AirPod Pro 2 as hearing device

Question and Answer
#21

That’s what I’m hoping for, actually. I do have several back up pairs of aids if my OPN would go bad, but they’re so old that I’m not sure how well they’d work or if I’d be happy with them like I was anymore now that I’m spoiled with the OPN. I’ve had the OPNs since 2017 and the pair before that (Costco Rexton) was probably around 2013, which seems like an eon ago.

If the Airpods Pro 2 can adequately serve as backup for my OPNs when I travel just so I can get by, I’d rather bring the Airpods Pro 2 with me for backup than my old antiquated pair of Rexton HAs. In fact, there was another recent thread in this forum where a More user had his Smart Charger die on him in the middle of a trip, and I suggested maybe buy the Airpods Pro 2 just to get by if he can’t find another Smart Charger where he was. He was able to “rent” a Smart Charger from a local HCP in the end, though. Of course I checked that his hearing loss isn’t severe or profound across the whole range before suggesting this.

#22

So I thought I’d see how the Airpods went at helping me watch a movie with clear personalised sound. Looking forward to doing without subtitles, I connected it to a Google Chromecast with TV. The result was crap. No hearing accomodations of any kind. The muddiest sound I’ve had out of a pair of buds or headphones. Once you go out of the ecosystem it makes you do a little work to get back in. The phone and the buds do not reconnect automatically. You put the buds back in their charging case and give the button the case a long press.

It looks to me that Apple have taken deliberate steps to limit the functionality of their devices once you go outside their ecosystem. I’m pretty sure you’d get full functionality if you were connected to an Apple TV box. Disappointing.

#23

What? Are you saying that the audiogram compensation effect does not work with a non-Apple Bluetooth device? Are you sure?

I read this article https://www.xda-developers.com/apple-airpods-2-android-support/ and it says that you’re only losing the following features with using Android (see screenshot below) which doesn’t include the audiogram stuff. But maybe they didn’t activate the audiogram bit so they didn’t know to include this limitation. If this is true then I’m probably not going to keep it as I was hoping I could watch movies with it on my PC laptop.

The Airpods control optimization as shown in the second screenshot below talks about control customization and not about the audiogram personalization.

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#24

Actually, I might have done something stupid (like accidentally resetting the buds or something). I would have deleted the post if there were no replies. I’ll try again later and report if there’s a problem.

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#25

Well, I don’t know. You may be right after all. I think it depends on where Apple choses to store the personalization. If it’s stored inside the iOS itself and not sent in and stored inside the actual Airpods ear pieces, then this audiogram personalization will only be applied and amplified accordingly by the iOS device before being sent to the Airpods from the iOS. The non-iOS devices that you pair with would not have this personalization stored inside them, so the non-iOS devices would only send standardized BT sounds when streaming.

But then what about the transparency mode? It must be using the mics from the Airpods Pro 2 so if the audiogram personalization is not stored in the ear pieces per se, then how would it apply the audiogram personalization if your iPhone is turned off, for example (or if you don’t have it near you).

#26

I tried it again and it still sounded bad, but a different kind of bad. It could be because the connection would be using the basic SBC codec and Apple gear is optimised around AAC (and while I’m in paranoid mode it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that Apple would not try terribly hard to make the opposition sound good).

Anyway, this time it connected straight back into the iphone when I turned off the other device, so the issue I was ranting about is probably a non-issue.

#27

And while I’m here, the noise cancellation on these things is unbelievable. I’m in the car with my daughter and the radio’s on reasonably loud. I turn on noise cancellation and all I can hear is the folk-rock playing on the airpods. It’s seriously weird.

#28

The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that the audiogram personalization is stored on the iOS device and not uploaded and stored on the Airpods Pro 2 ear pieces, so you would lose this audiogram personalization once you step out of your iOS environment. I guess if you have multiple iOS devices like an iPhone and an iPad, you’ll probably need to set up the audiogram personalization multiple times separately on each of those devices. But then I can be wrong about this, too. Boy I hope somebody would be able to prove me wrong, actually.

