Apple is thinking of a way to adapt its AirPods to the hearing impaired in the medium term. The idea? Make your headphones a quasi-medical device.
Very focused on health with its latest Apple Watch, but also with certain features of the iPhone (Health, Fitness, or even Screen Time applications, among others), Apple would seek to go further in this area… but this time with his AirPods. According to Mark Gurman’s PowerOn newsletter, the firm would like to make its wireless headphones a quasi-medical device for people with hearing problems.
As Mashable reports, the often well-informed Bloomberg reporter indicates that Apple would thus seek to transform its AirPods into a health tool “within a year or two“. At the end of this relatively short period, Apple’s headphones would then allow “to obtain certain hearing data» that may be used by Apple for certain users.
A prediction that makes sense…
Mark Gurman’s predictions are far from incongruous. Not only has Apple gradually built a real software ecosystem dedicated to health and well-being, but the brand also has effective technologies in this direction. Technologies that the firm already uses on some of its devices.
The Apple Watch is for example able to measure the heart rate of the user, to estimate the oxygen saturation of his blood and even to know if his heart rate is sufficiently regular. The AirPods Pro, meanwhile, are already capable of effectively reducing external noise, but also of capturing surrounding sounds to reproduce them very clearly in the ear thanks to the transparency mode.
In the same idea, the Conversation Boost mode, which already exists in the accessibility options of the AirPods Pro, currently makes it possible to better bring out the voice of an interlocutor in a noisy environment, like a hearing aid. Imagining that these technologies could be improved and reused for the hearing impaired is not at all illusory.
It should also be noted that Mark Gurman’s forecasts echo those made in 2021 by Ming-Chi Kuo. Also well informed when it comes to Apple, the analyst then mentioned the addition of a health management feature dedicated to AirPods. Some hallway noises mentioned in particular the possibility of analyzing the posture of the user, in particular during sports training sessions with Apple Fitness+. In addition, patent applications filed by Apple in 2014 hinted at intriguing devices dedicated to the AirPods (launched two years later). The latter sought in particular to measure the body temperature, the heart rate or even the level of perspiration of the user directly from his ear.
The Airpods Pro are not only benchmarks among noise-canceling wireless headphones. On a daily basis, they can also become an active aid for people who suffer from hearing impairments…
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