The plans further demonstrate Apple’s ambition to add health
and wellness features to devices beyond the Apple Watch, where most of the
company’s health functions exist today. Apple is also working on technology
that aims to use iPhones to help diagnose depression and cognitive decline, the
Journal reported last month.
It isn’t clear if Apple is developing specific new
hearing-aid features for AirPods or wants to market the earbuds’ existing
hearing-improvement features as hearing aids. AirPods Pro, Apple’s higher-end
earbuds, already offer features to improve hearing, including “conversation
boost,” launched last week, that increases the volume and clarity of people in
front of the wearer.
The proposed AirPods features aren’t expected by next year
and might never be rolled out to consumers or the timing could change,
cautioned people familiar with the company’s plans.
An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.
Apple is already developing prototypes for AirPods to take
wearers’ core body temperature from inside their ear, according to the
documents reviewed by the Journal. The thermometer would be the second that
Apple could add to its devices, including a new wrist temperature-sensor Apple
may include in next year’s version of the Apple Watch, the Journal previously
reported.
As for ergonomics, the AirPods would lean on the motion
sensors in the earbuds and alert wearers of slouching and to improve their
posture, according to the documents and a person familiar with the idea.
Offering AirPods as hearing aids could significantly expand
their reach. Millions of people suffer from hearing loss, including many whose
impairment is less severe and choose not to treat it, experts say.
New regulations, expected to be completed by the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration next year, would permit the sale of a new class of
cheaper hearing aids direct to consumers to treat mild to moderate hearing
loss.
About 28 million Americans suffer from mild hearing loss,
yet only 5% use a hearing aid, estimates the Cochlear Center for Hearing and
Public Health at Johns Hopkins. Another 12 million suffer from moderate hearing
loss, though only 37% of this group use a hearing aid.
AirPods may not be suited for some sufferers of hearing loss
because they don’t yet have all-day battery life. Also, Apple has been beaten
to the hearing-aid market by consumer electronics rival Bose, which sells an
FDA-cleared hearing aid that consumers can customize themselves.
AirPods dominate the global Bluetooth headset market,
generating $12.8 billion in revenue in 2020, estimates research firm Strategy
Analytics—five times the figure of No. 2 player Bose.
The array of sensors in the devices, including microphones,
an amplifier and a sophisticated processor, means AirPods Pro already contain
much of the technology necessary to help sufferers of mild or moderate hearing
loss, experts say.
The market for hearing aids is dominated by a handful of
companies, and hearing aids can cost thousands of dollars. Cheaper “personal
sound amplification products” are available in stores, but their quality is
inconsistent, experts say.
AirPods can’t be marketed as hearing aids today because of
federal regulations that date back decades to when many hearing aids were
unsafe or ineffective. Those restrictions require the devices to be sold
through licensed hearing specialists who tune the hearing aids to the wearer.
The FDA is working to complete safety and effectiveness rules as required by a 2017 law for a new category of over-the-counter hearing aids that consumers can tune themselves. The rules are expected to permit companies like Apple, Bose and Samsung to market cheaper hearing aids.