5/27/22
9:00 am

Use Your iPhone and AirPods As a Hearing Aid

You can use the Live Listen feature on your iPhone to use it and your AirPods as a simple hearing aid, allowing you to hear voices clearer even in the next room.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a look at using Live Listen on your iPhone. 
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So Live Listen allows you to use your iPhone and your AirPods or some Beat headphones and basically it works kind of like a hearing aid. The microphone on your iPhone will be used to capture sound in the environment around you and then amplified to your AirPods so you can hear better. 
So check out this page at Apple's site (support.apple.com/en-us/Ht209082) to make sure everything you've got is compatible. It says here you need iOS or iPad OS 14.3 or newer, although it did work on earlier versions of iOS. Then you need any AirPod. The regular old AirPods, the AirPods Pro, or AirPods Max. It also works with a couple of Beats as well. The idea here is that you put your AirPods in and then you can use your iPhone to listen. So the mike on your iPhone is going to pick up sound and transmit it here. But it could process it a little bit to make it easier to hear things. 
So let's set it up here by going into Settings on the iPhone and then you would think you would go to Accessibility to turn this on. But, in fact, that's not where you look! Look in Control Center. In Control Center you want to make sure you add Hearing to the top part. The active included controls. So if you find Hearing down here just click the Plus button to move it up here. Now you can get to this by going to Control Center. I'm going to swipe down from the upper right hand corner and you could see the Hearing Icon there. Click that and you may find that the background sounds, if you're using that, also appears here. But you've got Live Listen. 
So to turn it On just click here and it turns it on. You can see now the input coming in here. It will tell you if the sound level is too high. It's easy to turn it Off as well. Click there and you can see now it is Off. Basically what is happening is the iPhone is trying to listen for voices and it's amplifying those voices while trying to drown out background noise and other distractions. So it makes it easier to hear people. Kind of like a hearing aid but it's never going to be quite as good as an actual hearing aid which you have to spend a lot of money for and has to be customized to fit your exact needs. 
But there are a couple of interesting ways to use this because unlike a hearing aid your iPhone doesn't have to be at the same place as your AirPod. You can actually put the iPhone somewhere else. So, for instance, if you're having trouble hearing the television and you rather not turn the volume up too high you could place your iPhone near the TV or maybe point the microphone directly at the speaker on the TV to get better sound into your AirPods. The same thing with a conversation. You might find that maybe you're sitting in one part of a room and most of the conversation is going on in another part of the room, you could always put your iPhone down near where the people are talking so you can hear them clearer while you sit somewhere else. Of course you could use this as kind of a baby monitor or spying device by placing your iPhone in one location and then within the range of the AirPod sitting in another room and listening in. It could be useful, say, for listening for things like an oven or dryer indicating that it's done while you go into another room. Or, for instance, if you need to run into the other room for some reason and you want to keep listening to the TV while the other people are there in the room watching it. You could still get the audio even while you are in another room. 
Another use is if you are at a meeting or conference and you find you're having trouble hearing the speaker you can point your iPhone, perhaps, at one of the speakers there or directly at the person talking and may find you can hear them a little bit better than listening without it. So there's all sorts of little interesting uses like that. I should point out here, in case you didn't know, the the microphone on your iPhone is right here along the bottom. So what you want to do is point the bottom of your iPhone towards the TV or the person speaking to get the best sound from them. 
So if you have AirPods or some of those Beatz Headphones give this a try to see what it is like. You may be surprised at how well sound comes through and how it may improve your chances to participate in conversations if your hearing isn't that good.
Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 20 Responses to “Use Your iPhone and AirPods As a Hearing Aid”

Julie

3 years ago

Thanks, Gary. This is brilliant! I have so many aging friends that are losing their hearing, but aren't ready for the move to hearing aids. I'll be sharing this knowledge with them--and using it myself when I want to move around during a TV show. Also, it would work for listening to birds, maintaining a distance that doesn't scare them away!

Peter Eckle

3 years ago

Under Live Listen it said "connect a compatibles audio device to use Live Listen. What do I do?

Gary Rosenzweig

3 years ago

Peter: Do you have your AirPods or Beats connected?

Linda

3 years ago

I have my airpodpros connected to my iPhone and get the message Peter stated above.

Gary Rosenzweig

3 years ago

Linda: Not sure why it isn't working for you. Maybe the AirPods are somehow not getting updated (should happen automatically). If you really want to use this feature, you may need to call Apple to troubleshoot.

Joe

3 years ago

In settings, under “Accessability”, scroll done till you find “Hearing Devices”. If it’s set to on for a hearing aid, I found the “Live Listen” won’t work. Turn off connected to hearing devices and it should work as Gary describes. Hope this helps…

Joe

3 years ago

Norm Bradley

3 years ago

How do I turn it off! I followed the steps up to “hearing” but India not have my ear buds in place. Got to a screen that said falling rain. Great but can’t get out of the rain necessitating turning down the volume

Linda

3 years ago

Norm. Touch “icon” Bottom center to change from on to off.
Joe. Mine is not set for hearing aids and still will not work.

Linda

3 years ago

Seems you have to go to sound and have sound recognition turned on for this to work! Hope this helps!

Lynda Farabee

3 years ago

I did as Joe suggested. Removed hearing aids app and told Bluetooth to forget them. I still get the "connect a compatibles audio device to use Live Listen." and even tho iPod show connected, no sound through them.

Joel

3 years ago

I have the same connect a compatibles audio device as well. On a whim I pressed the play music button in control menu, heard music thru EarPods, then turned it off and then the live listen prompt appeared when I touched the hearing icon.

Gary Rosenzweig

3 years ago

Norm: Just turn it off. Starting at about 1:40 I show you where it switches on and off.

Dally Messenger

3 years ago

Gary- that is so bloody brilliant and helpful.

rhkennerly

3 years ago

You missed the boat on Airpods as hearing aids, Gary. There is nearly professional level hearing aid tools in accessibility>audio/visual>headphone accommodations>custom audio setup>

You can use a profile generated by audio testing apps like MiMi hearing test. Or, take the test built into the iPhone. Then there are sliders for amplification, transparency balance, tone, ambien noise reduction, & conversation booster.

Listening & noise canceling is done through the two airpod microphones

rhkennerly

3 years ago

Oh…BTW, the Conversation Boost is a miracle in a noisy restaurant. With that switch on, the airpod pro microphones become highly directional & focus on the voice in the direction of where your head is turned. I used to get up & wander off mid-meal, frustrated that I couldn’t participate. Now, i can follow along the entire meal.

marcia christ

3 years ago

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Gene

3 years ago

Any idea as to why Apple doesn't allow it to work with other ear buds?

Gary Rosenzweig

3 years ago

Gene: I'm not it is not a matter of "allow" but that those others don't have the hardware to support it. AirPods are pretty complex with special comm chips, audio hardware, etc.

Vicki Baxter

3 years ago

In the Apple show "The After Party" one of the characters uses his iPhone and AirPods in this way to listen to conversation in another room.

Comments Closed.

Use Your iPhone and AirPods As a Hearing Aid

Comments: 20 Responses to “Use Your iPhone and AirPods As a Hearing Aid”

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