The popular Apple AirPods Pro 2 earbuds will soon function as hearing aids for people with self-perceived mild to moderate hearing loss. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Thursday its authorization of the first over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aid feature, activated on mobile devices compatible with the AirPods Pro 2. Users will be able to test their hearing on their iPhone with a new clinically-validated hearing test, which will then be used to power personalized hearing settings on the earbuds.
As a person with lifelong genetic hearing loss, a hearing aid wearer since childhood, and an experienced consultant to the hearing healthcare industry, I celebrate the potential for greatly improved access to care for people with hearing loss. The market segment that needs occasional hearing assistance throughout the day (the AirPods Pro battery life is only 6 hours) and that prefers discretion and privacy (no one knows whether your AirPods Pro are programmed with hearing assistance!) will particularly benefit from this groundbreaking solution.
The AirPods Pro 2 will also appeal to people who are price sensitive. The devices retail for $249, compared to close to $1,000 for the average pair of OTC hearing aids of comparable quality, according to my company's research. To the millions of people who already own a pair of the AirPods Pro 2, essentially a new pair of OTC hearing aids is available from the convenience of home, at no extra cost. Apple's actions no doubt will contribute to realizing the promise of the new Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid category, introduced in 2022.
Equally importantly, a big impact in the long run of Apple creating a hearing aid feature could be to elevate the importance of hearing protection, not only for people with hearing loss, but also for society as a whole.
Noise exposure is the second highest contributor to acquired hearing loss, after aging, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Over 1 billion teenagers and young adults globally risk hearing loss from listening to audio devices at unsafe levels and "exposure to damaging levels of sound at noisy entertainment venues such as nightclubs, bars and sporting events," per the World Health Organization.
Loud noises effectively crumple the delicate cells of the inner ear. I now whip out my noise-canceling headphones whenever I enter loud environments like the New York City subway, which can exceed 100 decibels. I bought noise-canceling earbuds for my teenage son and daughter to wear at concerts.
The new hearing aid feature on the AirPods Pro 2 could promote hearing protection because of capabilities the devices already have. In addition to the Transparency mode for hearing in the external environment, the AirPods Pro 2 have long provided an active noise cancellation (ANC) mode. As Apple explains, this mode counters sounds with anti-noise, canceling the external sounds before you hear them. The devices also contain a third mode, an Adaptive Noise Control mode (introduced last year), which automatically blends the ANC mode and the Transparency mode, depending upon the soundscape.
The cream on this feature-rich cake is Apple's new Loud Sound Reduction capability, which scans the environment 46,000 times a second for sudden peaks in sound, reducing them to a safe level. I was happy to learn that the sound reduction feature is on by default in Transparency and Adaptive Audio modes.
Imagine a person with hearing loss walking down the street in New York City with two coworkers for lunch. With the hearing aid feature activated, she can better hear her coworkers and participate in the conversation. A few blocks away, an ambulance siren shrieks at 110 decibels, activating the Loud Sound Reduction feature, protecting the person's remaining hearing. When returning to work via the subway the person with hearing loss needs continuous hearing protection, available through the ANC mode. The AirPods Pro 2's new capability as an OTC hearing aid helps make this vision a reality.
In contrast, none of the prescription hearing aids on the market offer an ANC mode. As for OTC hearing aids, only a small handful do. One example is the HP Hearing Pro, an earbud-styled hearing aid that allows users to take a hearing test and personalize the aids. Yet the Apple devices are truly unique in their ability to automatically blend assistance and protection, depending on the need and the environment.
Given the AirPods Pro 2's real-time abilities to shield users from loud noises, the new hearing feature should not only increase people's awareness of hearing assistance but also hearing protection. Further contributing to a focus on protection is the Apple Hearing Study.
Apple initiated this population health study in 2019 in partnership with the Michigan School of Public Health. The study reported four years later that one in three adult Americans are exposed to excessive environmental sound levels, based on the experiences of 130k Apple Watch users from November, 2019 to December, 2022. Some of Apple's examples of environments with unsafe levels of sound include mowing the lawn, attending a sporting event, and you guessed it, taking the subway.
One of the study's four ongoing objectives is to understand the relationship between environmental sound exposures and cardiovascular health. Excessive noise causes carnage beyond the ear. Noise from shouting crowds, blaring music, and beeping traffic is increasingly recognized as a public health problem. "Observational and experimental studies have shown that noise exposure leads to annoyance, disturbs sleep and ... increases the occurrence of hypertension and cardiovascular disease," according to a separate study by The Lancet.
As a person who loves working with data, I realized -- after reading about Apple's intention to add a hearing aid feature and hearing test to the AirPods Pro 2 -- that these new capabilities could greatly enrich the Apple Hearing Study. How users' hearing profiles change over time, users' exposures to loud sounds in their environments, and users' decisions on hearing assistance will provide three legs of a powerful analytical stool supporting the overall study.
To the extent that the Hearing Study finds that excess noise exposure creates chronic high blood pressure and drives poorer outcomes in cardiovascular health, hearing protection could become relevant for not only people with hearing loss, but potentially also for people with normal audiograms. Protecting hearing would prevent future loss and enhance overall health and well being, including cardiovascular health.
Apple's announcement of the added hearing test and hearing aid functionality to the AirPods Pro 2 will help increase access to care for people with hearing loss, especially price-sensitive, stigma-conscious people with mild hearing loss. At the same time, the creation of this unique device that integrates hearing protection with assistance could very well increase attention on preserving hearing. In the long run, these new features could enhance the data available to the Apple Hearing Study, providing population health data on the importance of managing excess noise.
Photo: Naeblys, Getty Images
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