Not unusual for me: listening to music while working. But keeping in my AirPods Pro 2 during work meetings? That felt strange.
It’s been more than a month since I was in California for Apple’s Keynote, where the health—er, tech—company announced a variety of well-being–focused updates that blew my mind, both as the Editor-of-Chief of Women’s Health and a person who has been covering this space for more than 20 years. Sleep disturbance monitoring! Training load tracking! And most whoa of all: That its popular AirPods Pro 2 headphones would soon double as clinical-grade hearing aids. As a longtime AirPods Pro 2 user—I commute in them, wear them running, work out with them, and listen to podcasts while cooking—I couldn’t wait to try the new hearing features.
Fast forward to October. Over the past week, I secretly tested all of the new hearing health functionality. Beginning the week of October 28, it will be available to anyone running the newest operating system on their iPhone, iPad or Mac with a pair of AirPods Pros (yes, even the old ones).
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Listen up: Hearing health matters.
Hearing loss can be caused by myriad factors including genetics, viral infections, overexposure to loud noises, and more. The condition falls into four categories, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): mild, moderate, severe, or profound. It can affect one ear or both ears, making it challenging to hear conversational speech and loud sounds. Our day-to-day lives quite literally explode with dangerously high noise levels, from loudly squabbling children and vacuum cleaners to SoulCycle classes and subway platforms. (At least, that’s my version.)
No matter the reason hearing loss develops, the negative effects are powerful: Studies have shown that the condition often leads to social isolation and loneliness, which impacts mental, emotional and physical health. It can affect cognition, communication, and speech. In many cases, a person’s productivity and work suffers.
And hearing loss is much more common than most people realize: It will affect an estimated 2.5 billion people by 2050, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Currently, about 5 percent of adults ages 45–54 have disabling hearing loss, according to the National Institute of Health and Other Communication Disorders. The rate increases to 10 percent for adults ages 55–64, 22 percent for folks who are 65–74, and, at 75-years-old and up, it affects 55 percent of people.
Apple leveraged the design of their AirPods Pro 2 to make testing a cinch.
Arriving at this moment has been a long, science-backed journey for Apple, including extensive research studies, accreditation, and recently, FDA approval.
Given how prevalent hearing loss is, and how much it impacts life, we could all benefit from hearing tests just like we do annual eye exams and regular mammograms. But, real talk: When is the last time you got your hearing checked? For me, it was 30+ years ago, as a kid in my annual check-up at the pediatrician’s office.
The DIY experience begins with a hearing test.
Once you’re ready to rock and roll (but, shhh, quietly), open Settings on your iPhone, and select your AirPods Pro. Under Hearing Health, choose “Take a Hearing Test.”
You’ll need five minutes, plus a very, very quiet room. I tried doing the test in my Women’s Health office with my door closed, but frustratingly couldn’t get the test going due to “too much noise.” (We do have some legit white noise in our New York City building.) Basically, if there is any ambient audio—even an air conditioner, heater, or fan—the test won’t launch.
You need to be in a very quiet room to launch the hearing test.
Eventually, I found a spot at work—an empty theater space—that was completely silent.
The test begins by confirming your pods fit correctly: Crucially, the silicone ear tip creates a seamless lock in your ear. You may be prompted to re-size yours if the fit isn’t perfect. (Mine were good-to-go.)
The exam starts on your left ear. Your job: Tap your screen when you hear an audio tone. Each audio tone pulses three times—you only have to catch one—and you touch your screen when you hear each sound. (I am not a musician, but here’s the best I can describe them: Some sound soft, some are loud, others are high-pitched and almost whine-y, while a few seemed deep and robust. These reflect different frequencies and decibel levels.) After a couple of minutes, the test moves on to your right ear, and you repeat the process.
I’m ultra-competitive, so I like to win any test, and felt my heart rate rise as the sounds became more difficult to hear. But there is no way to “beat” or “game” this test by tapping faster, or by preemptively anticipating those sounds. Just take deep breaths, relax, and tap when you hear one. Even non-tech savvy folks can handle this.
Once the test is over, your screen immediately displays the results. You’ll receive a “decibels of hearing level” score for each ear, which is how loud something needs to be to register you hearing it. I did not have hearing loss.
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My hearing was in the healthy range, but I still wanted to experience the hearing aid capabilities.
I recruited my husband, Matt, to join me in my experiment. He’s a 45-year-old researcher. Technically, multiple family members can share a pair of AirPods Pros 2 to take the test, but experts don’t recommended sharing stuff that’s been inside your ears. (I deeply love my husband; still, I didn’t want to mix our ear wax.)
My husband Matt, working from home while wearing his Air Pods Pro 2. (He’s a trooper for participating in this roadtest!)
Matt grew up with a constant case of swimmers ear, frequent ear infections, and has always struggled with air pressure changes while on planes. A couple of years ago, he began to notice he was experiencing some difficulty hearing, particularly on his right side, and especially after travel or being sick. Doctors have told him he has “eustachian tube dysfunction,” which flying, colds, Covid, etc. exacerbate.
