The year 2024 may turn out to be a watershed moment in the history of private hearing aids, although outside of North America, the consequences might be more cultural than necessarily technological.
For perhaps the first time in history, a big-budget Christmas advert was made to advertise hearing aids, getting to the core of how transformative, effective and powerful they can be for people with hearing loss.
This was one of many milestones that has been reached by hearing aids this year, partly the result of the release of Apple’s Hearing Aid Mode in the United States, with a hearing test compatible with the company’s AirPods Pro 2 recently rolled out to the United Kingdom.
Whilst this December update to iOS does not add the Hearing Aid Mode itself due to regulatory requirements, it does shine a spotlight on hearing aids in the mainstream that might have never been seen before.
Because of this, it is worth exploring what this publicity drive might do to affect hearing aids, as the results in the UK are likely to be quite different than they are in the United States, and it is important to understand why.
Apple has endeavoured to make a mass-market hearing aid option for a long time, finally receiving approval from the Food and Drug Administration to use the AirPods Pro 2 for this purpose in 2024.
This is more important in the US than it is in the UK due to the level of access there is to hearing aids. Whilst in the UK, hearing aids are accessible to everyone, although more discreet and fully featured devices are only available through private audiologists, in the USA it is a very different picture.
Due to the structure of American healthcare, which means that hearing aids are typically not covered by health insurance plans, a lot of people simply cannot afford to go to an audiologist to have their hearing tested, let alone have a device fitted.
Given that the earlier you seek treatment for mild hearing loss the slower it will progress, as well as the progressive effects this can have not only on physical health, the risk of dementia and social isolation, this means that a lot of people in the USA are forced to risk their long-term health due to a lack of affordable options.
Despite Apple’s reputation for being a luxurious high-end option in the consumer electronics market, a pair of compatible headphones with this hearing aid functionality and the iPhone itself is a lot cheaper than a lot of hearing aids available through audiologists in the USA.
This is not the case in the UK where prices range from free to roughly comparable to an iPhone and AirPod combination, but that does not mean it has no effect.
Most reviews of the AirPods as hearing aids see them as relatively serviceable indoors but are too bulky for widespread outdoor use (being designed as earphones) and have too low a battery life compared to hearing aids, which are designed to last for days.
As a result of this, the best option for many people will still come from an audiologist, but the effect it is already having is introducing the idea of hearing aids to people who might have never considered them to be something that could be as beneficial as they so often are.
