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Apple Airpods Pro as hearing aids

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Edited

Have a look at this new model due for release end of 2019
I looked at the Airpod Pro, but they don’t have inbuilt hearing. You have to use your iphone.

Nuheara Iqbud MAX

Over the counter
Support from UK National Health
Self assess hearing test with your smart phone
Built in audio equalizer
Active noise cancellation
3 built in microphones
standard bluetooth 5 to stream from your phone

I’m waiting for this release to purchase

“IQbuds MAX™ is the most technologically advanced and powerful hearing product that Nuheara has ever created. Building on all the features currently available with IQbuds BOOST™, IQbuds MAX™ has triple the hearing capability (utilising three microphones on each ear), five times the processing power and a world first Hybrid Active Noise Cancelation system, which collectively delivers the most personalised, natural and enhanced sound ever.”

With IQbuds2 MAX, Nuheara Launches the Next Generation of Hearable Technology1

Nuheara, the smart-hearing company, today announced the world’s most advanced hearing buds, the IQbuds MAX.

Yes, I purchased the new Apple EarPods Pro for streaming music and podcasts and they are great for that purpose.

I wear Widex Evoke 2 for general listening and when I am not streaming.

My Widex ’s augment the high end Hz spectrum that I’m missing, the EarPods Pro cannot do this more so than any other earbuds with or without Live Listen .

If you need to hear,

get a fitted hearing aid!

You can access a few dozen equalizer presets on any iPhone or iPad via Settings -> Music -> EQ. To create your own customized equalizer presets, there are various apps you can download from the iOS App Store. Just do a search under “equalizer”. All of these options significantly enhance the listening experience with AirPod, AirPod Pro, headphones, and even built-in and external speakers.

I am interested in the success of AirPod Pro’s for hearing but the feature that I see as potentially useful is not mentioned. Transparency is a feature that allows to hear direct ambient sound and voices direct through the pods. How is that working for folks that have purchased pods? Also, I’m connected to my wired pods for phone conversation use. How are AirPod Pro’s for phone use?

Another long term possibility for some grows from the acceptance of the pods being worn in public spaces, restaurants and even, maybe, at work. Our producers have in their business a requirement to be “invisible”. As white ear things become more and more accceptable the HA companies have the potential of a larger footprint to work with to create their products with better features. Yeah! Do you agree? All input is appreciated. Speak up. Thanks

@gizzz said:

Another long term possibility for some grows from the acceptance of the pods being worn in public spaces, restaurants and even, maybe, at work.

I work in a large professional environment and quite a few people walk around all the time with the white sticks dangling out of their ears. I think it’s funny that I enjoy the same benefits as them in a much more discrete fashion. I’m speculating (as usual) but I think the only reason that Apple AirPods and others aren’t smaller is that in order for them to be stuck way inside the ear canal like a hearing aid, they may have to be considered a medical device. That’s just speculation though.

Yes, i didn’t read it properly. Sorry, I have deleted the post. With transparency it’ll catch all noise around us. So the focus on speech in noisy environment can’t be achieved in transparency mode.
Have to test both active noise cancellation & transparency mode in an Apple store.

The transparency mode doesn’t help hearing speech; it just lets in more more sound than when the pods are turned off so it does less to block speech (and all other noise). It’s a good way to listen to your your iPhone (music, calls, whatever) and still have some surrounding sound come through. Since my hearing is close to normal at lower frequencies at least I can hear if someone is trying to talk to me. But mostly I use the full noise cancellation so I can enjoy music or broadcasts while walking the dogs without interference from background noise such as traffic, playground sounds and even an occasional helicopter. (I do have to keep a closer eye on the dogs, though.)

Just replaced my Costco Resound wireless with the AirPod Pros running in transparency mode. For me, better sound quality, some other tech advantages and of course, the price. Current disadvantages are, more visible, battery life (about 5 hours for me but they charge quickly) and, I have to crank the Pod volume up pretty high. I am 68 and have about 70% hearing in my “good” ear and virtually none in the other, from Ménière’s disease. This is exciting for me, especially with the sound quality.

There are a few settings you have to tweak, via an iPhone running IOS 14.x

I’ve read quite a lot on using AirPods Pro as hearing aid, but once setup is hearing aid feature on by default or do I specifically need to enable it?

There isn’t a hearing aid feature per se. There’s a Live Listen feature that you can turn on, but then you are listening to the sound as it’s captured by your iPhone mic and streamed to your AirPods or any other headset that supports Live Listen. It might be useful in a noisy restaurant setting with your iPhone placed in the center of the table or close to a person talking.

I personally haven’t found the feature all that useful.

No, AirPods are not always in a hearing aid mode. As I said, you have to turn on the Live Listen feature while wearing the AirPods. With that feature off, they are regular earbuds.

I use Live Listen often and like it. I set iPhone directly in front of the TV sound system (not the main TV I watch that uses TV Adapter) and the sound streams directly to my hearing aids. Good for news and dialog. I also turn it on and place next to speaker on another iPhone for family phone calls. Excellent for that purpose. I used it for Doctor’s appt and it was better than nothing considering masks and no lip reading. It has uses and benefits.
Noisy restaurant - it would pick up all the noise / sounds, not the speech.
So maybe Live Listen would be useful for streaming to AirPods in these situations. That said, if you need hearing aids, AirPods are not a substitute for hearing aids.

In reply to @jay_man2

I’m still confused. Much has been said about AirPods Pro as a substitute hearing aid. I agree the Live Listen feature doesn’t seem useful. So how do you enable the “hearing aid” mode? Do you need a hearing aid app designed for the AirPods Pro?

Edited

EDIT: Based on the news of the firmware update and the introduction of conversation mode I’'ve removed my original reply. While I don’t think AirPods Pros are a substitute for hearing aids with those beyond a moderate loss, this new feature could likely help a lot of people.

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