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Apple announced Hearing Aid functionality in AirPod Pros 2 with clinical Tone testing

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Also no argument from me - the guidelines are there to help ensure that what is viewed as a ‘trickier patient’ gets a good fit, or someone who has bad hearing is evaluated for more than ‘general hearing loss’. If you’ve got something fancy going on, an hearing app won’t know about that. If you’ve got signs of a degenerative disease , an audi can refer you over to the AutoImmune side of life. If that’s a reasonable limitation is up for discussion.

Apple already has compensation for the hearing impaired implemented long ago in “accessibility”, it works perfectly for music and calls. The function can be set up:
1/ by entering an
2/ preset modes
3/ by creating your own audiogram through a third party app

For low loss it works perfectly. I’ve been using it for a long time.
What they introduced today is just an extension of this feature to include live listening from the built-in microphone,

OW. Not sure if I’m psychic or maybe I’d seen something subliminally on this very topic? I was just daydreaming about how aids need to be MUCH bigger for speech processing, and so why not just go the route of the “stylish” AirPods?

Apple is on to something. If I was Oticon or Phonak, I’d be taking REAL CAREFUL notes on this. It could spell a sea change! (or “see” change, if you catch my drift).

Don’t forget with the airpods that the occlusal effect is huge and they are not exactly comfortable to wear more than an hr so. I tried them for and while they sort of work, lots of echoing and occlusion I did love the ANC and of course steaming music. But even if the battery lasted all day I could never wear them like I do my Widex SmartRIC. The ANC is great in a loud concert or venue and I wish HA did some noise canceling instead of just trying not to amplify noise. Now if apple developed a vented ear bud and still controlled feedback that might be cool or even had more comfortable domes. I know you can get a molded earpiece for the Air Pod but really thought that was a waste of time and moved on to HA except for those concerts and loud jams. Even though they’ve had this for awhile looks like they are going to integrate the testing and have improved noise and situational scenes a lot (not out until the fall from what I heard). But you can import an or take the test thru the MiMi app now.

In reply to @didi

This will offer more fine tuning of the sound than that previous setting. While that previous setting was nice, you couldn’t adjust it outside of cheating the upload. Also, it used a combination of your ears - not truly giving per ear adjustments.

In reply to @fbacher1

@fbacher1 said:

Don’t forget with the airpods that the occlusal effect is huge and they are not exactly comfortable to wear more than an hr so. I tried them for HA and while they sort of work, lots of echoing and occlusion I did love the ANC and of course steaming music. But even if the battery lasted all day I could never wear them like I do my Widex SmartRIC. The ANC is great in a loud concert or venue and I wish HA did some noise canceling instead of just trying not to amplify noise.

Totally agree. Hated the occluded feel. None of the tips fit. Medium was too small. Large was too big. It sorta kinda worked a little bit for me… I borrowed my son’s for a trial. Decided I didn’t want to invest the money in them.

WH

In reply to @fbacher1

@fbacher1 said:

Don’t forget with the airpods that the occlusal effect is huge and they are not exactly comfortable to wear more than an hr so.

AH! That is very good to know. As it is, I have comfort issues with my Lumity Life rechargeables tugging at the wire that pulls all day on the speakers in my ears. You nailed it with the observation about AirPods being wearable for like an HOUR. That would be a deal killer way before battery life.

Yes for me they don’t stay in either. There are hooks you can buy but they have to be taken off everytime you charge, which is often. I looked hard for vented domes and tried many of them too. I did try them as for long time before I broke down and admitted I needed real hearing aids. It’s been a long struggle but I’m pretty happy with the Widex ones and my new Audi. I can even enjoy the Puresound mode now (0.5 sec delay) which strangely improves the sound of my own voice a lot and is very clear although some feedback at times, worth the trade off for me.

Edited

In reply to @WhiteHat

So the class room teacher yells at the student “take your AirPods out”, “Your not listening to music during class”, Student replies “I’m not listening to music”. “These AirPods are my hearing aids and I’m listening to your boring class lecture”. See the dilemma.

Maybe we should have white AirPods for music, movies, messages. And red AirPods for hearing aids. Teaching is hard enough versus guessing who is listening to Taylor Swift on AirPods versus trying to hear biology in the back row.

Just imagine in a couple of years time. A hearing aid type bud with 24 hour life which is just microphones and speaker with all the processing done in the phone. Super fast processor like Phonak’s huge battery, and fast transmission speed between bud & phone with individual programming.

Of course, delivered by flying pigs. (or is that a purely New Zealand expression for the impossible)

In reply to @SayAgain3

With the advent of smart hearing aids and controls on the phone, you sadly aren’t getting the kid away from the ability to stream media during class hours without taking away the primary way to adjust their device. I suppose some of the very-small-children friendly hearing aids are plug-in-play intended, but anything fancy - there’s an app for that. I can’t even turn on directional hearing in Widex without the app.

Technology giveth, technology taketh.

In reply to @cvkemp

They may not be suitable for severe/profound, though I think some in that category have found them to be better than nothing (which is the realistic alternative at that price point). But I don’t think battery life is a real issue for most people. That’s because at $200 each, you can buy two pair for less than you’d pay for most aids and much less than prescription aids. The case is so small that two of them take up less space than a normal hearing aid charger case, and each case holds about three charges. All you’d have to do is quickly switch them out every 4-5 hours throughout the day. It’s not perfect, but it’s worth it to many people to save $1000 or more.

Making hearing devices accessible, maybe not so much price wise but in terms of social appearance, has to be a good thing. Likewise, making a (basic) hearing check easy to access can only help prompt more people to go see a doctor/audiologist. And if you can email the results to your health care professional, even better.

I don’t have a problem with the form factor or battery life. For occasional / situational use both are fine. My airpod pro 2s have been gathering dust since I moved away from Apple phones and I do miss using them.

Has anything changed regarding their suitability for asymmetric hearing losses? If not, you have to wonder how they could possibly call them hearing aids. Are they going to continue to ignore ? Simply not interested if they are. At this point you’d have to think that their main job is to tie people into the Apple ecosystem. Without an Apple iphone to connect with (at the very least), they’re useless. You’d think, too, that the new features would require a newish phone.

Nice gadget, pity it’s made by Apple.

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