World Hearing Day: Here's how to make good use of hearing accessibility features on Apple devices

Besides hearing music for long hours, people who work in places with big machinery which produce high noise levels, are vulnerable to early onset of hearing loss

Every year on March 3, World Hearing Day is celebrated to create awareness about hearing health. World Health Organisation's report says that by 2050, more than 700 million people will experience extreme hearing loss due to various conditions and even behavioural habits such as listening or watching multimedia content on earphones for several hours a day.

With reduced hearing, people feel socially isolated causing mental stress. It is imperative to take steps early to at least slow the hearing loss progression now.

Apple has incorporated several features in AirPods, Watches, iPhones, and iPads to warn users of high noise levels and avoid places. Also, Apple devices come with numerous value-added hearing accessibility features.

First, let's begin with tips on early detection and slowing the progression of hearing loss with the help of Apple devices.

Noise app on Apple Watch
Besides hearing music for long hours, people who work in places with big machinery which produce high noise levels or even stay at high traffic density places, are vulnerable to early onset of hearing loss.

Here's how to enable the Noise app on your Watch
Step 1: On your iPhone, open the Watch app.
Step 2: Tap the My Watch tab, then tap Noise
Step 3: Tap Noise Threshold, then choose a decibel level. It offers five options-- 80dB (5 hours 30 minutes a day)/85dB (45mins a day )/90dB (30 minutes a day) /95dB(10 minutes a day)/100dB (3 minutes a day)

Users can also open the Noise app on the Apple Watch directly to measure the decibel levels of the environment in real-time.

Noise app on Apple Watch. Credit: Apple

Adaptive Transparency and Active Noise Cancellation on AirPods
With AirPods, users can drastically reduce exposure to harmful levels of noise exposure during everyday routines such as traveling in high-traffic density routes from home to the office (and vice versa) or lunchtime walks. It will also be helpful at concerts or live entertainment events as well.

Users can turn on the Adaptive Transparency feature on AirPods. This will dynamically reduce the harsh environmental noise such as heavy construction or a vehicle siren passing by.
Settings on iPhone >> AirPods >> turn on Adaptive Transparency

[Note: While wearing your AirPods Max or both AirPods, touch and hold the volume slider until you see the additional controls]
On AirPods, just press the force sensor on the stem

With AirPods Pro, users can switch between Adaptive Transparency and Active Noise Cancellation. The latter is more effective in completely blocking the outside noise.

Headphone audio level feature
If the users listen to music or any audio content with high volume for long hours on headphones, iPhone or Watch will notify users to lower the volume.

Here's how to activate this alert feature:
Step 1: Go to Settings > Sound & Haptics > Headphone Safety
Step 2: Turn on Reduce Loud Sounds and drag the slider to the desired decibel

Accessibility features that can help people with a hearing problem

Live Listen
With the Live Listen feature, owners can use their iPhone or iPad which can act like a microphone to send sound to their AirPods. It will help the users hear someone better. For instance, a family member across from you in your living room. Live Listen is also available on Beats headphones and Made for iPhone hearing devices.

Step 1: Go to Settings > Control Centre.
Step 2: Scroll down and tap the Add button add icon next to the Hearing button hearing icon.
Step 3: Tap Settings to save the changes.

Then, to listen to the person in front of you
Step 1: Open Control Centre on your iPhone or iPod touch, or your iPad.
Step 2: Tap the Hearing button hearing icon.
Step 3: Tap Live Listen.

Place your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch in front of the person you want to hear. If you can't hear well enough, make sure to adjust the volume on the device.

Noise Threshold and Live Listen feature. Credit: DH Photo/KVN Rohit

Conversation Boost on AirPods
When a user is talking with someone in a noisy environment, Conversation Boost on the AirPods Pro or AirPods Pro Max can help he/she hear more clearly by focusing on the sound of the person directly in front of them.

Conversation Boost uses on-device machine learning to detect and amplify certain sounds, like the sound of a person speaking to you from across a busy room.

Step 1: Wear the AirPods, and make sure they’re connected to the device.
Step 2: On the iPhone/iPad, go to Settings > Accessibility > Audio/Visual > Headphone Accommodations, and make sure Headphone Accommodations is turned on.
Step 3: Tap Transparency Mode, turn on Custom Transparency Mode, then turn on Conversation Boost.

Sound Recognition - Sound the alarm without hearing a sound

This feature will enable iPhone/ iPad to listen for certain time-sensitive sounds, such as smoke alarms and doorbells, using on‑device intelligence, and notifies the owner when they are detected. He/she can even train the device to listen for electronic sounds unique to the environment, like the specific beep of appliances in the kitchen or doorbell sound.

Here's How to use Sound Recognition:
Go to Settings > Accessibility > Sound Recognition, then turn on Sound Recognition.
Tap Sounds, then turn on the sounds you want iPhone to recognize.

Sound Recognition feature. Credit: Apple

Headphone Accommodations for AirPods
With this feature, users can customise the audio output to best suit the individual's hearing needs. If already have an audiogram, users can import it from a paper or a PDF. If not, you’ll walk through a series of listening tests that help you set up as many as nine unique profiles based on your personal sound preferences.

Step 1: Go to Settings > Accessibility > Audio/Visual > Headphone Accommodations. Turn on Headphone Accommodations.
Step 2: Choose how you want to apply your custom audio settings:
Step 3: Turn on Phone to apply these settings to phone calls, FaceTime calls, and any third-party video call apps.
Step 4: Turn on Media to apply these settings to music, movies, podcasts, audiobooks, Siri, voicemail, and Live Listen.

Here's how to customise headphone audio settings:
Prerequisite: Reset any current audio configurations to their default settings:
Step 1: Go to Settings > Music > EQ, then tap Off to turn off Music EQ.
Step 2: Go to Settings > Accessibility > Audio/Visual, then adjust the Balance slider. Set the audio volume balance to the center.
Step 3: Connect your headphones. Make sure that you're in a quiet environment.
Step 4: Go to Settings > Accessibility > Audio/Visual > Headphone Accommodations. Tap Custom Audio Setup.
Step 5: Follow the instructions on your screen. When finished, tap Use Custom Settings to apply the custom settings suggested based on your choices. You can switch back to standard settings at any time.

Tap Custom Audio Setup, then tap Use Audiogram to use your audiogram data from the Health app to customize audio settings.

If you have a nearly symmetric audiogram, Headphone Accommodations will take the average of the two ears and fit the left and right audio channels with that profile. If you have an asymmetric audiogram, it will fit the left and right audio channels for your better ear.

To manually adjust audio settings
Step 1: Go to Settings > Accessibility > Audio/Visual.
Step 2: Adjust the Balance slider.

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