Apple Airpods Will Soon Act As Hearing Aids On iOS 12

Jun. 6, 2018

As confirmed to TechCrunch,Apple is making the Airpods compatible with the “Live Listen” assistive hearing appon iOS 12. This app, which magically turns your iPhone into a directional microphone such that people with hearing disabilities, can help you hear sounds around you via the phone. The sound is directly sent to your hearing aid from the iPhone.

We are excited to see the Live Listen become compatible with Apple Airpods is because it was previously limited to third-party hearing devices such as hearing aids or implants. It, however, appears like iOS 12 wants to make this feature more accessible to the average user – who will just need to enable it from within the settings.

With the use of this feature on iOS 12, people with hearing disabilities can rely on Airpods (which come much cheaper than hearing aids or implants) to listen to the conversation of friends or family around them. Like all hearing aids, Airpods will pick up sound through a microphone, send them to an amplifier, which then pipes them into your ears.

Thanks to the wireless nature, Airpods were already quite versatile and became even more attractive for iPhone users with hearing disabilities. While the Airpods will not completely replace your hearing aids, they sure could come in handy for crunch situations.