From Hearing Aids to Sleep Apnea: The Healthiest Features Apple Just Announced

At Apple’s Glowtime event Monday, some of the most exciting features were ones that may ultimately help you improve your health.

While calling attention to the Apple Watch Series 10, unveiled the new iPhone 16 and announced the new AirPods 4, Apple also highlighted features aimed at common health problems such as sleep apnea and hearing loss. 

Here are the healthy highlights. 

Apple Watch gets sleep apnea detection 

In addition to being a sleep tracker that can monitor your sleep stages, Apple Watch will soon be able to detect whether you have signs of sleep apnea, which is a potentially dangerous condition that disrupts breathing during sleep. 

Pending clearance by the US Food and Drug Administration, a sleep apnea feature will be available on Apple Watch Ultra 2, Apple Watch Series 9 and the new Series 10. It works by employing a new health metric called breathing disturbances, which uses the accelerometer to detect small movements that signal abnormal respiratory patterns. Over 30 days, Apple will notify you of patterns that suggest you have signs of moderate to severe sleep apnea. This isn’t a diagnosis but rather a call for you to make an appointment with your doctor.

Breathing disturbance data can also reflect other factors that impact sleep, like drinking alcohol the night before, taking medication and more. 

Hearing aid mode on AirPods Pro 2 finally drops

Starting in the fall, a pair of AirPods Pro 2 will be able to double as hearing aids for most people with hearing loss, pending clearance by the FDA. The hearing aid feature isn’t expected to be cleared for people with severe hearing loss or for children.

When hearing aids earned the ability to be sold without prescription in 2022, it opened the door for tech companies to get more affordable and (hopefully) easier-to-use hearing aids into the hands of the millions who need them. 

In many ways, Apple has been building up to this official launch of its own hearing aid over the last couple of years, offering hidden tips and tricks to make your AirPods act more like hearing aids through sound enhancements and different settings in your iPhone.

But with this software-based hearing aid update, Apple will be able to market its AirPods Pro 2 as over-the-counter devices. This new feature may also help normalize the act of wearing hearing aids.

Apple creates its own hearing test 

Apple created its own hearing test, which it says has been clinically validated and can be taken within minutes. 

This pairs with its hearing aid update, so users will be able to know whether they have signs of mild or moderate hearing loss and may benefit from a hearing aid (or AirPods Pro 2). 

In similar hearing health news, Apple also added hearing protection for AirPods Pro 2. This feature is set by default and reduces some exposure to background noise, which can compound the extra noise associated with headphone and earbud use. 

Apple continues to do its own research

Simmering in the background of all the fancy new Apple updates is the company’s ongoing research into three key categories of public health: heart and movement, women’s health and hearing health. 

This year, Apple took off with hearing health, which it is studying in partnership with University of Michigan School of Public Health and the World Health Organization. Apple says that through this study, it has gained insight into how consumers are exposed to noise and volume (which includes noise from its own products), possibly inspiring the new hearing health features. 

The tech company is also conducting research on the menstrual cycle and ovulation patterns in partnership with Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The Apple Women’s Health Study aims to connect menstrual cycle patterns with other markers of health, such as polycystic ovary syndrome or an increased risk of heart disease. Some Apple Watch models come with temperature sensors, which can retrospectively identify ovulation, as temperatures are slightly higher on average in the second half of the menstrual cycle.

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Apple’s Heart and Movement study is continuing research on the known relationship between physical activity and cardiovascular health. Apple Watch can collect some heart data, such as heart rate, and it used some data from its study to help build out its upcoming Vitals app.

With each new sweep of Apple product updates, we can expect the tech company to keep building in health areas it’s already identified as an area of interest.