Hacker News Reader

Comment by userbinator | Hacker News Reader

It appears that the Hearing Aid feature is actually an equalizer preset that is pushed to the AirPods and will replace your transparency mode.

Apple could've just not marketed these as "hearing aids" or used the medical terminology, as every other TWS with parametric EQ and transparency mode can do the same thing, and they wouldn't have the regulatory hawks going after them. They only lose the marketing edge, but perhaps that was a huge calculated risk.

There's an incredible amount of processing power and flexibility in these things. Even the sub-$10 ones using the infamous JieLi SoCs - a 160MHz 32-bit computer in each ear. I'm surprised there hasn't yet been any TWS advertised with open-source firmware, although there's been some work in the usual Chinese (and Russian) communities on customisations.

View on HN

> They only lose the marketing edge

This is a bigger deal than it may sound. Apple isn't operating in a vacuum, sony[0] and bose are also targeting the market and they'll also probably do their marketing push as they see fit.

Apple only having a "kinda works as a hearing aid" is a sizeable disadvantage when the other brands will have posters in prominent places at sales points. Apple would still win on online sales and people who don't need that much reliability of course.

[0] https://electronics.sony.com/otc-hearing-aids

How do Sony or Bose have any kind of retail advantage? What stores that sell Sony and Bose don't also sell Apple stuff? Plus Apple has their own stores which make more money per square foot than just about any other retailer.

Sony has great audio codecs and doesn't treat my Linux desktop as a second-class citizen. I have zero reason to even consider Airpods as a serious alternative for as long as they treat multipoint bluetooth as an optional feature.

Once you factor price into the equation, there's very little reason for an educated customer to pick the Airpods besides marketing. Apple doesn't give people a good reason unless they already own thousands of dollars in other Apple hardware.

Because they’re about to sell their products as hearing aids due to the recent OTC hearing aid regulation change.

You seem to be painting Sony or Bose as some small upstart that struggle to get store shelf. I'm not sure to follow.

Sony funnily also has presence in many specialized and/or non tech shops (select goods shops etc.) where they could be only two or three earbuds. If Apple didn't get the certification, having a spot for Sony's or Bose's ones could have been a natural choice if the shop targeted that kind of demographic.

There aren't enough of those specialized shops to make a difference. Certainly not enough to present a sizeable disadvantage for Apple. If anything, not being in the Apple Store presents a sizeable disadvantage for Sony.

Funnily enough, the company that bought out the consumer audio division of Sennheiser some time ago is a manufacturer of hearing aids. (No hearing aid features have manifested in the Momentum True Wireless series thus far.)

> I'm surprised there hasn't yet been any TWS advertised with open-source firmware

Let me introduce you to the PineBuds Pro: https://pine64.com/product/pinebuds-pro-open-firmware-capabl...

User can flash in PINE64 community open firmware when becomes[sic] available.

I did manage to find the firmware, but it says that it doesn't have ANC, which the factory firmware does. Good start nonetheless.

>Excessive flashing Pinebuds can potentially brick the device.

Jeez that's not great. Hard to develop on these devices when too many flashes kills them.

The flash on these SoCs is usually designed to be programmed once at the factory, and then perhaps the occasional firmware update. Endurance is in the ~100 cycles range.

For anyone else wondering, apparently "TWS" means "True Wireless Stereo":

https://audiochamps.com/what-does-tws-mean/

So, Bluetooth.

Bluetooth headphones have many form factors. TWS in particular means you have two buds that aren’t joined in any way.

This is what a non-TWS Bluetooth earphone looks like:

https://5.imimg.com/data5/SELLER/Default/2023/5/311562137/UE...

Or more commonly:

https://kagi.com/proxy/1462421?c=3_iinnNGr4mThI2-fwchjJtCnBS...

They may have been trying to target the crowd that uses FSA/HSA to pay for medical related expenses.

Is that the only concern? That's good because Apple probably won't go and turn the feature off.

I was worried that there might have been some other regulatory concern, perhaps to do with volume. Though I can't think what that might be.

> every other TWS with parametric EQ and transparency mode can do the same thing,

AirPods too! I'm am yet to be convinced that this is any different than using a different hearing test app like Mimi and applying the resulting audiogram, as has been possible for years.

But can you play Doom on them?

the point is that they can do, in an FDA-approved manner a hearing test + tuning the hearing aid + hearing protection all in one device

and this means both that they don't have to use weasel legal language to avoid "the regulatory hawks" AND that they gain a huge air of legitimacy in their marketing as a medical device

I own AAPL for that marketing edge! I bought more AAPL after they announced locking down macOS to prevent third party sourced applications from running, because Apple customers are the kind who'll interpret such news as daddy protecting them and looking out for babies' best interests, which means more money going into the Apple tax to pay AAPL holders!

Fwiw I refuse to own Apple, I only own AAPL.

You do know you can still use macOS to run third party closed source applications, right?

An even unsigned x86_64 apps and ad-hoc signed arm64 apps.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com