2024-09-13 11:59:44
The United States health authorities on Thursday gave Apple permission to install a new feature on AirPods, its wireless headphones, allowing them to turn into a hearing aid for people with low to moderate hearing. Users will be able to test their own hearing in minutes by downloading the latest software update to their Apple phone or tablet (iPhone or iPad) for free.
The headphones will be able to “amplify sounds” based on the result and the user will be able to adjust “volume and tone settings,” wrote the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in a press release. “Hearing loss is a public health problem that affects millions of Americans,” said Michelle Tarver, FDA official.
“Raise the frequencies so the sounds are clear”
This non-prescription device “on the widely used hearing aid product is a new step that improves availability, access and adoption of hearing aid,” he added. The product, authorized for adults aged 18 and over, was tested in a clinical trial with 118 people. The results show that those who implement the reforms on themselves “obtain similar benefits recommended to people who receive prescriptions from a professional on the same device,” the FDA wrote.
By 2022, the agency authorized the purchase of hearing aids directly at the store, without a prescription or adjustment with a hearing aid professional, in order to reduce costs and improve access to them. The headphones compatible with this new device will be AirPods Pro 2, the price of which is 249 dollars without taxes (279 euros in France), Apple announced on Monday.
The Apple company explains that the device works by “amplifying the frequencies so that the sounds are clear”. Apple hopes that this feature will be – subject to approval from local health authorities – available “this fall in more than 100 countries and regions”, including Germany and Japan in addition to the United States.
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