Apple, AirPods & your hearing health

Can AirPods Pro really be an effective alternative to traditional hearing aids?

- DAVID CROOKES

Hundreds of millions of headphones and earphones are sold annually and, according to Statista, worldwide revenues have reached $18 billion dollars with growth for the next five years projected to be 2.39%. That’s music to the ears of manufacturers who know how much users love to get lost in personalised audio.

But, just as the popularity of these devices is also increasing because people are using them in virtual meetings or to cancel out external noise, they’re also set to benefit people living with hearing loss like never before.

During Apple’s ‘Glowtime’ event in September, Kate Bergeron, VP of hardware engineering, introduced what is being billed as the “world’s first all-in-one hearing health experience”. Firstly, in taking advantage of AirPods Pro 2’s H2 chip, Apple has developed a feature called Hearing Protection which prevents exposure to loud, potentially damaging environmental noise. It uses the AirPods Pro 2’s ear tips to reduce passive noise and utilises machine learning on the H2 chip to actively reduce louder, more intermittent noise at 48,000 times per seconds. In doing so, it retains the sound signature of whatever is being listened to.

Secondly, and perhaps more intriguing, the AirPods Pro 2 is also being turned into a hearing aid. Take a five-minute, clinical-grade hearing test on an iPhone or iPad and your personalised hearing profile will be used to dynamically adjust your AirPods Pro 2’s output. Surrounding environmental sound will be boosted in real time and there will be automatic adjustments to settings affecting phone calls, music, movies and games so that users are able to hear the audio with greater quality. There’s every chance that this will positively disrupt the hearing aid industry and even, in some circumstances, even replace traditional devices. But will Apple’s ‘hearing health experience’ be truly effective?