Apple announced new hearing health features at its annual event Monday, the most impressive being a new hearing aid mode for AirPods Pro 2.
Following a hearing test, your AirPods Pro 2 will transform into a personalized hearing aid. Apple expects this hearing aid feature to be available this fall. Like other over-the-counter hearing aids, we can expect this feature to be for adults with mild or moderate hearing loss.
Apple has already packed hearing health features into its AirPods, making an official move to over-the-counter hearing aid status seemingly a matter of time.
Hearing aids have been notoriously expensive, in part because they're not covered by many people's insurance. When hearing aids became available over-the-counter and without prescription in late 2022, many people praised the rule as it could help remove some of the barriers to getting a hearing aid, such as high cost and perceived stigma of wearing them. Uptake of hearing aids still pales in comparison, however, to the amount of people who need them.
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The fact that people may use their AirPods as a hearing aid, instead of buying a completely new device, may help chip away barriers to daily communication for the estimated 1.5 billion people with hearing loss globally, the majority of which have milder symptoms.
In other hearing health news, Apple is adding hearing protection to AirPods Pro by default across different settings, in an effort to reduce background or excess noise and a leading contributor to hearing loss.
Apple also announced a clinically validated hearing test for AirPods Pro and iPhone, which it says takes minutes and will help you learn where you stand in terms of your own hearing loss. People have already been able to upload hearing tests to the Health app to help hack their AirPods into hearing enhancers, but Apple's inclusion of their own validated test may make it more likely people use the hearing health features.
Hearing health has been a health of interest of Apple's. Alongside heart health and reproductive health, Apple has been running its own hearing health study to help inform its product development and inform the public about the potential impacts of loud technology and everyday life.
Watch this: Apple AirPods Pro 2 Can Test Your Hearing
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