Because the ANC and Transparency mode is built into the H2 chip inside the ear pieces, it should work in any OS environment, non-iOS included. However, now I’m beginning to wonder if the Transparency mode would have the audiogram personalization inclusion or not. If the audiogram personalization inclusion is only coming from your iOS device’s streaming audio, Apple may not bother to design the H2 chip to send environmental sounds (picked up by the Airpods Pro 2 mics) back to the iPhone just to pick up and include the audiogram personalization then route it back to the Airpods ear pieces.
That’s understandable because it can cause a noticeable latency lag from the real environmental sounds, which is undesirable.

So I guess the question here is if someone (@d_Wooluf or anyone else as well) can try it out and share if they think they can hear the environmental sounds in the Transparency mode with their own audiogram personalization included, or not? OK, so even if I’m limited to staying within the iOS realm to get my audiogram personalization included in the streaming audio, if the Transparency mode does not have the audiogram personalization included even inside the iOS realm (like I’m afraid it may not), then the Airpods Pro 2 can’t really be useful as a crude backup HA anyway.

#29

I’m pretty sure the audiogram is stored in the Airpod Pros. I can’t test it now, but with my AirPods Pro (first gen) I could turn off my iPhone and use them as hearing aids.

However, I’m not sure if streaming from a non-iOS device uses the audiogram. It doesn’t really make sense if the audiogram is only used in transparency mode or when streaming from iOS. I can test this next week.

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#30

I’ve since connected to a Google Nest speaker as well and I still can’t say for sure. I think the audiogram is used but the audio quality is reduced by quite a lot compared to playing through the iphone. I’ll try an old Android phone tomorrow that should use AAC and I’ll see if that sounds any better.

#31

I’ve now connected the APP2s to four different non-Apple devices. At this point, I don’t think hearing accommodations has been applied to any of them. Sound is pretty awful in fact. I’ve tried a Chromecast / TV, Google Nest, Windows laptop, and an Android phone. Has no-one else tried to do this? As of now, I’ll probably still keep them, but if I were planning to use them for Zoom meetings I wouldn’t be happy at all.

I’m assuming that the Airpods know if they’re connected to an Apple device and if they’re not they switch off some features.

#32

That’s interesting and disappointing to hear. I’ve only connected to my iPhone, my son’s iPad, and my Apple Watch. They performed as expected. I wonder if this was an intentional design choice or if there is a technical reason that prevents them from being used with the audiogram profile.

My biggest wish at this point is that it was possible to edit the loaded audiogram. I feel I could get more clarity by increasing the gain in the 3000 Hz range a bit, but in order to do that I need to load a new Audiogram, manually update each frequency, save, etc. Also they make my ears sore after wearing for more than 30 mins, but I think my ears are getting used to them and it’s diminishing.

#33

Well, I got my Airpods Pro 2 today, and I had a chance to test it tonight. I’ll share my findings below. But if you don’t care to read the very long post, I’ll just summarize it right here by saying that I didn’t find the Airpods Pro 2 to be “hearing-aided” device that picks up environmental sounds. I only find it to be a “streaming-aided” device, and it’s only limited to specific Apple devices where you have an iOS version that can support loading up your audiogram or customization based on your hearing loss, and where you have done the customization of your hearing loss for that device only. It doesn’t share it with other Apple devices automatically.

OK, so here goes the long post:

First off, I only have an iPhone 7 Plus, and it only goes up to iOS 15.7.1 and not iOS 16. Only iPhone 8 and up can get iOS 16 support from Apple. So right off the bat, when my iPhone 7+ detected the Airpods Pro 2, it complained that my iPhone does not have the latest iOS and therefore I’d only get limited functionality from the Airpods Pro 2.

