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Apple's AirPods Pro hearing health features

(www.theverge.com)
149 points elsewhen | 3 comments | 22 Oct 24 00:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.019s | source
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gedy ◴[22 Oct 24 01:50 UTC] No.41910392[source]▶
Unless I'm misunderstanding, the news here is Apple is adding a hearing test app, and "officially" stating that you can use your Airpods Pro like hearing aids.

I mention this as you can use these today as hearing aids, you just need to use a third party app to create your audiogram. I have fairly bad hearing loss and use Airpods instead of hearing aids.

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1. grahamj ◴[22 Oct 24 03:03 UTC] No.41910809[source]▶
Yep. I still haven't been able to determine if this "new" feature is any different from what already exists.

I hope so because when you enable your audiogram for transparency it sounds like you're in an ASMR video. There's no way to make it sound natural but louder, which is what I would expect from a hearing aid.

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2. MBCook ◴[22 Oct 24 03:38 UTC] No.41910970[source]▶
The audio gram stuff existed, but wasn’t well known and as mentioned required a third party app.

The hearing aid stuff was only recently certified by the FDA as an OTC hearing aid. Apple has had a mode for a many years where AirPods + iPhone could act like a hearing aid. But it didn’t meat the medical classifications.

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3. an_d_rew ◴[22 Oct 24 03:50 UTC] No.41911025[source]▶
Actually you have been able to import your audiogram for at least the last two versions of iOS (16+), no third-party app required.

But it was simply called "an accommodation". Can't call it a hearing aid until you were approved by the FDA!