Adam Savage (of Mythbusters fame) discussed his use of very high-end hearing aids on his Youtube Channel. He has hearing loss and he's of course pretty clued in when it comes to hearing aids. He did a review on the specific brand he's using. From what I remember, he was quite critical on the lack of access to good products for most people that need to get these via some insurance coverage. It would be interesting to get his perspective on airpods.
Because of all the legislation, it's actually a hard market to break into and the resulting products aren't necessarily very good or competitive. The focus is on keeping the insurers happy and getting approved; not the end user. The better products can get really expensive too. So the FDA approving consumer grade products could be a big deal.
Apple's airpods probably have quite a lot of non trivial tech on board that probably overlaps significantly what some hearing aids try to do. For example, AI that isolates sound and things like noise suppression that work in a very targeted way are game changers. Instead of just amplifying sound, selectively blocking some sound is probably very helpful.
Thankfully I have no issues but I know some people that do that wear hearing aids. Despite that, talking to them can be challenging and they have all sorts of issues communicating in loud places.
I imagine these could be useful for people that are completely deaf even. They wouldn't hear anything but they might benefit from e.g. live audio transcription; which is something that's probably not that hard anymore for the likes of Apple or Google.
Because of all the legislation, it's actually a hard market to break into and the resulting products aren't necessarily very good or competitive. The focus is on keeping the insurers happy and getting approved; not the end user. The better products can get really expensive too. So the FDA approving consumer grade products could be a big deal.
Apple's airpods probably have quite a lot of non trivial tech on board that probably overlaps significantly what some hearing aids try to do. For example, AI that isolates sound and things like noise suppression that work in a very targeted way are game changers. Instead of just amplifying sound, selectively blocking some sound is probably very helpful.
Thankfully I have no issues but I know some people that do that wear hearing aids. Despite that, talking to them can be challenging and they have all sorts of issues communicating in loud places.
I imagine these could be useful for people that are completely deaf even. They wouldn't hear anything but they might benefit from e.g. live audio transcription; which is something that's probably not that hard anymore for the likes of Apple or Google.