I was bummed, but I have an iPad and found that I can update it to iOS 16.1.1. So I did, but when I tried to upload my audiogram on it via the Headphone Accomodations → Custom Audio Setup on my iPad, I was not given a choice to load my audiogram as expected per the online instructions from various websites/YouTube videos. Out of desperation, I went back to my iPhone 7+ to connect to the Airpods Pro 2, and lo and behold, it connected without the complain that my iPhone 7+ doesn’t have the necessary iOS version (16) for full Airpods Pro 2 functionalities like it did before. I don’t know why, but maybe the initial connection with the iOS 16.1.1 on my iPad did some magic to keep the Airpods Pro 2 happy now, even though my iPhone 7+ is still only on iOS 15.7.1.

It still doesn’t make sense to me because I don’t think that an iOS device can “write” something into the Airpods Pro 2. It’d make more sense that the Airpods Pro 2 does the query when it tries to pair up with an iOS device to see which version the device has to determine how well it’s supported. Or maybe the iOS device scans and sees the Airpods Pro 2 and determines that it doesn’t necessarily have the latest iOS version to support the Airpods Pro 2 and sends out the warning. But I’ll take a small lucky victory on this and move on, even though it doesn’t make any sense.

Anyway, so moving ahead, I was surprised to be able to find the option to upload my audiogram on my 15.7.1 iPhone 7+, to my chagrin, even though my iOS 16.1.1 iPad doesn’t allow this option. How ironic is that??? Anyway, I tried both loading options of either taking a photo of my professional audiogram, or using a saved pic of it, and the loading software couldn’t read much any of the info on it at all. So much for claiming that it can intelligently decipher any professionally made audiogram from just a picture or a file → BS. I thought I was thoroughly impressed when I heard that it’d be smart enough to scan any audiogram pic → should have known better…, But at least it allowed me to fix the missing data, which was virtually almost all of the data points, by hand, then save it. By the way, the available data points on my hand-input audiogram is pretty bare, at 125 Hz, 250, 500, 1K, 2K, 4K and 8K. I’m not sure if you can add a 3K data point even if you have the data, @a13z , because 3K is not an option in the data point set I saw.

So now with an audiogram loaded, I was able to verify that the Audio & Visual ->Headphone Accommodations → Tune Audio For → Audiogram. I tried playing a YouTube song and was able to hear the amplified highs. It was nowhere near as good as my OPN’s amplified highs, but I guess it was better than nothing. BUT, that’s ONLY when I stream from my iPhone 7+.

If I stream the same YouTube song from my iPad, the music was unaided (no amplified highs). If I went through the Custom Audio Setup in my iPad to confirm a few choices of what voice or music settings I can hear well enough, then I can get either Balanced Tone or Vocal Range or Brightness selected in my Tune Audio For window. But still NO audiogram in my iOS 16.1.1 iPad because there’s never an option available for it there. So the moral of the story here is that even if you’re able to get Tune Audio For to support your audiogram, it’s ONLY LIMITED to that iOS device only. If you have multiple iOS devices, the audiogram has to be loaded into each of those devices separately so that that particular device can use the audiogram to Tune your Audio For. In my case, my iOS 16.1.1 iPad does not have a load audiogram option, so I’m SOL with my iPad, and the stream audio from the iPad remains “unaided” with no audiogram.

By now, it’s obvious to say that if you want to use your Airpods Pro 2 on any other non-iOS devices (like Android phones or laptop or BT-supported TV, etc), you will NOT get the audiogram-aided sound, because these non-iOS devices don’t have the Apple iOS capability to load your audiogram like in the iOS. For good measures, I also tried to connect it to my Windows 10 laptop and listen to the same YouTube test song and verified that I got the unaided sound.

Now moving on to the Transparency mode. Because this and the Noise Cancellation is built into the H2 chip that’s onboard the Airpods Pro 2 ear pieces, you CAN use these features without needing an iOS device of yours to be operating anywhere nearby. HOWEVER, whatever you hear from these 2 features will be unaided sounds as picked up by the Airpods Pro 2 mics. This makes the Airpods Pro 2 NO GOOD really as a hearing device.

