The value of headphone accommodations in Apple Airpods Pro for managing speech-in-noise hearing difficulties of individuals with normal audiograms

Objective: To investigate the extent to which Headphone Accommodations in Apple AirPods Pro attend to the hearing needs of individuals with normal audiograms who experience hearing difficulties in noisy environments. Design: Single-arm interventional study using acoustic measures, speech-in-noise laboratory testing, and real-world measures via questionnaires and ecological momentary assessment. Study sample: Seventeen normal-hearing individuals (9 female, 21–59 years) with self-reported hearing-in-noise difficulties. Results: Acoustic measures showed that, relative to unaided, AirPods Pro provided a SNR advantage of +5.4 dB. Speech intelligibility performance in laboratory testing increased 11.8% with AirPods Pro, relative to unaided. On average, participants trialling AirPods Pro in real-world noisy venues reported that their overall hearing experience was a bit better than without them. Five participants (29%) reported that they would continue using AirPods Pro in the future. The most relevant barriers that would discourage their future use were limited hearing benefit, discomfort, and stigma. Conclusions: Occasional use of AirPods Pro may help some individuals with normal audiograms ameliorate their speech-in-noise hearing difficulties. The identified barriers may inspire the development of new technological solutions aimed at providing an optimal management strategy for the hearing difficulties of this segment of the population.