Tech giant Apple announced two new health features yesterday (Sept. 9). It claims they could be “groundbreaking” for billions of people.
The company is continuing to expand into the healthcare tech market with sleep apnea notifications on the Apple Watch and hearing health functions for the AirPods Pro 2.
“At Apple, we believe that technology can help you live a healthier life, and we’re excited to enable incredible new health capabilities for serious conditions that affect billions of people around the world, while continuing to keep user data private,” said Apple’s vice president of health, Sumbul Desai.
The new AirPods features will include everything from noise reduction, five minute hearing tests, and “clinically validated” hearing aid settings.
According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 80 percent of US adults have not had their hearing checked for at least five years. The hearing test feature can be completed at home in around five minutes. Once finished, the Health app will display the results and recommendations going forward.
The prevention features will aim to reduce loud background noises around the user. Ear tips passively reduce noise and the H2 chip actively reduces louder intermittent noises. It will be turned on by default and is recommended for concerts, sports events and commuting on public transport.
Finally the hearing aid function is recommended for people with mild to moderate hearing loss. The company claims this can “seamlessly” turn AirPods into clinical level hearing aids. Sounds will be strengthened in real time and settings will be automatically applied from users’ hearing test results.
Sleep apnea is a condition where someone stops breathing when they are asleep. Apple claims it affects more than 1 billion people globally and is often undiagnosed. It can lead to type 2 diabetes, hypertension and cardiac problems.
The Apple Watch already tracks various metrics like breathing, heart rate and sleep quality. This update will now track Breathing Disturbances when users are asleep. It will analyze the data every month and then give users a notification if the disturbances are “moderate to severe”.
Although not yet authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or any other health organizations, the feature will be available later this month in 150 countries including the US according to the press release.
Feature image credit: Apple Newsroom
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