Yesterday, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced the Hearing Test and Hearing Aid features on AirPods Pro 2 expanded to new countries, but still not Canada.
Apple users in Australia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Vietnam, and more now have the ability to use their AirPods Pro 2 as hearing aids, plus sleep apnea notifications on Apple Watch.
Some Canadians have been buying AirPods Pro 2 to use the Hearing Aid feature, but so far it hasn’t been implemented yet, despite being approved by Health Canada last December.
“Due to regulatory restrictions, Apple is unable to release the Hearing Test and Hearing Aid features in Canada at this time,” says Apple on its website. The features are for those with “perceived” mild to moderate hearing loss.
The bottom line? Hearing aids require a prescription from an audiologist or physician in Canada. Until this changes, it seems hearing aid features on AirPods Pro 2 won’t be available here (although some have hacked the system to get them to work), but some in Canada say the feature has appeared for them.
Can we at least get the hearing test so we know if we should see a professional? It’d be interesting to know which regulations, if any, that violates.
You’d think those hanging onto these regulations would welcome the potential business Apple could be sending their way.
There are hearing test apps on the App Store. I tried one and it does a pretty good job. Then you can transfer the results to your Airpods pro 2 in accessibility settings so your custom equalisation curves are applied to your airopds. You still can’t use them as hearing aids but at least you can enjoy properly equalised music. I already wear proper hearing aids so I’m not as concerned about the feature not being available yet. Airpods as hearing aids wouldn’t work very well compared to my real hearing aids because airpods don’t stay in as well for me and the battery life is limited to a couple hours. I use them when flying as noise reduction is great. I didn’t even know there was a crying baby on the row behind us until I had to take them out to charge them.
Audiologists must be lobbying hard against this. Can't Apple have a disclaimer to say this is not a medical device in Canada, or that would contradict the function of the hearing aid features.
I know there are a lot of people who still think the "elbows up" to the usa, but since apple is a company from the USA i would suggest the following.
GO TO THE USA…. Once you are there you can setup the hearaid feature easily. I did it and when you come back to Canada it still works. But, that means you have to go to the USA…. Which for me is not a problem.
If you live close to the USA, you could just go to the river that separates Canada from the USA and turn off roaming on your phone and do the same thing. The only issue with this is that you need a quiet place to do the hearing aid test and this might be a problem.
Good luck, and always look to bypass stupid rules.
I think VPN must work too. It’s been there for me for months and I haven’t been to the US in that time. I do have my VPN always on and always set to the US.
the companies that make grossly overpriced hearing aids in canada want to protect their market share; it has nothing to do with the well being of anyone