these AirPods can be turned into hearing aids, and I've tried it out. I got early access to Apple's FDA-approved software that turns the AirPods Pro 2 into a hearing aid. I've also spent some time testing the new hearing protection software, which helps minimize loud sounds that can impact your hearing. Now, Apple says the new features will be available to the public next week with a software update. Now, as for the hardware here, the AirPods Pro 2, well, these came out 2 years ago, but this update is going to level it up to a whole new health experience. I explored the new features by taking hearing tests and seeing how it compares to a professional audiogram test. I learned a bit about hearing aid technology today and how Apple's tech could make an impact on how people approach the issue of hearing loss. And to do a proper AirPods test, of course, I did a bit of rocking out, so listen up, and I'll tell you all about it. I'm Bridget KY, and in this week's episode of

one more thing. I am taking you through a hands-on first look at Apple's AirPods Pro 2 hearing health software. Let me start by showing you what the hearing test is like. When you update your device, you're going to see hearing health in the AirPod settings, and this is where you're going to find the hearing test. It's got to be a very quiet room to take that test. It takes about 10 minutes, and it checks the seal of the ear tips to make sure you have a good fit for the size of your ears. Now, the test involves you tapping the screen every time you hear these beeping tones, and let me tell you, it does get very faint at a certain point. I needed to concentrate. Now, if it detects the slightest bit of noise in the room, it's going to pause the test to make sure it's really quiet before you begin again. And you can take the test again. In fact, you can take it as many times as you want. It's going to keep a record of all

your tests. My test results showed I did have a little bit of hearing loss, and at this point, I was able to turn on the hearing aid feature, which adjusted to boost the tones that I wasn't picking up on as much. If you are familiar with AirPods transparency mode, where it lets you hear the world around you clearly, you can think of the hearing aid as a more enhanced version of transparency. Now, I don't have the level of hearing loss that would need help from hearing aids, but I still turned it on to just better understand the tech. When it's on, you can also make hearing adjustments, not just to the outside world but to what you're listening to in your AirPods. Under media assist, it's going to apply your hearing aid settings to improve the clarity of music, video, and calls. Now, when I have it turned on and I'm listening to music, I can tell it's putting more of an emphasis on the vocals for me, like highlighting those higher frequencies more, and if I wanted

to make adjustments to the amplification and the balance. Well, I could just dive in deeper into the controls to fine-tune it all. When hearing aid mode is on, your volume controls on the phone also change. You can slide to adjust the volume of the outside environment noise or just the volume of the media you're listening to. A new shortcut menu button will also appear in the control center with this ear icon. It can help you quickly make adjustments. I wanted to see how this would compare to a professional hearing test from an audiologist. I visited the experts at New York Presbyterian Columbia University Irving Medical Center. I got a hearing test in a soundproof room at their Audiology Department. It was the classic Beep Test where I raised my hand when I heard the tones. So, it's not too different from Apple's experience, but it was much more controlled and quiet. Now, the professionals, they're going to do a little more than Apple would for me. They tested if I could hear certain words that were said in my ear. Say the word l.

Loaf, and the results though were pretty close to what I got on Apple's test. If you get a test done by a professional, you can actually upload your paper printout results into the app. You can scan it with your phone's camera. Apple nailed this one. The data from my chart on paper showed up exactly the same in the app, and I could apply this test to my AirPod hearing settings. During my visit, I met up with Dr. Justin Gallb at the Columbia University Medical Center to get a better sense of the issues around hearing loss and what other tech is out there for people to test at home. So, there are ways that people can do hearing tests at home. However, it requires some initiative, and you have to be tech-savvy to a degree. You have to find the app, and the question is which app. So, you might want to read about which are good, which get good ratings, which don't. You have to make sure that the headphones you have will be compatible. And so, it can be done, but

the question is, what is the quality? Some apps are better than others. The nice thing about Apple entering a market is typically Apple has good quality products, and you can trust it, and it's widely available, so it just makes it much easier to do. There are over-the-counter hearing aids that do not require a prescription, but prescription hearing aids can cost anywhere between $2,000 and $7,000. So many things about it are exciting. One is the price. $250 for an earphone may be a little on the pricey end, but $250 for an over-the-counter hearing aid is very cheap, and a lot of people have this already, and so the price is free. It will just become a hearing healthcare product through a software update. This is like a nice entry-level device that can help people in certain situations. The battery life is only something like, you know, 6ish hours, so you're not going to be wearing it all day like you would want to with a regular hearing aid. So if you really need a hearing aid, get a real hearing.

