AirPods Pro work well as affordable hearing aids, claims study

(Image Courtesy: Apple)

A new medical study has found that Apple's AirPods Pro wireless earbuds can be used as an affordable alternative to hearing aids for people with mild-to-moderate hearing loss.

The report published by iScience journal tested the "Live Listen" function on AirPods that allow a paired iPhone to act as a microphone and relay sound to the earbuds. The feature wasn't built with hearing loss in mind but was designed to help users reduce ambient noise in loud environments.

Researchers from Taipei Veterans General Hospital in Taiwan conducted a study on whether Apple's AirPods 2 and Pro could be used as Personal Sound Amplification Products (PSAP). PSAPs are affordable alternatives to hearing aids without medical certification.

For the study, the researchers compared Apple's earbuds against two hearing aids that cost $1,500 and $10,000 each. AirPods Pro and AirPods 2 were launched for $249 and $129, respectively.

The four devices were tested in a sample group of 21 people with mild-to-moderate hearing loss. The participants were then read short sentences which they had to repeat verbatim.

The AirPods Pro performed comparably to basic hearing aids in a quiet environment but were inferior to the more premium range aids. The AirPods 2 performed the worst out of all four devices but participants were still able to hear better with them than without them, the study said.

In a noisy environment, the AirPods Pro performed just as well as the premium hearing aids when the noises came from the sides. When the noise originated from the front of the participants, the hearing aids performed better.

The study concluded that while the AirPods weren't perfect, they were still "a good starting point for many patients who don’t have access to professional hearing aids. They will see an increase in quality of life even with these earbuds".

The researchers also said AirPods would also help patients get over the social stigma associated with hearing aids and the fear of looking old while wearing them.