In summary, the Airpods Pro 2 is NOT a hearing device in my opinion. It’s only an audiogram aided BT device ONLY for streaming sounds from an iOS device that supports the loading of an audiogram. My iOS 16.1.1 iPad does not support this. I don’t have a Mac to test on so I’m not sure if MacOS support loading of an audiogram or not. I hear that it’s supposed to but I’m not sure.

For the Airpods Pro 2 to really be a bona-fide hearing device, not matter how crude it is, the audiogram aided information must be designed to be uploaded into the ear pieces themselves in order to make the aided amplification device independent. Otherwise, the software approach that Apple takes to Tune your Audio For your audiogram ONLY from the streaming device itself makes the solution totally become device dependent.

And even if you ignore the device-dependent aided streaming and will accept it as a “hearing” device as long as the transparency mode is aided so you can get amplified-aids from the environmental sounds, it doesn’t even do that. So for all those hearing care providers like Dr. Cliff or all the other audis who made YouTube videos touting that the Airpods Pro can be used as a “hearing” device by mild to moderate-loss users, they’re misleading people. The Airpods Pro is NOT a “hearing” aid, it’s a iOS device-by-iOS device dependent “streaming” aid. Only the streaming content of the qualified iOS device (and maybe also MacOS device) gets aided. The environmental sounds in the Transparency mode NEVER EVER get “aided”.

I’d love to be proven wrong with this conclusion I made. If anyone can show me that I’m wrong and show me how to get aided (loss-amplfied) environmental sounds at least via the transparency mode, please share with us here. This is one of the very few times that I’d love to be wrong… Otherwise, I’ll probably return my Airpods Pro 2 in a few weeks.

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#34

I know I wrote a VERY long post just above. But I just want to add one more personal point to it. Not really related to the Airpods Pro 2 as a “hearing” device, but only with regards to Apple’s claim that it has 2X the Active Noise Cancellation compared to the Airpods Pro 1. YouTube reviewers also exalted this new 2X ANC capability.

So I tried it out and its ANC is truly really quiet when activated. But I wonder how much of that is due to a tighter seal perhaps on the earbuds compared to the Airpods Pro 1 per se (which I don’t have so I don’t know). I understand how ANC works in general, and I know that if you don’t have a tight seal on your headphones, then a portion of external sound levels can permeate through the headphones (and maybe even through your head in general) which would require an ANC to invert what it hears to cancel out the noise.

But the Airpods Pro 2 is not an over-the-ear or on-the-ear type of headphones. It’s basically a pretty tight ear “plug” that doesn’t allow much environmental sounds to permeate through in the first place. So even if you don’t have streaming sounds to overshadow the environmental sounds, I wonder how much of the 2X improvement is due to new technological electronic wizardry, and how much is actually simply due to being able to make a tighter, more sound-proof ear plug than before? I do notice that they provide 4 different sizes of domes (one on the ear piece and 3 more spare ones of different sizes) to ensure that there’s no possibility of sound leaks in or out.

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#35

@Volusiano There’s an “off” setting you can use to test the difference that the active noise cancellation makes.

I’ve taken them to the local shopping centre without the phone and I think they worked as you’d expect. In my brief interactions with shop assistants I seemed to understand them better than usual. Not a rigorous proof. It’s possible that the phone fed it my audiogram data when they connected and it stayed there for the duration of my excursion. I suppose you could connect to something else, then walk out the door and see if you lose the enhanced hearing.

I’ve worn them in situations that I normally struggle in and I know they help me hear. To what extent is yet to be determined. I’ve got amplification all the way up, environmental noise reduction all the way up and the directional microphone (ear boost?) setting on.

#36

@Volusiano @d_Wooluf: I own a pair of AirPods first generation and the hearing amplification works fine with my Android phone. When I first set the AirPods up I loaded my audiogram to the “health app” using an app named iHearlt. Then I exported the audiogram to Apple Health. Now I am able to customize transparency mode using my hearing test.

