EDITOR’S NOTE: I’m updating this post to add an editor’s note and information on how the Airpods Pro 2 fit in my ears. My friend Sarah Horton asked if they hurt. I was honest and said ‘yes,’ but thought they weren’t hurting as bad as time rolled on. However, after a few more days of wearing them at least 6 hours a day, I have to admit that they squeeze against the cartilage of my ear to the point that I can’t wait to take them off. My left ear is most sore, and I’m afraid they are going to create an open wound at some point. Stay tuned.
Let me say right at the start of this that I have had a decade-long (or longer) battle with hearing loss. It’s not something that I noticed at first, but my wife and people I worked with sure did.
Along the way, I’ve been fitted with an expensive pair of hearing aids that brought their own problems. I’ll explain, but first some background.
In 2015, at age 61 and following a round of what had to be the worst case of flu I’ve ever had, I found that I couldn’t stay on my feet. Literally.
For a period of a couple months, I suffered from an unexplained loss of balance that affected my ability to drive, to walk a straight line and even stand without holding on to something.
My wife took to me see a variety of specialists, including a neurologist and a hearing specialist. I had weekly physical therapy sessions for about six weeks.
The hearing specialist conducted a hearing test that detected mild hearing loss in each ear. My wife said I had struggled with conversations for quite some time, but I assumed that was merely selective hearing loss, if you know what I mean.
The bottom line is that I came away with a pair of hearing aids at a cost that would have covered a pretty nice used car.
They helped, I admit.
But battery life wasn’t great, and the tips on the end that goes deep into your ear kept coming off in my ear. I had to go to a walk-in clinic to have a physician remove rubber tips in both ears, including one that had apparently been in the ear canal for months and took quite an effort to dig out.
Plus, I felt like the old man I didn’t want to be when I wore them.
Still, I wore them faithfully for a couple years before putting them in a drawer.
Fast forward to the end of 2024.
Apple Inc., maker of many wonderful tech devices that I have used for decades, announced that its updated Airpods Pro 2.0 had been approved by the FDA as ‘clinical grade’ hearing aids
The author wearing his new Airpods Pro 2 hearing aids
Those Airpods became my Christmas present to me. I’ve been wearing them for just over a week, and I’ve been impressed. When paired with an iPhone, you can conduct a real time hearing test on the phone, and it calibrates Airpods Pro 2 settings to accommodate your hearing loss.
The Airpods definitely provide a real hearing boost to conversations, to watching television shows and more.
Not only that, the Airpods Pro 2.0 offers several settings that amplify all sounds, provide a conversation boost, cancel out unwanted noises. And it even has an ‘adaptive’ setting that filters out noises until I speak, which facilitates conversation.
I’m not wearing them all day, every day, so I haven’t had any battery issues yet. But when I do, all I have to do is charge them in their case rather than running out to buy new batteries all the time.
I’m still playing around with different settings to see what works best for me. But, so far, I have to give the Airpods Pro 2.0 a two-thumbs up, five-star review.
Oh, there’s a big self-image boost, too, for a now 71-year old me who doesn’t want to look (or act) his age.
And the cost in 2024 dollars was less than 10 percent of what the earlier hearing aids cost in 2015 dollars.
If I was a maker of traditional hearing aids, I would be scrambling to figure out how to lower the cost of my devices, add high fidelity sound and adaptive hearing features.
Otherwise, those hearing aid producers might become the next Research In Motion, the company that manufactured the once popular Blackberry phone.
And we all know what happened to the Blackberry when Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007.
It could happen again
BONUS UPDATE (Jan. 11): I have alleviated the pain of wearing the Airpods Pro 2 by “turning” them in my ears so they don’t press up against the cartilage to hard. It makes the stems stick out a bit, but doesn’t impact how they boost hearing. I’ve worn them this way for the past two days with little-to-no pain.
Jim Stafford's BlogOKC 