Yep. My 10-year-old was diagnosed with a moderate hearing loss at birth. His first set of hearing aids at age 2 were covered by early intervention. We are on the hook for new ear molds (the plastic part that fits in the ear) at least every year (not covered at $150 per set) and new hearing aids every 5 years or so (yes; hearing aids need to be replaced every 5 years or so, and they are not covered). This seems like a US healthcare meme, but it’s sad reality—we try to plan medical care for hearing aid replacement years because they do count towards our deductible and out-of-pocket maximums.
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New AirPods Pro Firmware Enables Conversation Boost, Here's How to Turn It On
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Yep. My 10-year-old was diagnosed with a moderate hearing loss at birth. His first set of hearing aids at age 2 were covered by early intervention. We are on the hook for new ear molds (the plastic part that fits in the ear) at least every year (not covered at $150 per set) and new hearing aids every 5 years or so (yes; hearing aids need to be replaced every 5 years or so, and they are not covered). This seems like a US healthcare meme, but it’s sad reality—we try to plan medical care for hearing aid replacement years because they do count towards our deductible and out-of-pocket maximums.
That’s already happening. Meaning that per this disability advocate on hearing aids and medical coverage, ear buds like the AirPods Pro are an effective way for some folks with hearing loss and folks are already using it in that manner.
I wear hearing aids. I am completely deaf in my right ear and halfway deaf in my left. I wear a BiCros system that allows the hearing aid in my right ear to act like a receiver and transmits sounds that come from that side over to my left side, so I'm not always turning my head. I got this system a little over 2 years ago and it cost me nearly $3,800. I don't know what I would do without my hearing aids. I doubt the AirPods would be strong enough for what I would need, though. I love that the AirPods have this capability for those with mild hearing loss.
I created an account just to share this, not sure if it will be helpful or not, but it was a chat I had with Apple support last year when I had one AirPod Pro replaced and they each had different firmware versions.
In this instance I would assume that you should fully charge your AirPods, take them out and listen to something on both of them for at least 30 seconds, then put them back in the case and plugged back into the lighting charger (not wireless charger) for 30 minutes. They also emphasized to make sure the lid is closed and not opened during the 30 minutes.
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But there is some space between $6000 and $250 for products and software. I'm in that area. Honest suppliers say I don't need hearing aids, but my hearing isn't what it used to be.
Agreed, the microphones are utterly useless on the AirPods Pro, I can’t hear what people say and they can’t here me, other than in perfect noiseless conditions.
Have just tried the new feature at home yet and it mostly amplified my own voice (like that was the issue), but didn’t really notice a difference with my girlfriends voice compared to normal transparency mode. And there’s a low white noice in the background.
My mom has the same performance limitations as you.
About 5 years ago she ditched her bicros approach after about 10-15 years (Telex, Phonak and some other) when the first MFi hearing aids came out (tried Starkey but it didn’t amp enough and then Resound which did but sadly lacks the GPS mode switching) and realized that since all sound entered her right ear she turned to the right all the time anyway.
Now she doesn’t have the complexity and cost of a 2nd mould, aid, batteries, drying bag, etc. I asked her recently if she missed bicros and she said not really. (She’s looking forward to her next aid that she hopes will meet the new MFi standard with full duplex conversation so she doesn’t have to remember to carry around her phone as the mic in a phone call.)
Good info. Thanks for going to the effort to share this with the community!
I have updated my AirPods 2 to firmware 4A400 but on my iPhone 8 on iOS 15 I don’t see Transparency mode in Accessibility - audio/Visuals - Headphone Accommodations. The toggle is not there…
Try installing the hearing icon in control center.
Then with iPods in ears open and look for transparency in menu. If there tap it and see another way* you can toggle convo Boost. *this will be the in practice way to use it.
if it still doesn’t work, check that there is no iOS update remaining like 15.0.1 or 15.1 if you beta. If s/w is up to date then try force restarting your phone and checking for toggle again.
Pls let me know if this helps
Nice feature but how easily can that guy get those in and out of his ears. I know my parents could not. They would have them lost in no time.
I like the conversation boost feature myself. As someone with mild hearing loss, this feature, along with turning up the amplification and the background noise reduction is really nice. I like to leave conversation boost off when I have both of these options all the way up as there’s virtually no background hiss. When I’m talking with someone, when you enable conversation boost it then introduces a little background hiss, but only ever so slightly. Good on MacRumors to FINALLY make mention of this feature. Took ya’ll long enough lol.
Thanks for the help! I am on iOS 15.0.1. I added the icon in the control center, and also tried restarting the phone.. still no option to enable this.
More reviews about this, please!.
I am 46 YO, with diagnosed mild hearing loss, but no hearing aid device. Does this feature “just works”?, or is just a gimmick?.
i don’t intend to use all day, just during some meetings at the office. Are they ok for this?
I am 46 YO, with diagnosed mild hearing loss, but no hearing aid device. Does this feature “just works”?, or is just a gimmick?.
i don’t intend to use all day, just during some meetings at the office. Are they ok for this?
What were the weather conditions like? Barometric pressure? Did you check the phase of the moon?
It really sucks that they won't at least put in a "try now" button for updating firmware. All we can do is put the two devices next to each other and fervently hope they decide to update.
Wake me when it makes the speech of the wearer better. I can always tell when my sister is using her Airpods when talking on the phone to me. The audio quality is lousy. And sorry to say but land lines are still the clearest.
Just make sure it is certified to the latest MFi standard (full duplex, ie aid takes both audio from phone and pipes into your ear, and sends audio to phone from aid’s mic.).
Older MFi aides could only accept audio in from phone so you couldn’t walk too far away from it if calling because if too far away from phone, person on other end could not hear you.)
"Need" is very subjective. Say you have a 20% hearing loss, it might seem like you can get by because you still have 80% hearing. But imagine reading a book with 20% of the text randomly blacked out! You'd be able to guess some of the missing words, and get the general drift of the book, but you'd also probably miss some crucial information and lots of the nuance. So I think people with even a slight hearing loss would benefit from hearing correction, but it's been very expensive to do, until now. I hope Apple keeps refining this feature, and more people try it and discover what benefit they've been missing.
Did you have your pods in your ears?
In case 1, you see what you saw.
In case 2, with just the first one out of case and in one in ear you see more at bottom of screen. Pic 1 vs pic 2.
Note the changes to Live Listen and Headphone Accommodations fields too.
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My mother over the yers has very expensive hear aides. These are custom, fitted boosted to frequencies she needs to hear. The AirPods are not designed to replace these or people with such a degree of hearing loss. It will help people that have very mild to mild hearing loss. In the future I can see the AirPods bringing down the costs of hearing aides. As they really are overpriced as even the audiologist will say that hearing aides are way to expensive.