aid so to shift gears a bit. Let's also touch on the improved hearing protection features. If it detects harmfully loud sounds, it's going to take that sound wave and pass it through to you at a lower level. And it's designed to keep all the details of the sound there. One example is that it's helpful for loud music. Now, this is not going to help you for Extremely Loud impulse sounds. This is not going to help you at a shooting range or Big Bangs of fireworks. But if you're next to someone banging on a piano, then yes, it can help. I had my husband help me out with this test. The Apple watch will give you a reading of the decibel levels around you. And when he was practicing, I noticed it got anywhere from 90 dB to as high as 100 dB near the piano. That's fortissimo, baby. Around 30 minutes of exposure to this level of sound a day can cause temporary hearing loss. But playing Beethoven doesn't mean we have to lose our hearing like Beethoven. So when I put in AirPods, the

Apple Watch now tells me what I am hearing is lowered down. Sometimes it was about 7 to 10 dB lower from what I observed earlier, but it didn't sound muffled; it preserved the quality of the music. Wearing earplugs can also protect your hearing, of course. Maybe you want to use something like these from Loop, which can adjust for different scenarios. But the idea is that AirPods are aiming to keep the details of the full sound signature, but it's just delivering it to you in your ear at a safer level. So, what is it like in just normal noisy environments? This felt like an appropriate place to test it: New York's noisiest saki bar decibel. And of course, we packed in our bags a decibel reader. After work drinks with my producer Richard showed me that the noise levels at the bar were not too bad. It stayed in roughly around 80 in the green range, and the AirPods were not making any adjustments to lower it for me. This was not as loud as the blaring piano, so the

AirPods didn't need to adjust anything, but it was fascinating to try another hearing aid feature called conversation boost. It will focus in on a person talking in front of you, making it easier to hear someone in a face-to-face conversation if they are about 7 to 10 ft in front of you. And I really did hear Richard so much clearer in a comfortable way, almost like making his voice stand apart from the music and the chatter around us. It's one thing to have me talk about what it's like, but what about someone who actually uses hearing aids every day? Well, in my set camera crew, we have someone who knows this issue well. I met up with my teammate Tara Brown and her mom Nancy, who has been using hearing aids for 10 years. In a quiet library room, we took the test, and you can see it really showed much more hearing loss for her than with my test. If you're used to having these wireless to listen to your music, which I'm not, but if you are, this

is great. Then you take your hearing aid out, plant a real sound, put them in your pocket, and then when you don't need the music, just switch them out again. But it doesn't eliminate for me a real hearing aid. And she also taught me a few things about her high-tech hearing aids, the Jabra Enhanced Pro, which she got online without a prescription after getting a hearing test from an audiologist. And she also controls all with an app now. Although she cannot rely on something like AirPods, which only have a 6-hour battery life, and she needs these all the time, it was interesting to think about if this technology was around when she was younger. Would it have gotten her started on hearing aids sooner? We're going to hear more about people's experiences when the software does come out next week, which you might see in an update on iOS or iPad OS. And the hearing aid features are also supported on Mac OS Sequoia. But it's very interesting to me that we have this item that growing up

We were always told it's going to hurt your ears by playing music too loud all the time, and now it's become something that's supposed to help prevent hearing loss or even help us manage it. But I also think having something so easy for anyone to access might make it easier to show this to a family member and see if they need a hearing test or hearing aid. Dr. Gallb told me that one of the biggest barriers for patients was acceptance that they even needed a hearing aid. Maybe this now makes it easier to get the conversation started and having people be more aware of their hearing loss. Will we start to compare in conversation our hearing loss numbers like we do with our eyesight prescription numbers? Apple says I'm a 12 in my right but a six in my left. How about you? I'm Bridget Cary, and I'll see you next time. There's one more thing to talk about in the world of Apple.

I Tested Apple’s Hearing Aid: Exploring AirPods Pro 2 Hearing Health Software

CNET is the premier destination for explaining and navigating the changing world around us. Through news, product reviews, price comparisons, and more, we’ll tell you what’s new in the parts of modern life that increasingly matter more — from health, home, and money to tech, culture, and climate — and how to get the most out of them.