the sound of fabric rubbing against fabric while walking, were noticeably more noticeable than usual. In more chaotic environments, this is a really useful feature – once you get past the societal norm of taking out your headphones to talk to someone.
This may be the biggest challenge with this feature. We have become accustomed to hearing aids. If you see someone wearing one, you assume they have some degree of hearing loss. If the same person is using AirPods and doesn’t bother to take out at least one before engaging in a conversation with you, you’ll likely consider them rude.
However, with the barriers gone, this amount of social kindness is something a quick explanation can remedy. It’s a small price to pay for technology that can fundamentally improve lives.
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