Hearing aids are expensive, but FDA's greenlight of Apple AirPods Pro may change that
A hearing aid usually costs thousands of dollars.
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Key notes
- The FDA approved AirPods Pro as an affordable over-the-counter hearing aid.
- Users can adjust hearing settings through iOS devices without a medical exam.
- AirPods Pro will also feature Hearing Protection and a Hearing Test.
The US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) has just greenlit the first over-the-counter hearing aid software, called Hearing Aid Feature (HAF), designed for use with compatible Apple AirPods Pro headphones.
This software lets folks with mild to moderate hearing loss customize their hearing aid settings directly through their iOS devices without needing a medical exam or audiologist. That’s a big jump, considering how hearing aids usually cost thousands of dollars while AirPods Pro costs hundreds.
“The HAF was evaluated in a clinical study with 118 subjects with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss, at multiple US sites,” says the authoritative body, showing similar benefits to professionally fitted hearing aids.
The AirPods Pro will also introduce a Hearing Protection mode for loud environments and a Hearing Test that integrates with the Apple Health app to create personalized audio profiles.
The latest, second generation of AirPods Pro arrived back in 2022, but its USB-C variant was only launched in September 2023 with IP54 dust resistance. Apple launched the hearing aid feature just a few days ago in the 2nd generation of AirPods Pro fresh off the iPhone 16 & iOS 18 launch event, with rollout starting this fall.
Results also showed comparable performance for tests measuring levels of amplification in the ear canal, as well as a measure of speech understanding in noise. No adverse events related to the device were observed in this study,” the FDA says.
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