Apple's Glowtime event had some massive announcements for some of our favorite devices. For AirPods fanatics, the AirPods 4 where a great update to the base model of the little white buds, bringing some new features, a new look, and a new charging port to the table. Some of the most exciting, however, were the health features coming to the AirPods Pro 2.
With three new hearing health features, the AirPods Pro 2 are now Apple's way of making sure that its users aren't damaging some of their most important body parts, and that they get to keep their hearing in tip-top condition.
Why are the new features so important?
If you were anything like me as a kid, you hopped on the school bus and jacked the volume of your headphones up to ungodly levels so that you could block out the cacophony of flying sandwiches, screaming children, and rattling diesel powered double decker wagon.
Since then I've taken better care of my hearing, only popping the volume up to around 50% when I listen to my music, but I'm still concerned about the damage I might have done to myself.
The AirPods Pro 2 are bringing a range of different hearing features to the AirPods Pro 2 that feel like they're aimed squarely at people like me. Apple has developed a three-prong approach to hearing features, in the form of Prevention, Awareness, and Assistance.
These three all work together to help protect your hearing, prevent hearing damage, and then help those who have hearing problems in perhaps one of the most ingenious uses of noise-canceling microphones since ANC first appeared in a pair of headphones.
Prevention
Hearing damage is something that we're all liable to be a victim of, whether you blast 90s nu-metal or not. Just wandering around outside exposes you to some extremely loud noises, from busy roads, noisy building sites, or cacophonous subway stations and trains.
The prevention parts of the new AirPods Pro 2 hearing features are designed to reduce the noise from these real-world sources, using the noise canceling microphones and the passive seal from the silicon ear tips to stop loud, potentially dangerous noise from reaching your ears.
The idea is that even if you don't have noise canceling active, you'll still have all the worst noise blocked out to protect your hearing. Like wearing a more comfortable pair of safety ear muffs, albeit ones that play music. This could be great for everyone, but there's one group in particular who could benefit from loud noises being blocked while still being able to hear the world around them.
Some people struggle with loud, intrusive noises to the point they have to wear big, clumsy, and uncomfortable ear defenders. That also blocks out the rest of the world, leaving them susceptible to potentially dangerous situations where they can't hear what's happening around them. Apple's new mode, however, could help out, letting them hear the wider world while blocking out the sounds that they struggle with.
Awareness
I initially thought this feature was all about being aware of the world around you (something that ANC has made more difficult than ever, for better or worse) but instead, it's about being aware of your overall hearing health.
Using the AirPods Pro 2, you'll be able to make a "personalized hearing profile" that shows you just how healthy your hearing is, giving you a picture of the kind of frequencies you can (and by extension can't) here.
The test is kept privately in the Health App, and you can show it to hearing professionals so that you can have deeper conversations about your hearing. It's not necessarily the hearing health part of this feature that I find interesting and exciting here, however — it's what it's going to mean for personalized audio.
Using your hearing profile, the AirPods Pro 2 are going to make what is effectively a personalized EQ that can be used for games, movies, and, more importantly, music. It reads your profile, works out how well you can hear each element of your chosen medial, and then creates an EQ that will sound the best to you and your hearing.
No longer will the AirPods Pro 2 sound profile be one size fits all — now, everyone's buds will have a sound signature that suits their hearing. Bear in mind that this isn't something that will let you dial in the bass or treble, instead making sure that the neutral sound profile is preserved so that everyone can hear the AirPods as they were meant to be heard.
Assistance
Perhaps the most impressive part of the new health feature lineup. The AirPods Pro 2 are going to become, according to Apple, a pair of "clinical grade" hearing aids for people who have mild to moderate hearing loss.
Using the microphones on the outside of the earbuds, the AirPods Pro 2 will use your hearing profile to make it easier to hear your surroundings. There's little more to it than that, although what we're getting is extremely exciting.
While they won't be quite as impressive as a pair of hearing aids that you might get from a healthcare provider, it actually brings the price of admission down by a massive margin.
Hearing aids are incredibly expensive, often costing thousands of dollars a set. The AirPods Pro 2 cost $249, a whole lot less than a pair of hearing aids. At the moment, this feature is awaiting authorization from global health authorities, but it could bring better hearing to those that couldn't traditionally afford hearing aids.
It's not often you can describe an Apple product as a budget-friendly option, but here we find ourselves.
