- Hey guys, welcome back to the DrCliffAuD Vlog.
This is Vlog Number 91,
and I am going to try to do this all in one take.
I'm not gonna edit this video whatsoever.
Just got back from a really long day of traveling.
Ashley and I went out of town for vacation
for the entire last week, which has been terrific.
But as always, when you come back from vacation,
there's a little bit of jet lag.
That's involved with that,
but I wanted to actually get a vlog out this week
for you guys, because this last week
there was an article in "The Wall Street Journal"
about Apple wanting to make the AirPods Pro
and future generations of them, I'm sure,
into a health device.
And I've already published a couple of different videos
about Apple and their AirPods
that you can kind of turn into some sort of a hearing aid,
but they want to take it a step further
and do other things with their devices as well.
Now, some of you who have been paying attention
or are pretty keen on what Apple has been doing
with their Air Pods,
they just added a Conversation Boost feature
with the iOS 15 point something,
I can't remember exactly which one it was
that they came out with, but it might've been 15.0,
but a Conversation Boost feature,
which allows you to actually boost speech
coming from in front of you.
And not necessarily from speech coming from around you,
which is a really cool feature.
It's something that's basically called directionality.
When you can identify...
The hearing aids rather, can identify
which direction sound is coming from
and primarily amplify the sounds coming from in front.
That is not something that Apple had prior to now.
So that's kind of a cool feature,
but I really wanted to kind of get into the aspect of this,
them bringing out these different features
and basically turning these earbuds into actual hearing aids
and what that ultimately means
for someone who has hearing loss.
People ask me what do I think about these particular devices
being used as hearing aids,
and I have to say that I'm actually a big fan of it.
One of the big reasons I am a fan of it,
is because there is such a low adoption rate
of hearing treatment as it is.
And if there's anything that can increase the adoption rate
of hearing treatment,
whether it's just some cheap amplifier,
whether it's something that's like an OTC Hearing Aid,
or whether or not it's full on hearing treatment
with traditional hearing aids,
I think that anything that can be done
to create additional awareness
and essentially, I call it market penetration,
that's from a business perspective,
but hearing aid adoption.
Here in the United States,
we do not have the best hearing aid adoption rates.
In fact, across the world,
even in countries that hearing aids
are given away to their citizens for free,
'cause they're a part of their national health program,
they have really low adoption rates of hearing aids as well.
So I think one of the ways
that we potentially could have higher adoption rates
is to have devices that are very easily accessible
without requiring access to a hearing care professional.
Now, why would I be a fan of it then?
Well, the reason I'd be a fan of it,
is because as time goes on,
if someone decides to purchase a set of AirPods Pro,
they turn them into hearing aids
with that feature inside of their iPhone,
they essentially have at least an entry point
into getting hearing treatment.
Now, is it perfect right off the bat? Not really.
I mean, I've had some patients come in,
who they wanted to make sure that the AirPods Pro
we're amplifying sound appropriately.
I've had some people who've gotten a decent amount
of amplification out of the AirPods Pro,
enough for me to actually write a letter to their employer
saying that your employee should be allowed
to wear their AirPods Pro during work,
because it does technically help them hear better,
even though it wouldn't be as good in my opinion,
as professionally fit, customized,
fully customizable hearing aids.
But I think it's really a good stepping stone.
I think Apple, when I'm thinking
of like OTC/direct-to-consumer style hearing aids,
I think that they have something
that's really good right now.
Something that I think would be a big enough
for the adoption rates to increase.
When I say big enough,
meaning they already have a lot of sales of the AirPods Pro.
In fact, Apple is the leading company
when it comes to earbuds in the entire world.
I mean, they sell billions of dollars.
They sell, let me see,
I think that the amount of AirPods that they sell
is double the entire hearing aid market.
I think it's like $15 billion is what they sell.
And the hearing aid market is what, five to $6 billion?
Like the entire hearing aid market
is five to $6 billion annually.
