The effects of hearing loss can be extensive, leads to increased stress at work, isolation from friendsand even impaired cognition. “That’s one of the reasons the Biden administration passed the over-the-counter law is that it can really be preventative when it comes to cognitive decline-slash-dementia,” Desai said, citing a study published by Johns Hopkins found it the likelihood of dementia among hearing aid users was lower than those who did not use the devices, and also that older adults who experienced more severe hearing loss were more likely to have dementia.

For Apple, the move to create a health device isn’t new, but many of Apple’s health features to date have centered around proactive behaviors (standing every hour) or detection (finding irregular heartbeats), so the hearing aid software—which is clinically validated and approved by the FDA– for daily life is mega when it comes to staking its claim as a health-focused technology company.

When I tested the system, I found that, as with many things Apple launches, everything felt pretty seamless. I set up my AirPods Pro 2 in a few minutes, then clicked on the connected AirPods and the hearing test in the settings menu. With my AirPods in my ears, I sat in a quiet space and tapped through some prompts that asked me some lifestyle questions, like if I had been to loud spaces like a concert in the last 24 hours or currently had allergies or a sinus infection.

Then the system tested if the tips of the earbuds were sealed in my ears and I was off. I listened to a series of quieter and quieter beeps in my left ear, then switched to my right ear and did the same thing. At the end of the test, Apple instructed me that I currently have no hearing loss and that my AirPods would not receive any dynamic changes at this time. The thing is: That may not always be the case, and it’s so much easier to sit in a quiet space and take a 10-minute test than to have to go to a doctor, get an expensive prescription, and then pay out. thousands of dollars to fill it.

“With all of our features, you’re going to see a thread that we’re just trying to help you start thinking about your health in a different way, because I think what ends up happening traditionally…is that most people think about their health when they If they’re sick, they don’t actually think about it when there’s something wrong,” says Desai. “I think we just want to continue to draw on the thread of ‘how do we educate people to be more proactive about their health?’

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Apple Watch — which, for all intents and purposes, has been the core health hardware of the Apple lineup — and it’s won a lot along the way: fall detection, crash detection, sleep apnea detection, cycle tracking, a pulse oximeter during a once-in-a-century pandemic – the list goes on. The Watch has changed the way we look at our health on a large scale. Will the next decade of hearing aid features cause a similar change? We wouldn’t be surprised.