Apple’s hearing aid feature for AirPods is officially FDA approved
Key Takeaways
- Apple’s AirPods Pro will soon function as a hearing aid with FDA approval for health-focused features.
- The new AirPods Pro update includes a hearing protection feature, hearing test, and hearing aid function.
- OTC hearing aids are a recent “innovation” in the US, and Apple is just the beginning of tech companies entering the market.
Apple’s plan to turn AirPods Pro wireless earbuds into an all-around hearing health tool can now move forward thanks to official authorization from the FDA.
One of the most important announcements from Apple’s iPhone 16 launch event had nothing to do with AI or phones and was instead focused on a software update Apple plans to bring to the 2nd-generation AirPods Pro. Via an update coming this fall, Apple hopes to use the popular wireless earbuds to not only protect your ears from loud, potentially damaging noise, but also, after a built-in hearing test, act as an over-the-counter hearing aid.
Now, thanks to the FDA’s authorization, Apple can move forward with the update and specifically, marketing the AirPods Pro’s new hearing aid feature to existing and future owners.
How Apple is approaching hearing loss prevention, awareness, and prevention
The same things that make AirPods Pro good at ANC can be used for other purposes
Apple
The FDA describes Apple’s new hearing health features as “the first over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aid software device,” and for anyone who didn’t watch the company’s presentation, Apple’s approach is purely software-based. The second-generation AirPods Pro Apple released in 2022 and updated with USB-C and a lossless Vision Pro connection in 2023 aren’t changing. Instead, Apple’s tweaking the same components that enable things like Active Noise Cancelation, Transparency Mode, and Personalized Spatial Audio to offer new health-focused features.
There are three main features Apple will now offer with the updated AirPods Pro:
- Hearing Protection, which uses passive noise reduction from the AirPods Pro ear tips, the H2 chip, and “an all-new multiband high dynamic range algorithm” to reduce harmful noise, but keep things like a live concert vibrant and listenable.
- Hearing Test, a 5-minute “clinical-grade” audio test feature that uses AirPods Pro and an iPad or iPhone to test your response to a variety of sounds at different frequencies and detect your specific level of hearing loss.
- Hearing Aid, a hearing assistance feature that uses the profile created during your hearing test to make dynamic adjustments to what you hear on the fly.
Hearing Prevention will be enabled for all of Apple’s existing listening modes by default, while the Hearing Aid feature will require valid hearing test results to work. All the features will be accessible and able to be used without a doctor’s supervision (hence the “over-the-counter” label), though hearing test results can be easily downloaded in PDF mode to be shared with your doctor if you need.
OTC hearing aids are a relatively new thing
Apple isn’t likely to be the last company to turn earbuds into hearing aids
Easily accessible hearing aids and software-based hearing aid features are a relatively recent innovation in the United States. The FDA first changed its rules around hearing aids in 2022, letting them be sold directly to customers rather than requiring doctor’s approval, and the insurance-subsidized purchase of a medical device that could cost over a thousand dollars.
Millions of people stand to benefit from Apple’s updated AirPods Pro.
Other audio companies like Bose have made hearing aids in the past, and it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect future tech companies to take Apple’s software-based approach in the future. You’ll still get a more personalized and powerful pair of hearing aids from your doctor, but millions of people stand to benefit from Apple’s updated AirPods Pro, and that’s never a bad thing.
Apple hasn’t shared a final release date for its AirPods Pro software update other than “this fall,” but Pocket-lint plans on testing the new features thoroughly when they are actually released.
