Apple introduced a new health feature with iOS 18.1: the ability to perform a hearing test with your 2nd generation AirPods Pro. A welcome option for monitoring the progress of your hearing and detecting possible losses, without having to consult an audiologist.
How to access the hearing test on iPhone?
For the moment, the test is not officially available in France. But a little tip allows you to access it now:
- Open Safari and enter the following command in the URL bar: x-apple-health://HearingAppPlugin.healthplugin/HearingTest
- You will be redirected to the Health app where you can start the hearing test.
Note that you need an iPhone running iOS 18.1 minimum and AirPods Pro 2 with firmware 7B19 to take advantage of it. Apple also recommends performing the test in a quiet environment, at least once a year.
How the Apple hearing test takes place
Before starting, an adjustment is made to measure the ambient noise and ensure that you are in good conditions. Do not disturb mode is automatically activated to avoid distraction. The test itself is quite classic:
- Less and less loud sounds are played in each ear, starting with the left.
- You have to press the screen when you hear the “beep-beep”. Don’t worry if you miss it, it will be replayed.
- The test takes approximately 5 minutes in total for both ears.
Once completed, the results are displayed in the form of an audiogram, which you will find in the “Hearing” section of the Health app. The higher the decibel number, the louder the sound must be for you to hear it. You can export this graph to PDF if necessary.
Interpretation of test results
Once the test is complete, the results are displayed for each ear. You can see the level of hearing loss in decibels (dBHL) and which category you fall into among the following 5:
- Little or no loss: up to 25 dBHL
- Light loss: 26-40 dBHL
- Moderate loss: 41-60 dBHL
- Severe loss: 61-80 dBHL
- Deep loss: beyond 80 dBHL
For many people in the “little to no loss” category, Apple will confirm that the AirPods’ current setting is suitable. But in other cases, you’ll be able to activate the AirPods Pro 2’s new hearing aid feature, which will use your test data for optimal performance. Note that this feature is intended for mild to moderate hearing loss. For more severe losses, you will have to turn to other solutions such as prescription hearing aids.
