Hearing health features on AirPods Pro 2 will not be available worldwide

Apple on Monday shared another glimpse at the new Hearing Health features coming to the AirPods Pro 2 with iOS 18.1 next week. However, even if you have compatible devices running the latest software, these new features will not be available worldwide.

Hearing health features on AirPods Pro 2 will be limited in availability

Apple announced the AirPods Pro 2 hearing aid feature at its iPhone event in September. Impressively, the new capabilities take hearing protection to the next level and include hearing testing for user awareness and clinical hearing assistance. Your AirPods will then use the results to adjust the sound and turn the earbuds into hearing aids.

New Hearing Health features are only compatible with Second generation AirPods Pro headphones. But between the lines there is another requirement. According to a footnote on Apple websiteThe new features will only be available to users located in the United States and Canada.

In other words, even if you have a pair of… AirPods Pro 2 And an iPhone or iPad running iOS 18.1, you won’t be able to use the new hearing health features outside of these countries — at least for now. Most likely, since Apple is promoting these new options as health features, they need to be tested and approved by local regulatory bodies.

In the United States, the AirPods Pro 2 have received FDA clearance to promote them as “clinical grade” hearing aids. Apple may be waiting for approval from more health regulators around the world to expand its hearing health capabilities to more countries.

If you live in the US and Canada, all you have to do is update your iPhone or iPad to iOS 18.1 and then look for the Hearing Health options in your AirPods settings. It’s worth noting that the new features work with both Lightning and USB-C versions AirPods Pro 2.

iOS 18.1 will be released to the public next week. The RC (Release Candidate) version is now available to developers and public beta testers.

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