👋 Looking for an OTC hearing for all-day wear? We recommend Sennheiser All Day Clear or Sony CRE-C20.
Key Takeaways:
- AirPods won’t fully replace hearing aids, but for those with mild loss or who need a boost situationally, Apple's new feature is fantastic.
- AirPod hearing aid functionality is available today through the steps below but will become much easier to access in fall 2024 after Apples software update.
Until apples release, use the steps in this guide to access hearing aid functionality.
- To set up hearing AidPods like a hearing aid, you’ll need to sync your hearing test results with Apple Health (we like the Mimi app for this).
- Under the ‘Accessiblity’ menu, select ‘AirPod’s and then ‘Accessibility Settings’ and and ‘Headphone Accommodations’ to tune them to your audiogram.
- Then, adjust your ‘Transparency Mode’ volume.
Apple sells north of 100M pairs of AirPods every year. Early Apple fans will remember the good old days of free low-tech corded headphones that came with every iPhone.
In 2016 Apple unveiled AirPods, which quickly became a technology staple in coffee shops, airplanes, and Zoom calls.
AirPods have always been a best-in-class true wireless earbud, but in 2019 Apple released AirPods Pro with some more adventurous features, including "Transparency Mode," which lets you hear the world around you through your headphones. Some people pointed out you could use Apple's transparency feature as a bootleg hearing aid.
Then in late 2022, Apple unveiled AirPods Pro 2 with even more powerful noise reduction and amplification features. Apple's keynote never mentioned hearing aids, but the crossover was notable.
As a hearing aid wearer and audio nerd, I wanted to try the new hearing aid features inside AirPods Pro 2 for myself.
In this review, I'll share my experience and step-by-step instructions on how to transform your own AirPods Pro into starter "hearing aids."
Prefer to watch? Here’s my 5 minute breakdown. 👇
Let’s start with some AirPod basics.
AirPods Pro are sleek, true wireless devices that work best with iPhones. It's possible to use them with other phones but not as common.
Most people purchase AirPods Pro 2 for high-quality sound, 6 hours + battery life, and active noise cancelation. There are many in-depth reviews of Apple's non-hearing-aid Airpod Pro 2 features, but in this review, we're talking about Apple AirPods Pro as hearing aids.
What changed between Pro 1 and Pro 2?
The significant change from AirPods Pro 1 to AirPods Pro 2 is a new internal H2 chip inside the devices. Apple's new H2 chip samples sound 48,000 times per second. For reference, the latest hearing aid from Phonak (the top hearing aid brand in the world) samples sound at 700 times per second.
AirPods Pro 2 have just about every headphone feature but we are here to look at Transparency Mode and other features related to hearing health.
