AirPods Pro make surprisingly great cheap hearing aids, study says
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It’s a feature many owners probably aren’t aware their AirPods are capable of, but a new medical study has found that Apple’s wireless earphones may work well as affordable hearing aid alternatives.
The findings of the new report, published in the iScience magazinecentering around the “Live Listen” feature on Apple’s AirPods and some Beats earbuds that allow your iPhone to act as a microphone, which in turn delivers enhanced sound to the user’s earbuds.
The feature was not originally intended as an aid for people with hearing loss, but was designed to reduce certain sounds in noisy situations for people with normal hearing.
But with hearing aids costing between $1,000 and $10,000 in the US, researchers at the Taipei Veterans General Hospital decided to work on a study to see how Apple’s relatively inexpensive earbuds that use this feature would compare to specialty hearing aids.
The researchers tested both a pair of AirPods 2nd Gen and AirPods Pro (2019) and paired them with an iPhone XS Max.
They compared the results of their testing with the top-of-the-range $10,000 OTICON Opn 1 behind-the-ear hearing aids, as well as Bernafon’s $1,500 MD1 hearing aid.
A total of 21 participants with mild to moderate hearing loss took part in the study, where each person was asked to repeat short sentences read to them in different environments using each of the four devices. According to the research, the AirPods Pro, which also rank highly in our list of the best earplugs, were found to perform just as well as the cheaper hearing aids and almost as good as the top tier OTICON model when used in a quiet environment.
Somewhat usurping, the cheaper AirPods 2nd Gen came in at the bottom of all four devices tested, but still managed to provide a noticeable benefit to participants’ hearing compared to not using a device. In noisy test environments, the AirPods Pro performed even closer to the OTICON, a result the researchers attribute to their built-in noise cancellation.
However, these results came when the unwanted distracting sounds came from the sides of the participant. When the participant heard sound coming from the front while trying to listen to the sample sentences, both Apple earbuds failed to help enhance what was being heard.
You can read how you can use it Apple’s Live Listen mode here (opens in new tab).
The first Black Friday AirPods deals have just started too, if you’re looking to buy anything.
Analysis: AirPods as hearing aids are neither a gimmick nor a replacement for the real thing
In a week that saw a separate study prompting the World Health Organization to issue a warning Given that one billion young people worldwide are at risk of hearing damage from listening to headphones, it is somewhat ironic that one of the world’s most popular wireless earphones could actually help people with hearing loss.
Apple’s introduction of the Live Listen feature to its AirPods lineup was justifiably well received by the hearing loss community when it was introduced in 2016.
Offering a slightly more affordable speech muffling tool compared to expensive dedicated devices – especially for those living in the US where hearing aids are usually not subsidized – has the ability to replace Apple’s ubiquitous white earbuds in this discreet way. use also helped to reduce the stigma surrounding wearing a hearing aid.
While this new study shows that the feature isn’t just another gimmick or bonus feature, it also highlights that if you have a hearing loss, a pair of AirPods should only be considered a stopover.
As the report points out, the AirPods fared poorly when presented with sound coming from the front rather than the side, making them less useful for conversation situations or, say, watching a movie, and your iPhone also needs to be properly way to be positioned. for the function to work properly.
Special hearing aids can be adjusted to boost frequencies according to the user’s needs, so if you’re concerned about hearing loss, we highly recommend consulting an audiologist before using even the best AirPods models in this way.