Have been using the transparency mode feature on my Air Pods Pro 2nd generation for a while. Audio-gram was entered. Streaming music is fantastic for me. No hearing aid I tried was close in this regard. When watching a movie with my family(they hate closed captions) they work well. When in a family gathering with my family and grandkids, they allow me to hear most conversations. Other than those situations I do not use them. The one aspect no one really mentions is that the Bluetooth RF generation can be quite large if the Iphone is moved away from the Air Pods. I have an RF meter and can watch the power increase as the iPhone moves away. In this regard, I keep my phone near me and also try and not use them for longer than 3 hours at a time.
They can pair with most bluetooth devices, but it remains to be seen whether the hearing aid functionality would work ā¦
Is there a distance at which the emissions significantly climb versus when the phone is nearby? How does that compare to whatever hearing aids youāve measured? Does it matter that hearing aids are closer to the brain or does the outer ear transmit the energy differently?
My experience was that connecting to a non-Apple device would cause the audiogram settings to disappear until you connected to your phone again. That was with the lightning connector model so might have changed.
As far as I could tell, you could leave your iPhone at home and hearing accommodations applied to transparency mode would still work.
Thanks for posting this.
Iām very grateful. Iāve worn HAās for over twenty years. This is really good news.
DaveL
This is an important point. Is it true that the Airpod 2 Pros can work this way as standalone HAs? So they connect to my iPad at home and I then can go for a walk with them in my ears without carrying that iPad in my backpocket? Can any users confirm?
The custom transparency mode has its limitations, but this new hearing aid feature might offer something different. Hopefully, weāll find out soon with the new iOS release coming out this afternoon.
My son says so. Heās been doing that for quite a long time. When heās not wearing his fancy ear-pro headset at work. For a while he had two pairs going.
WH
I used a basic EMF meter and was able to show that both my hearing aids with Bluetooth and the Air Pods behaved the same in that the EMF increased as the iPhone moved away. But the Air Pods showed a much higher level of power than the hearing aids. I can be on the other side of my house and the Air Pods are still streaming music. There are no studies to show that Bluetooth is bad for your brain, but here is a link that I follow.
For those who want to limit EMF, hearing aids can work with Bluetooth disabled and with Bluetooth enabled, but not paired and transmitting to a phone. AirPod Pro 2 likely cannot do either of these, but we will all learn for certain about the need for a nearby iPhone soon.
Have you measured the EMF of the hearing aids when not paired to anything, but with Bluetooth still on? Is the hearing aid EMF different when paired to say a TV streamer than a phone?
What happened was I went to a local HA practice and was prescribed Starkey BTE hearing aids with all the bells and whistles. I found out that I hardly ever used the Bluetooth features and streaming music from my Iphone to the hearing aids was poor quality. So, I said to the audiologist can you turn off the Bluetooth, as why have that EMF radiation if I was not using it. So, the audiologist unpaired my Iphone to the HA and sent me out the door. In talking to a friend he said get an EMF meter to make sure. I did and found out that the HA was still broadcasting at full power trying to find a connection. So, back to the audiologist, and when I showed them this they called Starkey support and found out there is not a way to disable the Bluetooth on the hearing aids. They then said they could order a set of Starkey hearing aids with Bluetooth disabled. The problem was they were not going to reduce the price of the aids at $3500. It was just a swap. My neighbor then advised me to try Costco and I did. For $2500 I switch to Rexton CIC with no Bluetooth as the wind noise on the Starkey was bad. To make a long story short, I purchased a set of Air Pod Pro 2nd generation and programmed them for my audiogram. The music streaming was life changing for me and I could use them in other situations were I needed them. So, in the end I returned the Costco hearing aids and use my Air Pods on a limited time period daily. For the cost of $199 it was cost effective and made my family happy when I used them. No more huhs. And I was happy with the music streaming and not having to mess with hearing aids on a daily basis. I do not have a TV streamer so cannot answer that.
Starkey aids should have airplane mode which will turn off Bluetooth, but you would likely need to reactivate airplane mode each time you reboot the hearing aids. Check the manual for details.
What a load of nonsense, Bluetooths been around 25 years and not one single case of āanythingā happening to anyone, not one case anywhere in the world, itās as safe as your mobile, tv, radio,microwave, router/modem to name just a few that all emit something to get the conspiry theorists going, and itās not true the earth is flat!
I fully support a science based position regarding exposure to frequencies. To my knowledge, the biggest threat of bluetooth earbuds so far is ear infections due to over use.
I also can appreciate that for many people, it would help if our history of scientific discovery didnāt have a track record of doing things like discovering microwaves via melting chocolate bars that eventually led to the young death of a wonderful scientist, poisoning the dial painters of glow-in-the-dark watches (due to mouth exposure in wetting the brushes), having the same bloke who created leaded* gasoline also create the stuff that caused the ozone hole and manage to kill himself in his self-designed lifting-rig for his very injured self in a hospital bed, and having the sketchy practice of getting paid off by big Sugar, Big Gas, and Big Asbestos and Big Nicotine, to name but a few to deny early scientific findings of harmā¦
In a world where we are surrounded by things that are much larger than us, and well beyond our ability to fully comprehend, let alone control, itās natural that people want to control variables that feel easily within their purview. We canāt fix the global glacier melt off, but we can probably not give ourselves a brain tumor with this one easy trick. And that provides a sense of certainty and surety in a world bereft of such things.
A little kindness towards those who are reaching for that is wise, rather than derision.
Yep, there were serious concerns with the massive use of mobile phones and other radiating devices. If those risks were real, you would e.g. expect a massive epidemic of brain tumours, which, thankfully, hasnāt happened. While, globally, the incidence of this type of cancer has gone up a bit
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10372320/
this increase is unremarkable compared to other types of cancer, as e.g. in this UK study:
So, at least for three decades or so of exposure we are probably safe.
Thatās where itās important to know what we donāt know, or are not specialized to know. In 30 years detection technology has also improved immensely, which has to be accounted for in any attempt to interpret data.
Data is tricky. https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaandersen/2012/03/23/true-fact-the-lack-of-pirates-is-causing-global-warming/ 
Veering a bit off-topic here, but yes- society appears to have moved from blind acceptance of technological progress (the great mishaps @kiki cited) to general paranoia (electrosmog, corona vaccines). We need more scientific education, less Fakebookā¦
Donāt do this. Just because you donāt understand the cell level response of 0.25watt GSM non-ionising radiation, while happily sitting in full view of 3.9 x 10power26 watts of ionising radiation with a little suncream on.
Thereās simply no evidence of damage from the even lower wattage Bluetooth signalling devices or even the tiny wattages used by BLE.
Scepticism is great, industrial scepticism is fine if itās based on evidence like environmental pollution, but blind ignorance because you donāt understand the science of your convictions is just weird.
Random question: if a person wore this with a cochlear implant, would the implant still function? Would two HAs still be able to talk to each other? You know, for science.
Depends on the wavelength and power of the transmission carrier wave. The shorter/more HF the signal is, the less it bends and the more it relies (or can be masked by) reflection.