Why one of the ‘magnificent seven’ is moving into hearing aids

About one in six Australians experience hearing loss.

And even mild loss can have a significant impact on our lives.

Apple’s Hearing Aid and Hearing Test features are now available in Australia.

People with mild hearing loss are twice as likely to develop dementia than those with normal hearing, are more likely to experience loneliness and social isolation, and have a 51 per cent higher chance of having a fall.

Yet, many people with mild to moderate hearing loss never seek help.

In 2021, Apple, in collaboration with the University of Michigan School of Public Health and the World Health Organisation, tested the hearing health of 160,000 adults.

“A number of participants had hearing loss and didn’t know it,” says Dr Rajiv Kumar, a physician-researcher who works at Apple. “That wasn’t surprising to us. But, a lot of them had hearing loss and knew it and 75 per cent of them never went on to use corrective technology.”

Why? “When we dug into why it often dealt with themes like cost or access or stigma.”

On Wednesday, Apple released the Hearing Test and Hearing Aid features in Australia, using the AirPods Pro 2 (retail $399). People can do the Hearing Test on iPhone or iPad, but can use the Hearing Aid feature on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV or anything your AirPods can connect to.

Best suited to people who are on the lower end of the hearing loss spectrum, they are not designed to replace traditional hearing aids. However, Kate Bergeron, Apple’s vice president of Hardware Engineering says they can assist with loud sound reduction, even for those who are not presenting with hearing loss.

Six years in development, the feature was released in the United States and Canada last September. Different standards in Australia meant the Apple’s AirPods Pro 2 were not approved by the Therapeutics Goods Administration (TGA) to be used as hearing aids until December.

The idea to address hearing health began in 2019, with the AirPods pro generation 1, but they lacked the capability at that time.

Apple used its in-house anechoic chamber, which creates a noise and echo-free environment via wall-to-wall protruding foam prisms, to test the sound in the hearing aid feature to ensure it was as natural as possible.

In an audio lab, 50 speakers hooked to a spherical dome create various soundscapes, like the ambient noise in a restaurant, to allow developers to fine tune the hearing aid feature.

Though, at a normal conversation level, they were close to the most widely used hearing aid prescription in the world, NAL-NL2, the AirPods under amplified soft sounds and over amplified loud sounds.

Today, however, Apple has improved these issues.

Nicky Chong‑White, the principal engineer at the National Acoustic Laboratories, has been testing the hearing features in her lab since Apple first released headphone accommodations in 2019.

“The new version is close to our own hearing aid prescription for a typical mild hearing loss,” says Chong‑White.

The journalist inside the anechoic chamber at Apple.

And, as a popular consumer device, they can remove a lot of the stigma attached to traditional hearing aids. “I see them as situational devices,” she says. “If you go to a noisy place you put them in for an hour, and then you take them out.”

Karen Hirschausen, the principal audiologist at Hearing Australia, adds that it can take people up to 10 years to get hearing help: “The hearing health features in Apple AirPods Pro 2 may encourage people to take that first step sooner. Although they may not be suitable for everyone, they’re an option for those who have a mild to moderate hearing loss.”

AirPods are limited in their power output. This means that for those with quite severe hearing loss, it can’t make the sounds loud enough.

“Also, the higher tech hearing aids have quite a lot of features,” Chong‑White explains. “They automatically switch programs, they detect speech, they can focus microphones in a certain direction and can make it narrow to focus just on one person and block out people to the side and behind.”

Her husband, who suffers from hearing loss, still requires advanced professionally-fit hearing aids: “That’s what he needs, but there’s a large population who don’t wear hearing aids who do have hearing loss or hearing difficulty and I see it as a product that can help.”

Kumar hopes the feature can make people more aware of their hearing and changes over time, and for those who develop hearing loss, enhance their surrounding environment.

The writer was a guest of Apple.

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