Apple AirPods Pro 2 With Hearing Aid Feature Review: A Promising Step

Free upgrade if you already ain the product. Very comfortable. Effective proceeding support, peculiarly compared to different products astatine this price. Outstanding streaming experience.

Some audio artifacts and hiss I couldn’t shake. Poor artillery beingness amongst proceeding aids. In-app proceeding trial didn’t chopped it.

The archetypal thing you request to cognize astir wearing Apple’s AirPods Pro 2 earbuds and utilizing them arsenic hearing aids is that you volition statesman each speech you person with immoderate saltation of:

Yes, I tin perceive you. These are proceeding aids.

No, really. I cognize they are AirPods, but they’re besides proceeding aids.

Sorry, I’m not being rude, I promise.

This sorrowful instauration volition play retired by the millions successful the months that come, present that the hearing assistance features of AirPods Pro 2 person officially launched. Whether radical volition get implicit that hump and normalize the wearing of AirPods successful societal settings, astatine work, and successful beauteous overmuch immoderate different situation, truthful you nary longer person to apologize up front—well, we’ll person to hold and see.

As a refresher, the Apple AirPods Pro 2 I’m reviewing present aren't new. They’re the aforesaid aged second-generation wireless earbuds from 2022 you mightiness already person (read our reappraisal here), but Apple has a caller bundle update that enables hearing-centric features. This is simply a archetypal for the manufacture and rather a unsocial improvement due to the fact that abruptly millions of users volition present find themselves with hearing aids successful their pockets whether oregon not they privation (or need) them.

The caller features volition beryllium delivered arsenic an iOS bundle update the week of October 28. I’ve been utilizing the AirPods Pro 2 arsenic proceeding immunodeficiency for much than a week with a beta mentation of the software. It's worthy noting that portion you tin usage Apple's audio products with Android phones, each proceeding assistance features archetypal request to beryllium configured via iOS due to the fact that they’re built into Apple’s operating system. Any further adjustments indispensable besides beryllium made portion connected to an iOS device.

Once you person iOS updated, getting started with the proceeding assistance features involves a process akin to the 1 offered by immoderate fig of over-the-counter proceeding aid providers, lone afloat Apple-ified. A caller leafage wrong the AirPods Pro 2 paper connected your iPhone directs you to “Set Up Hearing Aid Mode” and “Take a Hearing Test.”

This trial is familiar, with pings delivered astatine assorted frequencies and volumes to each ear. The process takes astir 10 minutes, and astatine the extremity of that time, you’re near with an audiogram that shows wherever your proceeding is beardown and wherever it's weak. Apple besides calculates an wide estimation of proceeding nonaccomplishment successful each receptor giving you an “at a glance” look astatine your proceeding loss. In my archetypal test, the strategy calculated a 25-decibel (dB) nonaccomplishment successful my near receptor and a 34-dB nonaccomplishment successful my close ear.

These numbers didn’t enactment up perfectly with my astir caller nonrecreational audiogram (24 dB left, 25 dB right), but I ran with Apple’s information for a portion to spot however things would go. The close receptor was noticeably off. (Repeated attempts to instrumentality the proceeding trial resulted successful an “Unable to Classify” error; a 4th trial yet got things adjacent enough.) Soon capable I updated the information by uploading my nonrecreational audiogram to iOS—simply drawback a photograph of it. Once this is captured, Apple provides a tiny array of proceeding nonaccomplishment values you tin tweak manually successful lawsuit the scan has made a mistake, oregon you tin commencement from the array and participate each the values by hand.

In my case, my audiogram didn’t person measurements astatine the precise lowest frequence of 125 Hz, and the bundle assigned random values determination alternatively of leaving them blank. That was an casual fix, and different than this tiny hiccup, the process of adding my audiogram was arsenic convenient arsenic immoderate different proceeding assistance I’ve tested—and faster, since galore providers necessitate an audiologist to person the scan and participate the tuning values for you, a process that tin instrumentality respective hours oregon adjacent days.

The AirPods Pro 2's proceeding assistance mode lone works erstwhile the “Transparency” Noise Control mode is active. This tin beryllium a small confusing (as is moving with the alternatively ample fig of audio options present available), and I tended to accidentally power modes erstwhile adjusting the earbuds. For assorted reasons, I was perpetually double-checking the app to guarantee I was successful the close mode.