I swapped my old iPhone for an Android device with bluetooth 5.2 a few weeks back. It has been working just fine ever since. Unless the transparency mode goes to a default gain that is similar to my audiogram and I haven’t notice it.

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#37

Thanks for sharing this, @e1405 . I wonder if the secret sauce to your case working is because your Android device has BT 5.2? I have no idea why that would be so, but then we don’t have all the details either. I tried to Google up any video or article or anyone that can confirm whether the audiogram personalization would carry over to non-iOS devices, but I couldn’t find anything. You’re the first person who ever confirmed this. Regardless, it’s still no good to me if my non-iOS device has to have BT 5.2 support, assuming that it’s actually the secret sauce that I projected above. It’s only helpful to my case if it works with any BT standard version because I just can’t go upgrading all my non-iOS devices just to get it to work with the Airpods Pro 2.

By the way, I don’t think it matters much that you have the Airpods Pro gen 1 because as far as the audiogram personalization and the transparency mode is concerned, the gen 1 and gen 2 should work the same way as far as I can tell. So if it works for gen 1, it should work for gen 2 just the same.

Can you clarify your sentence above? Are you saying that it seems like in your case, the transparency mode provides you with amplification to compensate for your hearing loss as well? Or are you saying it does not?

#38

Would you be able to setup your AirPods 2 in a friends’ iPhone, newer than yours? It might be the case that your iPhone 7 won’t do the trick (just guessing).

I mean, the transparency in default mode could be providing me some gain, even if not following my audiogram. It is unlikely though.

Edit: btw, I have just done a new setup using my partner’s iPhone (SE 2020). It kept working fine after I unpaired it from her phone.

One more thing, it used to work too with my old Android (BT 5.0).

#39

Good point, @d_Wooluf ! I did toggle between the ANC and the OFF position and just for the environment I was in tonight at home in the kitchen with the refrigerator going on and some other noises, the main difference I hear between ANC and OFF is mainly that I hear my heartbeat in OFF but my heartbeat sounds went away in ANC. So ANC does do something alright, at least doing away my own heartbeat. But the fact that I could only hear my heartbeat in the OFF mode implies a very occluded fit, and otherwise, it’s still just as eerily quiet as ANC, while Transparency ON lets me hear the fridge noise and whatever else in the room. All that tells me that the sound isolation due to the tight plug is very effective already in the first place without needing any ANC. The only thing ANC did was to do away with my heartbeat sound.

#40

Thanks for the clarification on the Transparency question, @e1405.

Although I don’t have a friend living close to me to try out a newer phone, I guess I can just go to a local Apple store to try it out with a newer iPhone version. I can also take my wife’s Samsung Note 8 and my Windows 11 laptop with me to see if it retains the audiogram personalization on those non-iOS devices after I program it into a new iPhone at the store. But maybe @d_Wooluf can tell us which version of iPhone he has (hopefully much newer than mine).

The bottom line is whether the audiogram personalization gets uploaded into the Airpods Pro ear pieces or not. In your case it seems to indicate that it does, although in my case and @d_Wooluf it doesn’t.

If it’s not too much trouble, I wonder if you wouldn’t mind using your partner’s SE 2020 iPhone and set it up one more time, but this time without the audiogram personalization, or maybe with a different whacky/fake audiogram that would cause a noticeable difference to your ears. Simply just to verify that the newly modified (whacky) audiogram personalization gets uploaded to your Airpods Pro 1 or not. Also to verify if the Transparency mode picks up this whacky audiogram as well.

By the way, your posts here are giving me much hope. I really want this to work. If it does, I’m probably am going to keep it even if the Transparency mode doesn’t hold the audiogram personalization. What I really want it for is audiogram personalization for streaming audio primarily, but it has to be on any BT devices and not limited to the iOS devices only. The transparency stuff is just icing on the cake for me if it works.