Like many busy adults—with work, travel, three kiddos, our dog, life—he’s never dealt with getting his hearing checked. And even if a doctor diagnosed him with hearing loss (situational or otherwise), he wasn’t exactly eager to be told he needed to buy and wear hearing aids. In many ways, he’s the perfect candidate for Apple’s health level-up: He already regularly wears AirPods Pro 2s and can spare five minutes to take the test at home.
When he took the hearing test, sure enough, the headphones detected mild hearing loss in his right ear.
Meanwhile, his left ear scored “little to no loss.” Considering how much we talk about his ear stuff—and how much our three kiddos and I tease him when he asks us to repeat ourselves—it was a powerful reminder that even mild hearing loss impacts a person. Moderate? Severe? The effects intensify significantly.
Matt took the test a second time—because he’s a researcher and that’s what they do!—and received virtually the exact same score for each ear. Once you have your hearing test results, but only if deemed necessary due to mild to moderate hearing loss, your iPhone prompts you to enable your Air Pods Pro 2 as hearing aids.
Enter AirPods Pro as hearing aid.
Matt continued playing guinea pig because my test didn’t unlock that option, and immediately began wearing the AirPods Pro 2/hearing aid around the apartment on a day he worked from home.
“The hearing aid feature is cool,” he texted me after a couple hours of engaging with environmental sounds. But he also enjoyed how his audio consumption was affected. “Media assist changes the volume for content like music and podcasts, and it’s awesome,” he texted. In other words, it doesn’t just amplify audio around you, but also modifies the sounds of what you listen to. (Users can calibrate their personalized settings for amplification, tone, and balance, and add more environmental hearing assistance for voices and speech with the Conversation Boost settings.)
Wearing them in public settings, like the gym and a bar in our Brooklyn neighborhood, sparked some reluctance. “I don’t want people to think I’m being rude by leaving them in while talking to them,” he said. I know what he meant: I felt awkward just wearing mine around the office for an afternoon, to get the feel of how the WH staff reacted. (My strategy: When I engaged with a teammate, I immediately shared that I was testing the AirPods Pro 2 for a story, not being anti-social.)
I attempted some work meetings at the WH offices while wearing my AirPods Pro 2s, like a one-on-one with WH’s Senior Digital Designer, Abby Shuster.
Hopefully, any stigma around wearing AirPods Pro 2 to a restaurant, in a movie, etc. fades as people adopt them as hearing aids. Much like we all felt a little strange wearing face masks for a while back in 2020, it eventually became normal-ish. (Plus, is there anything more important than your health and safety? Nope!)
AirPods Pro 2 help prevent hearing loss before it begins.
In addition to the hearing test and hearing aid functionality, Apple wants to help protect your hearing before issues arise. One example: Active Noise Cancellation utilizes high fidelity microphones and pro-level computational audio powered by the AirPods Pro 2’s H2 chip to quickly detect and remove environmental sounds in real time. Behind the scenes, some super-smart acoustic algorithm software works with hardware to remove unwanted noise. (AirPods Pro 2 deliver Active Noise Cancellation that is twice as powerful as both the original AirPods Pro and the new AirPods.)
Another example: The Apple Watch (fyi, I reviewed the new Series 10 last month) allows you to opt into notifications about the noise level in your environment when it’s dangerously high. Turn it on in your settings if you haven’t already. It helps you understand just how often you’re exposed to high-decibel noise, as well as when to remove yourself from an environment that’s loud.
Apple has also included educational info about hearing loss/prevention in the Health app if you want to go down the rabbit hole and learn more. The Hearing Protection feature works with AirPods Pro 2 when paired with a compatible iPhone, iPad, or Mac running the latest operating system. The new hearing health features will be available across both USB-C and lightning charging models starting the week of October 28, the feature will be available in the U.S. and Canada.
You can also track environmental noise exposure over time in the Health app. And in the Hearing Protection settings, you can enable the Reduce Loud Audio feature for individual headphone settings. A caveat: Do not rely on your AirPods Pro 2 to protect your ears from the really loud, fireworks-level stuff above 110 dB.
The final word: Hear me out!
I say (okay, I whisper) this emphatically and urgently: The device is worth the investment because it could positively impact your hearing for the rest of your life.
If you already have a pair of AirPods Pro 2, take the five minutes for the hearing test a part of your self-care routine. (Even #mealprep takes longer!) And please, activate all of the hearing loss prevention features, which you can find in your Health app.
While you can’t rewind the clock and un-do previous exposure to loud noise, you can start taking action to protect year hearing today.
Liz Plosser is the editor-in-chief of Women’s Health. She’s been passionately reporting and editing health, fitness, nutrition, sexual health, and mental health content for her entire career. She has a 360-degree outlook on the wellness world, having worked across platforms at print magazines (Self, Cosmopolitan), with video (CosmoBody), overseeing content and strategy for brands (Canyon Rach, SoulCycle) and as SVP of Content in the digital space (Well+Good).
