New AirPods Pro features take your hearing health seriously

By Phil Nickinson Published October 3, 2024

Along with the iPhone 16, new AirPods 4, and new AirPods Max, Apple today at its annual fall event unveiled new features for the AirPods Pro. Not new AirPods Pro — new features for the existing AirPods Pro. As was rumored, this new version goes heavy on your hearing health, and in a number of ways.

First is improved hearing protection for loud sounds. That’s important for a couple of reasons. It lets you listen to whatever it is you’re listening to without distraction. But it also helps ensure that your ears aren’t getting blasted by the sounds it’s blocking.

But maybe the more exciting feature comes in the health department. A bit of a sleeper feature of the AirPods Pro is that they’ve been used as a sort of over-the-counter hearing aid. That’s taking center stage with these new features.

And coming later this fall will be a feature that allows you to more properly use the AirPods Pro as over-the-counter hearing aids. You’ll need that hearing test — and Apple is still waiting on clearance from the FDA and other regulators — but after that the AirPods Pro should serve as a more proper hearing aid. Apple says this feature will be available in more than 100 regions and countries after all the updates land later this year.

Other features include Media Assist, Conversation Awareness and Conversation Boost, and Live Listen. And it’s important to note that all of this hearing protection stuff is turned on by default.

So if you’re in the market for AirPods Pro and also have hearing disabilities, this may well be worth a look. As are all the other Apple announcements today.