Apple has a growing fleet of health and wellness features across its devices, but a new hearing aid mode made for its wildly popular AirPods stands a chance to make a real difference for the millions of Americans who have some trouble hearing. Starting next week, Apple’s AirPods Pro 2 will be able to function as a hearing aid for adults with mild or moderate forms of hearing loss.
Thanks to a 2022 rule put into effect by the US Food and Drug Administration, which allowed companies to sell over-the-counter hearing aids at stores like Best Buy, you don’t need a prescription to use Apple’s hearing aid feature on AirPods Pro 2. To use your AirPods Pro 2 as hearing aids, simply take Apple’s new hearing test (which Apple announced alongside its hearing aid feature) or upload your own test results. From there, someone passing you by won’t know whether you’re wearing AirPods in order to listen to a call or music, or if you’re using them to enhance the sound of the world around you.
According to Tricia Ashby-Scabis, senior director of audiology practices at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, this subtle and approachable means to hearing loss treatment may be an important entrance point for many people with milder forms of hearing loss. While they’ll have limitations in what they can do (whether you’ll wear them depends on how comfortable they are, and they aren’t meant for more severe forms of hearing loss, for example), AirPods Pro 2 may have an easier time finding themselves in the hands of those who could benefit — perhaps because they already own a pair.
“I just love that it’s not necessarily a new product you have to go out and buy,” Ashby-Scabis said after Apple announced its hearing aid feature. “It’s one that you are already familiar with.”
Hearing aids are notoriously expensive and often not covered by insurance. Other barriers, such as people’s ideas about who hearing aids are for and the wave of stigma around using them, have complicated getting hearing aids in more people’s hands. While about 29 million US adults could benefit from a hearing aid, many have never tried one. Untreated hearing loss has been associated with a myriad of health consequences, including social isolation, dementia and more.
As the world of hearing aids shifts from requiring a prescription to over-the-counter devices, and now, to hearing aids built into a pair of earbuds you already own, treating hearing loss is becoming more approachable.
Comfort, cost and effectiveness: How will AirPods compare as hearing aids?
Even before Apple announced it was pursuing over-the-counter hearing aid territory, existing features allowed people to “hack” their earbuds to function as an off-label hearing enhancer. Very limited research so far has suggested that AirPods Pro do just as well as a basic hearing aid, even if they’re still beat out by more premium models. There’s a wide range of hearing aids, ranging from personal and unregulated sound amplification products, which are meant for situations where you’d like louder sounds, to OTC hearing aids for mild or moderate hearing loss and prescription-grade hearing aids.
AirPods Pro 2 may be a much more affordable option for many who could benefit from a hearing aid. For example, AirPods Pro 2 are currently hovering between $200 and $250. And while it’s a far cry from the average $4,000+ price tag of prescription hearing aids, a good pair of OTCs will still run you at least several hundred dollars.
Like with other prescription-free hearing devices, AirPods Pro 2 won’t be for everyone with hearing loss. Over-the-counter devices aren’t meant for children with hearing loss or adults with severe forms of it. People experiencing pain or other ear symptoms along with hearing loss should see a doctor or audiologist before buying or using any hearing aid.
What about comfort? Time will tell how many people find wearing AirPods for extended periods of time as hearing aids comfortable, but some people may need to play around with their fit. How you wear your AirPods or how comfortable you find them may depend on your ear shape, according to Ashby-Scabis.
“Most ear canals are an ‘s’ shape, but that s shape is not always like a horizontal s — like it can kind of curve and go upward,” she explained, adding that she’s noticed the stems of her own AirPods angle down differently compared to other people wearing their AirPods. This is due to differences in the anatomy of the ear and ear canal.
This means that people wanting to use their AirPods as hearing aids will need to make sure they’re “comfortable to wear for an extended period of time,” Ashby-Scabis said, which could include toying around with the differently sized tips AirPods come with. And as CNET’s Bridget Carey wrote in her hands-on experience with Apple’s hearing aid feature, the AirPods Pro 2 have a battery life of about six hours, making it potentially less useful for all-day wear than other hearing aids.
Watch this: Testing Apple’s Hearing Aid: Hands-On with AirPods Pro 2 Software Update
Did Apple’s hearing aid feature clear the way for more earbuds to get hearing aid mode?
The FDA authorized Apple’s hearing aid feature through its “De Novo” pathway, which is FDA jargon that means the hearing health software for the AirPods is the first of its kind to get permission to hit the market. This may be significant, since the first company to get “De Novo” authorization — having proved enough effectiveness and safety for its new product — can make it easier for other companies to follow suit by getting FDA clearance or by proving their product is similar to what’s already on the market.
While there’s no way to know whether other earbud or headphone companies will pursue a hearing aid feature similar to Apple’s, the fact that Apple has officially made it over the FDA hurdle may (theoretically, at least) make it a little easier for another company with similar hearing aid software up their sleeve to sell their product.
If that becomes the case, consumers could have even more choices in hearing aid devices one day.
The importance of accepting and normalizing hearing loss
While removing the prescription barrier improved access to hearing care in many ways, the number of people who’ve benefited from a hearing aid still pales in comparison to the number of people who need one. Besides perceived stigma and other remaining barriers to care, many people believe their hearing loss isn’t bad enough to need one. They may also struggle to accept that they have it.
“As an audiologist, it’s not uncommon for us to see patients who are coming in for the first time with hearing loss that we suspect they’ve probably had for 20, 25 years,” Ashby-Scabis said. That’s a problem because the longer you go without hearing, the more your brain becomes accustomed to not hearing well.
“There’s a lot of education that goes into it,” Ashby-Scabis said of the reintroduction of sound to the brain. An audiologist can help someone tweak their hearing aid and make adjustments along the way as a way to “get comfortable in that process of having sound coming in, and bringing some sounds back to their ears.”
Simply wearing the AirPods Pro 2 as hearing aids may not be sufficient care for someone who’s experienced years of hearing loss. They may benefit from appointments with an audiologist or doctor or a different, specifically fitted hearing aid. But normalizing hearing loss, including its early signs and taking tests for it, can move people quicker through another big barrier to care: acceptance.
“In my world as an audiologist, it’s only a good thing if we can get people to hit that point of awareness,” Ashby-Scabis said. “Give them some time to say, ‘Oh, so maybe things aren’t all as it seems.'”
She compared it to someone learning they need glasses. As more people experiment with things like AirPods and different technology you put in your ears, Ashby-Scabis said, the hope is that more people may be keen to “pursue something that actually can be of assistance and help.”