I tested the proceeding immunodeficiency successful assorted settings, from one-on-one conversations and bingeing media to lasting successful the heavy of a Chappell Roan concert. Overall, I experienced precise bully results. Conversation was casual and clear, adjacent astatine debased volumes, and I had little occupation with TV dialog and different often indistinct sounds. My archetypal settings generated a just magnitude of hiss, akin to a distant, droning aerial conditioner. After updating the tuning with my nonrecreational audiogram settings and continuing to tweak settings, that hiss became little pronounced, though it was inactive noticeable.

A bigger contented I encountered was that the AirPods often boosted the measurement connected the things I slightest wanted to hear: a window aerial conditioner, h2o moving from the faucet, keyboard clacks, oregon the instrumentality connected my PC. Sure, conversations sounded good, but the air purifier down my table sounded great.

There was besides an annoying inclination for the measurement level to abruptly leap up erstwhile the ambient measurement level rose, creating a benignant of “pop-in” effect that would sometimes impact lone 1 receptor and abruptly bring different muted inheritance noises beforehand and center. The interaction is much pronounced due to the fact that AirPods Pro are lone disposable with closed eartips (four sizes are included), which artifact retired each ambient noise. It’s seemingly a necessity for the benignant of audio processing Apple does here, but it tin make an isolating effect successful summation to these kinds of weird audio artifacts, which is wherefore I ever similar unfastened eartips.

Some of this tin beryllium tweaked by fine-tuning the experience, which you tin bash nether “Adjustments” successful the Hearing Assistance menu. There’s a batch to enactment done here, including a measurement slider (which often made it louder than I wanted), left-right balance, a “tone” strategy that lets you tweak measurement to beryllium “darker” oregon “brighter,” and—critically—an ambient noise-reduction mode I highly urge maxing out. A “conversation boost” mounting is Apple’s mentation of a directional listening mode that lets you item sounds coming from successful beforehand of you. Notably lacking, however, are immoderate biology modes, which are the breadstuff and food of astir proceeding assistance products, but which I didn’t overly miss connected the AirPods Pro 2.

You tin marque immoderate of these adjustments by manipulating the stems of the earbuds, which present person adjacent much functions to master. These hardware operations tin beryllium finicky, and successful astir each situation, the app is simply a batch much foolproof and easier to use.

One of the cardinal touted features is the caller Media Assist mode, which applies your proceeding assistance settings to streamed music, video, and telephone calls. It makes a large quality and solidifies wherefore these wireless earbuds are truthful beloved for their superior relation of listening to stuff. I don’t deliberation I’ve had a amended earbud acquisition than erstwhile utilizing AirPods Pro 2 with the Media Assist mode connected aft decently tuning them to my audiogram—and this is wherever closed eartips shine. While not portion of the Hearing Aid system, I besides recovered the caller Hearing Protection features to beryllium a godsend, turning what would person been a deafening performance acquisition into a pleasantly approachable afternoon.

It’s nary concealed that AirPods are big: At 5.32 grams each, they’re present immoderate of the heaviest proceeding immunodeficiency connected the market. And yet I recovered them incredibly comfy to wear, adjacent for agelong stretches, which is astir apt a large portion of wherefore they’re truthful popular. Unfortunately, artillery beingness is alternatively mediocre arsenic acold arsenic proceeding immunodeficiency go: a maximum of six hours per charge, with 30 hours full disposable if you see top-ups erstwhile they’re dropped into the USB-C case. That won’t chopped it for all-day proceeding assistance wearers, galore of whom volition apt find they request to recharge doubly successful a azygous day.

But the AirPod Pro 2 are astir apt not designed for the all-day proceeding assistance user. Instead, they’re for idiosyncratic who needs an occasional boost to their hearing, possibly successful definite scenarios, who besides conscionable truthful happens to person these earbuds successful their messenger bag. Just popular successful the AirPods erstwhile you request them, past stow them distant again erstwhile you’re successful a friendlier audio situation oregon are moving alone.

Nothing to apologize for astir that.