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Apple Airpods Pro as hearing aids

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There is now. I just posted this in the other AirPods thread but in case it helps I am posting it here too —

The latest AirPods Pro firmware update to 4A400 (and maybe needs iOS 15 on phone?) makes the microphone pick up speech directly in front of you (ie not using the Bluetooth connection). I have very variable hearing loss and my hearing currently is about as good as it gets. I find the AirPods alone are as good or better than my current Phonak hearing aids. (Actually because I have the “thin tubes” I can put the AirPods in while wearing the aids so in principle both should be doing something.)

I thought of this exchange when I saw the news and updated the firmware on my AirPod Pros. Good news.

Edited

In reply to @plummpj

They are not working through the hearing aids but as a ‘substitute’*. It’s in Settings/Accessibility/Audio Visual/Headphone Accommodations/On .

*really more for people who have little if any loss but want to hear ambient conversations while using AirPods for phone etc.

I’ve had AirPods Pro for a few weeks now. I have latest “conversation mode” firmware as well. The live listen mode might be useful for listen only, but if to hold a conversation using it worse than no hearing aid at all because of echo you get from other peoples voices and yours. If there is any way to eliminate the echo I would like to hear about it. I’ve tried various combinations of noise cancellation, transparency and background sound to no avail.

I tried conversation mode, and as I understand it that mode only works in in conjunction with transparency mode.

Definitely didn’t work for me. I’ve got normal to moderate low freq loss sloping to severe high freq loss. I had airpods pro for a year already and a couple months ago saw that they might be used this way. That was just before I got my “real” hearing aids. Was still deciding on hearing aids, so figured, why not try. But to use the airPods like that you must run a hearing test using a specific third-party app, and the airpods import the results. Well, when I got to the high freq part of the test I could not hear anything at any vol of that test freq, so of course I did not click the “hear it now” button, and the app complained I was not participating and canceled the test. Kept doing that. And you cannot proceed after that. So yeah, does not work if you’ve got a lot of hearing loss at any frequency–preliminary test won’t let you proceed.

This is an old thread… but I guess it is better asking here than creating a new topic. Has anyone tried the AirPod Pro 2nd Generation? Is there any improvement compared to the first generation?

And for those not so fond of the Apple ecosystem, has the competition caught up?

My AirPods Pro are my backup but the transparency mode on my left one has been acting up lately. I might have to replace/fix it soon.

The reviews are pretty good anyway. The noise cancellation is claimed to be up there- possiby just short of the latest Bose buds. Transparency mode is said to be better than gen 1. Like having nothing in your ears is what some people are saying. I found people on Reddit who have both gen 1 and gen 2 who claim a significant improvement in the later model. I also found a review where the reviewer had a couple of hearing impaired friends try them out. The feedback was positive from what I could make out. It was translated from some other language and short on detail though.

Yeah. I’ve been working Google pretty hard. There’s an Apple store at my local shopping centre (mall). I’m wondering if they’ll let me demo them?

In reply to @e1405

If your APP’s were made/delivered before October 2020, you may want to check: this link3

My left APP is acting up (doesn’t pass fit test, noise cancellation not working properly) and is being repaired by Apple at no charge.

APP’s made prior to 10/2020 were susceptible to having their mic. vents blocked by skin/oil from the ear canal. Subsequent manufacturing recessed the vents a bit. APP2’s change the design to avoid the whole issue.

Thanks a lot for sharing the link! Mine was purchased back in May 2021. I will check the manufactured date with Apple and hopefully can get this issue sorted out.

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