Posted on 11/16/2022 7:12:23 AM PST by Red Badger
Hearing loss is thought to affect as much as 15% of American adults, but hearing aids aren’t always easy to come by. A team of scientists exploring low-cost alternatives has turned to Apple’s AirPods as a potential solution, assessing them alongside conventional hearing aids to find they stack up surprisingly well.
Not only are hearing aids expensive, obtaining them usually involves a series of medical exams, a prescription from an audiologist and then follow-up visits to ensure they are properly tuned. US authorities have made moves to improve access to these devices, with the FDA recently establishing a new category for cheaper, over-the-counter hearing aids that meet certain requirements.
Researchers at Taipei Veterans General Hospital have also been exploring ways to improve the quality of life for sufferers of hearing loss. This led them to Apple’s AirPods, which since 2016 have carried a feature called “Live Listen" that enables mobile devices to act as microphones that relay enhanced sound to the user’s earbuds (or Beats headphones).
In their experiments, the researchers compared basic US$1,500 hearing aids, premium $10,000 hearing aids, AirPods 2 and AirPods Pro, the upmarket version of the earbuds with noise cancelling capabilities. The four devices were tested by 21 subjects with mild to moderate hearing loss, with the researchers reading out short sentences and asking the participants to repeat them verbatim.
(Excerpt) Read more at newatlas.com ...
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/970832
https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(22)01708-4
WHAT !
I’m going to have to see if this works for my 90 year old dad. He’s been through a half dozen hearing aids over the years costing 5-6000 a pop. AND THEY DON’T WORK FOR SHIT!
I bought ‘used’ air pod pro’s from Woot for this purpose and I am very happy. Works for me. Plus I get very good headphones for audiobooks and music and answering the phone and getting text messages all through the iphone. Plus I look cool at 60. lol
They work better for me than the hearing aids. Plus I can talk on the phone.
The best thing for those under 40 is to keep the sound levels down, and west ear protection when using power tools. My wife worked in radio for 25 years. Decades of wearing cans on her head has wrecked her hearing.
The best protection is early protection.
Do u need an Apple phone to use these things?
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Between loud music and almost 5400 hours on a C-130 I’m surprised my hearing is better than that of most 18 year olds. I can hear conversations in the next room without any difficulty, as well as the trains that are several miles away, and everything in between. And I’m pushing 70.
What?...............................
Hearing aids and beer don’t mix!! I’ll spare you the details, but countless pairs have perished after a few beers on the boat and jumping in the water forgetting I have them in!!
Yes. You need a device running iOS, from what I have read.
If you have an Android smartfone, Samsung and Sony make similar products. On those, "Live listen" is called "Ambient mode".
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