Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, Nov. 18 (Xinhua)-- A study shows that AirPods Pro can be used as a hearing aid, and its performance is as good as tens of thousands of dollars of high-end special hearing aids. In its roadmap to improve accessibility, Apple has made hearing aid a medium-term development goal for AirPods, and has achieved some results.

CTOnews.com learned that professional hearing aids are very complex and sophisticated devices that can filter unwanted frequency ranges and focus on specific directions, so that hearing impaired users can hear other people's conversations, surrounding sounds, and so on more clearly.

However, such professional hearing aids are expensive. A typical mid-range hearing aid usually costs several thousand dollars, while high-end hearing aids sell for more than $10,000.

It also means that many people with hearing impairment cannot afford the high cost of hearing aids. According to a survey, only 1/6 of Americans under the age of 70 who need hearing aids have hearing aids.

Apple has long been interested in hearing aids. As early as 2013, the company's MFi program expanded to allow iPhone to add features to Bluetooth hearing aids.

In 2018, iOS 12 added real-time listening (Live Listen), while Apple last year introduced dialogue enhancement (Conversation Boost) for the AirPods Pro, which enhances the microphone pick-up directly in front of you to better communicate with others.

A study published in the journal iScience on Tuesday found that Apple's AirPods Pro's sound amplification can help adults with mild to moderate hearing loss hear sounds, and its performance is comparable to that of two professional prescription hearing aids.

The study pointed out that although the AirPods Pro does not meet the FDA hearing aid standards, the sound amplified by the device is as good as that of other hearing aid devices. However, the scale of the study was small, and objective tests found that AirPods Pro met four of the five hearing aid standards.

In the sound and articulation tests used to evaluate the performance of some hearing aids, AirPods Pro met the established standards in four of the five categories, while AirPods 2 met the standards in two aspects.

Ying-Hui Lai, an associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at National Yangming University in Taiwan and co-author of the study, said that AirPods Pro exceeds the ideal threshold for internal noise levels, which may make it more difficult for users to distinguish between lighter sounds and sounds.

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