Apple Airpods can function as ‘clinical grade’ hearing aid
LOS ANGELES: A software upgrade means that Apple’s AirPod earphones can now function as “clinical grade” hearing aids.
AirPods Pro 2, which cost £229 and are the most recent version, had already enabled users to take a five-minute hearing test.
The software update means that if the test detects mild to moderate hearing loss, the earphones can boost certain sound frequencies. This should make conversations easier to follow and can be applied to music, films, games and phone calls.
Nearly seven million people in the UK would probably benefit from a hearing aid but only about two million use them, according to the charity Hearing Dogs for Deaf People.
The hearing aid function was already available to AirPod users in other countries but required rules to be amended before it could be used in the UK. Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said that the changes were an example of Britain removing “pointless regulation that suffocates innovation”.
Experts said the Apple gadgets could appeal to middle-aged consumers reluctant to use traditional hearing aids, which can cost several thousand pounds. Studies suggest that those who use hearing aids when they need them are more likely to have better relationships with their partners, better sex lives, more friends and sharper minds. They are less likely to suffer from loneliness and depression.
Speech occurs in a range from about 250 hertz to 5,000 hertz and as people age the ability to hear higher frequency sounds, which have a higher pitch, fades first. In conversation, that means sounds falling between 4,000 and 5,000 hertz, which include f, th and s. One way that hearing aids work is by selectively boosting these frequencies.
Kevin Munro, professor of audiology at the University of Manchester, said: “Consumer products [such as AirPods] have the potential to reduce the stigma that some people associate with hearing aids and getting older … These products may work in the same way that people will buy reading glasses before they might go for a formal eye examination and obtain a personalised prescription for glasses.”