Yesterday’s Apple presentation revealed not only the release of the AirPods 4 family of wireless headphones and AirPods Max, but also upcoming updates for AirPods Pro 2. As soon as Apple receives approval from US FDA regulators, the company will release a software update for AirPods Pro 2, which allows the use of headphones as a hearing aid, as well as diagnose the user’s hearing.
According to Apple, the new software feature makes it possible to provide a “clinical-grade” hearing aid replacement for users with moderate to moderate hearing loss. This innovation will be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as it relates to the healthcare sector. With the help of a software update, the owner of AirPods Pro 2 will be able to undergo a diagnostic test within five minutes, which will assess the condition of his hearing organs. In addition to headphones, he will need a smartphone or tablet running iOS 18.
The application itself will generate the necessary headphone settings profile, which takes into account the hearing characteristics of a particular person, and then, if necessary, will amplify through them the speech of others and other sound sources important to the user. Test results will be available in the iPhone Health app. The settings profile will be automatically applied when listening to music, podcasts and making phone calls. Apple has also provided a hearing protection mode when a person is in noisy places such as concerts or stadiums. This feature will be enabled by default because the company says one in three people are regularly exposed to noise that can potentially cause hearing damage. The corresponding software updates will be distributed free of charge to AirPods Pro 2 owners this fall in more than one hundred countries around the world.