From the moment Apple unveiled its hearing health feature suite for the AirPods Pro at its September 9 It’s Glowtime event, my curiosity peaked. Building upon on Apple’s other health features, this upgrade is intended to, among other things, turn the AirPods Pro second-generation into over-the-counter hearing aids for folks with mild to moderate hearing loss via a free software update. The potential benefits for millions of people were obvious, and enormous.
The feature was promised to arrive in October, and soon after the event Apple received approval in the United States via the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on September 12, 2024. Now, we can reveal that Apple plans to start rolling out its hearing health feature for AirPods Pro 2 during the week of October 28, 2024. I’ve spent the last week using a pair of AirPods Pro 2 with hearing health features – and my father, Henry Krol, who suffers from mild hearing issues, has been using another.
