Many older people refuse to get hearing aids for three reasons: they’re seriously expensive, there’s a lot of consulting with specialists to get them properly tuned, and they make old people … look old.
A 2020 Macquarie University study found that among people who have a hearing aid, 20 to 40 per cent don’t use them frequently or even at all.
And those who do use hearing aids have typically waited at least 10 years before doing anything about their hearing difficulties.
Vanity thy name is grandpa!
On the other hand, earbuds – or all-the-rage wireless headphones – are worn without shame by young and old.
A rumour takes hold
Over the last six years, word has seeped out that Apple’s AirPods – the wireless headphones that each contain two microphones – have an amplification facility controlled via one’s iPhone.
This has led to some seniors groups and activists to spruik AirPods as a cheaper form of hearing aid for people with mild to moderate hearing loss.
Where hearing aids cost thousands of dollars, AirPods costs a couple of hundred.
Inevitably, scientists have stepped in and tested these claims, and found they more or less hold up.
The study
Researchers from the Taipei Veterans General Hospital compared Airpods 2 (second generation AirPods) and AirPods Pro, which have a noice cancelling feature, with a premium quality hearing aid and a basic pair of hearing aids.
The premium hearing aids cost AUD$14,840 and the basic type cost AUD$2232. AirPods 2 cost AUD$193 and AirPods Pro costing AUD$372.
The four devices were tested with 21 participants with mild to moderate hearing loss.
The researchers read a short sentence, such as “the electricity bills went up recently” to participants, who were asked to repeat their words verbatim wearing the devices.
The AirPods Pro performed “similarly well compared with basic hearing aids in a quiet environment and is slightly inferior to premium hearing aids”, the study said.
AirPods 2 had the lowest performance among the four devices, but “helped participants hear more clearly compared with wearing no hearing aids”.
In a noisy environment, AirPods Pro showed “comparable performance to premium hearing aids when the noises came from the lateral direction of the participant”.
But when the noises came from the front of the participants, both AirPods models failed to help participants hear better.
How does it work?
Dr Ying-Hui Lai, the study’s co-author and a bioengineer at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in Taipei, said the premium hearing aids likely benefited from an advanced signal processing algorithm.
“This finding will hopefully inspire engineers to design hearing aids and personal sound amplification products that are more sensitive in certain directions.” he said.
The AirPods Pro’s better performance was “likely because of its noise-canceling feature”.
AirPods Pro was found to meet four out of five of the ANSI/CTA-2051 (US consumer law) electroacoustic standards for over-the-counter hearing assistance devices.
The researchers advised that AirPods Pro can indeed “serve as a hearing assistive device for mild-to-moderate hearing loss”.
For a step-by-step guide for turning your AirPods into a hearing aid, click here.
And hey, you’ll look cool!
