Try it out in store? Read reviews and try to extrapolate if it fits their situation. When you go shopping for hearing aids you try them on for fit but not function.
Apple’s return policy is great in my experience. I bought a Macbook while waiting for repairs and returned it when mine was fixed. No hassle at all. Just make sure you do it at an Apple Store.
Since it involves personalized setup and probably testing in specific scenarios/situations, it's probably easiest to just buy a pair and return them if it doesn't work out.
It's hard to say what have they added afresh (except an inbuilt hearing test) in the newly annointed "hearing aid" mode yet, but features for hearing impaired have been available in airpods pro for a long time. Even before iOS 18, one can take any of the available hearing tests in appstore like Mimi and attach its results with iOS settings and your phone will adjust the sound frequencies accordingly, enabling you to listen to the sounds you were not able to listen to earlier. Music sounded much better, you can hear people better if you are in transparency mode etc. Of course I am excited to see what changes have they actually done once that update arrives since I have medium-severe hearing impairment.
I haven't used the professional ones since they are prohibitively priced in India and hence very hard to compare. My budget also limits such secondary investment for me since my impairment doesn't impact day to day life but it does affect some quality of life since I am not able to hear certain conversational frequencies especially in high noise areas or when someone whispers or talks really soft. Airpods Pro 2 work well for me and have made aware of many rich sounds around me and made conversations with family and cab drivers better. It does seem tacky to wear them when I need to but I am getting used to it. Also, I am not too upfront about my impairment to all my friends yet but I am working towards that. I had a vacation recently and went about wearing them all the time and it was awesome. Had such rich conversations with the Airbnb host I was staying with and actually told her about my impairment. It was revealing to me that it isn't all stigma telling people about the impairment and I could actually make them more mainstream in my life. It should be noted, and I have heard from multiple people in multiple forums, Airpods Pro only work good for medium or medium-to-severe hearing impairment. Anything worse than that may not bring out the optimum results.
You do not have to buy airpods.
Any microphone / headphone combination will work.
In fact a directional microphone paired to a reference quality headphone would work very well. No need to use a phone in the middle either, many options for little dedicated amplifiers that would be easier to use.
Usually hearing aids are tuned to an individual user (and individual ear)'s hearing response frequency curve, kinda like an equalizer, that adjusts volumes differently across their range of hearing. To do that their hearing loss must be measured first and saved into a profile. There are already apps that do that, and you can simulate it yourself with the right methodology and equipment. But a dumb amplifier that just makes everything louder won't do that. It might make some frequencies too loud for comfort while insufficiently amplifying the ones you need.
Using standard equipment (iphones and airpods) makes the calibration easier, but it still needs to run an individual profile.
reply