And then here you have AirPods Pro selling like $20 billion
or something ridiculous like that.
So they have these devices in people's ears already,
and all they have to do is go and turn on a feature.
So if you're someone who has hearing loss
and you have AirPods Pro, it would be silly for you
not to try to enable that particular feature
to help you hear better.
And then that kind of gets you
kind of used to amplification,
and then once you're used to amplification,
you're like, you know what?
I wanna optimize this even more.
Well, I've done testing,
you guys should go check out the review that I've done
of the Apple AirPods that I turned into hearing aids.
They did a decent job.
I mean, my review is what I like to call
a relatively unbiased review.
I try to be as unbiased as possible.
And in my opinion, I felt like the review was favorable
towards the AirPods Pro being used as hearing aids.
So I think that if that's what it takes
for someone kind of get their feet wet
with hearing treatment
to correct their level of hearing loss,
I think that's terrific.
So then that leads to the next question,
which is, well, what do I really feel
about the Over-The-Counter Hearing Aid Act,
which is supposed to make hearing aids accessible
without a prescription,
without going to see a hearing care professional,
without a hearing test or anything like that.
And what I would say is,
well, I don't think it's gonna change a whole lot,
to be honest.
I don't think that any regulation that they put out
is going to make more options for consumers.
There are already more options for consumers,
that is not going to change.
I mean, there might be some companies
who've been holding back a little bit,
but all of the big companies like Apple, like Bose,
all these consumer electronics companies
that are the biggest targets of potential lawsuits,
if they were to release hearing aids
before over-the-counter guidelines came out,
they're doing it anyway.
So it's not really like you're gonna have more availability.
You'll have all these other little companies
that have been essentially selling
over-the-counter hearing aids for years at this point,
you can get hearing aids off eBay at this point.
There's no limitation to getting hearing aids
over-the counter without a hearing test,
without going to see an audiologist
or hearing instrument specialist.
So I guess I don't really see what the point of it is
from an accessibility standpoint.
What I'm hoping that the Over-The-Counter Hearing Aid Act
actually does is create some kind of framework or guidelines
or regulation around it.
But that requires the FDA,
or whoever the governing body is gonna be,
most likely the FDA,
that would require them to enforce the regulations.
So I guess I just...
Which I have no faith in them doing,
because they have not been enforcing
essentially what they submitted several years ago,
'cause in 2017, that's when it was signed into law,
they've had a certain amount of time
where they had to come up with the guidelines
which they're still doing.
And in the meantime,
they said that no one could sell a hearing aid
over-the-counter.
Well, that's been happening like crazy
over the last two, three, four years
potentially at this point.
So I just don't see how any type of regulation...
I just don't think it's gonna change much.
I mean, I know that there's people who are like,
oh, great, now we're gonna have a lot of competition
and it's gonna drive down prices
for traditional hearing aids,
or it's going to prevent regulation to help these
new companies start up with these great features
to help people self adjust their own devices.
And I just don't think it's gonna do any of that.
I mean, there's a lot of individuals...
Now, again, I gave a favorable review.
I would say that I give a generally favorable review
of the Bose Sound Control hearing aids.
And there were a lot of people who are like,
man, like I thought Bose was gonna make something
substantially better than that.
They're not even Bluetooth compatible
and connectable to do streaming of audio
or anything like that.
And people are like,
"Really? Like, that's what came out with Bose?"
So I just don't think that it's gonna have a huge play
as we go into the future here.
So I would love to see a lot of change
and a lot of regulation happen
with Over-The-Counter or direct-to-consumer type devices.
I just don't see that happening.
I see a lot of consumers essentially getting ripped off,
which they're currently being ripped off at this point.
So that's not gonna change a whole lot,
but I think that the biggest risk of all of it
is that when people try these over-the-counter devices,
that will eventually come out,
in addition to what we already have
out and available right now,
I think that the biggest risk is them trying it,
having it not work, and then if it doesn't work,
they're like, "Well, I guess doing hearing aid treatment
doesn't work for me."
