Question about Hearing Aid feature

By peter, 29 October, 2024

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

I tried the hearing aid feature and was told that I had a profound hearing loss.

Well, I don't, but perhaps the instructions or use of this feature could be modified.

Here is what I did:

The test tells you to perform a double tap when hearing the tone. The tone is given 3 times in a short sequence. I performed the double tap after hearing the 3 tones.

WRONG!!!

Apparently, one has to perform the double tap while the 3 tones are playing!

After doing it that way, the app did a good job of adjusting for whatever hearing loss I do have.

Unless I'm missing something about how this is supposed to be done, I think it is not intutitive to have to quickly perform the double tap in the short time that the tones are actually playing. It seems that the more natural way of interacting is to hear the tones and, after the 3 tones play in a very short duration, perform the double tap after the 3 tones have completed to confirm that you heard them.

Anyway, that was my experience. I'm wondering if I did something wrong or what other people's experience with this feature was.

--Pete

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Comments

By PaulMartz on Wednesday, October 30, 2024 - 15:12

But it seems like an audiologist doesn't care whether you click your beeper during or after the sound. If they are confused about whether you heard it or not, they simply repeat the test. I'm surprised a computerized test isn't capable of doing the same.

I ordered AirPods Pro 2 this morning. They should arrive tomorrow. I hope to set them up soon, and this hearing test is on my to-do list. Thanks for posting this information.

By Brian Giles on Wednesday, October 30, 2024 - 15:12

I had the same experience. I agree that it's not immediately obvious that you need to double tap while the beeps are being played.

Once I did the test correctly it told me I have little to no loss and saved the results to the health app.

By peter on Wednesday, October 30, 2024 - 15:12

Glad to hear that others had a similar experience to me when performing the hearing test.

As someone else said, in most hearing tests with an audiologist one hears the tone and then tells the tester if they heard it. These 3 tones from the Apple hearing test come so quickly together that there is barely time to perform a double tap!

Apple should either change how this works or explain in more detail exactly how the test should be performed and what is expected of the user.

Anyway, I hope this post helps other people do the test as Apple expects it to be done.

--Pete

By Ollie on Wednesday, October 30, 2024 - 15:12

When I had a hearing test a couple of months back I was given a button to press each time I heard a tone. It does feel that a double tap is a bit much. Couldn't they make it a direct touch and that you just have to tap any where on the lower half of the screen?

I've not got it here in the UK but am hoping it will get here soon. I'm 43 and want to monitor my hearing. I've developed some tinnitus over the last year which is frustrating, so I'm interested to monitor what frequencies I might be losing and how much. I'm a data junky, not that it will help much.