I’ve tried several hearing aid substitutes over the years, my past favorite being the now unavailable Bose Hearphones and costing $500. Rather than just a sound amplifier, these had several functions allowing you to filter and focus sounds in various ways and for various situations. They were pretty good.
But now Apple has added some great features to their AirPods 2—features that function like far more expensive hearing aids and at less than half the price of the Bose product. I’ve owned these for a month or so and am now just getting the hang of how to use them. If there is a downside to these earbuds it is the rather deep and confusing tech included in them (or, at least confusing for a grandfatherly type like me). Once they are Bluetooth connected to your iPhone (They connect very easily with the button on the front of the EarPod’s charging case.) they should automatically connect every time you put them in your ears. You will then be able to access all the functions by tapping the “settings” app on your phone. You will find a heading near the top of the list just below the box with your name and iCloud options. Tapping on this will allow you to drill down through several pages of options. There are a lot of options there and it can be confusing, but experimenting with the various functions will help you figure out their purpose.
The key here is to drill down to find the hearing test. This will quickly test for hearing loss by leading you through a series of tones of varying in pitch and volume. The end result will be an audiogram that can be used to program your EarPods as hearing aids. As stated before, it took me several weeks to find and activate this feature, but when I did a whole new experience dawned. Just be patient and search around for this function. It works very well.
Of course, these things also serve as EarPods to listen to music or podcasts. (May I recommend “Pat Gray Unleashed!” if your bent is conservative commentary and just plain fooling around). The quality of sound is phenomenal and the buds are more comfortable than most to keep in your ears for an extended time. To control the volume for this function you can TRY to use the external control buttons located on those silly looking stems that hang out of your ears (good luck) OR just open the “Control Center” page (slide one finger upward on your iPhone screen to access this page) where you’ll find the volume slider. If your EarPods are connected and in your ears you’ll see the slider is marked as controlling the AirPods.
I really like these things now that I’m a little more familiar with them. The quality and value are exquisite. If I discover more, I’ll edit this comment.
4 MONTHS LATER: Apple has improved the controls for these in their latest iOS update. The functions I had to dig around to find are now more easily accessed. Getting to the hearing test is now fairly straight forward.
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Compared to Sony WF-1000XM5 earbuds
Sony WF-1000XM5 vs Apple AirPods Pro 2Amazon had the airpods on sale so I decided to try them because they are the first earbuds with a clinical-grade hearing aid function. They do a hearing test and adjust the tones for each ear just like professionally fitted hearing aids. Because my hearing loss is largely in the human voice range, they work great for dialogue. Podcasts sound really good. They also help with conversations in noisy environments, because you can have them do background noise reduction.But the Sonys are far better for music. More detailed and fuller sounding. They have better noise reduction outdoors, in cars and aircraft. They're better outdoors because they cancel wind whoosh around the ears way better than the airpods. So for outdoor use, Sony wins.For indoor use around people and having conversations, the airpods easily win.
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- Reviewed in the United States on December 3, 2024