And I feel like they're just gonna give up at that point.
And we might see an initial spike
in hearing aid adoption rates
if that's considered hearing aid adoption.
But then if there's a lot of individuals
who don't get a whole lot of benefit,
which I know that there will be,
I mean, I get comments all the time on my YouTube channel
saying, hey, I went and tried these particular devices
or those devices, whatever.
And they had a horrible experience with them.
And if it wasn't for them being educated enough
through watching some content that I've created
and doing their own research online on whatever platform,
hearingtracker.com, whatever,
to learn more about hearing treatment,
they would have stopped at that point
and not continued on to try and do more thorough treatment
with a hearing care professional.
So I know that this might come across
as self-serving to some degree, but facts are facts.
I mean, I do a ton of reviews of different products
that are out there to treat hearing loss.
I am really well ingrained inside of the community
of individuals with hearing loss
who are using hearing treatment.
And I see and hear everything that goes, not everything,
but a lot of stuff that goes on out there with consumers
and how they are either having a really good experience
with a certain type of treatment
or a horrible experience with a certain type of treatment.
So, I just don't think that things are going to change
a whole lot other than hopefully us seeing a spike
in hearing aid adoption rates.
And as long as there's enough information there online
for individuals to realize
that if over-the-counter or direct-to-consumer
does not work for them, that there are other options
that they have at their disposal.
So I guess we'll ultimately see what happens.
I mean, we could all be right. We could all be wrong.
Who knows? I guess time will tell.
I'm still waiting to see.
I mean, when we had the executive order here
several months ago now,
I think we're right around that time period
where the executive order said that we should be having
these accelerated guidelines coming out.
And of course we still do not see them at this point.
I would be surprised if we didn't see them
at some point in 2022,
but even when they do come out,
you guys know my thoughts on this already.
I just gave it to you.
I don't think it's gonna change a whole lot,
which is, unfortunate or fortunate,
depending on which side of the fence you're on.
I happen to be on the side of the fence
where I can see things from both perspectives.
I think I see things from a hearing care professional
who wants individuals to get the best treatment outcome
humanly possible,
but I can also see it on the side of the fence
where there's individuals who can not afford
the best hearing treatment possible
and who don't have access
to really high quality hearing treatment.
And for that group of individuals,
we need something for them to at least get them started
and to at least get them treated to some degree.
Because, I would say that treating your hearing loss 50%
is better than not treating your hearing loss at all.
So if the option comes down
between not treating your hearing loss
and going with an over-the-counter/direct-to-consumer style
hearing aid or amplifier,
I would say that going with that,
that any form of treatment would be better
than not doing anything at all.
So we'll see what happens at the end of the day.
It's nice to see that Apple is continuing
to kind of push the envelope with their Air Pods.
Not only will they be turned more into hearing aids,
which they already have been
but they're looking at doing things like slouch detection,
so making sure that you keep really good posture
and also being able to take temperature readings
inside of your ear.
And of course those things could both be beneficial
for individuals from a health perspective.
But one of the things that was a little surprising
in the article,
is that they're not sure if they'll roll these things out.
So this could just be, it's a nice way to get into the news,
but it might not actually come to fruition.
And if it does,
again, this is not gonna be until most likely some point
in 2022, maybe even 2023, who knows?
What I do know is that Apple is gonna continue
to push the envelope.
I think that they could make a pretty solid hearing aid
at the end of the day,
but they have a lot of work to do
based on my testing that I did in my review.
So now if you have not seen that review,
I do highly recommend that you go check it out.
I will link that review in the description below,
but guys, I am tired.
This probably seemed like a very incoherent ramble
of a vlog, but I hope you enjoyed it anyway.
And if you did, go ahead and give it that thumbs up
and as always, I'll see you next week.
(upbeat music)