Apple Watch delivers new sleep apnea notifications, and AirPods
Pro 2 provide the world’s first all-in-one hearing health
experience including a clinical-grade, over-the-counter Hearing Aid
feature
Apple® today unveiled breakthrough sleep and hearing health
features coming to Apple Watch® and AirPods Pro® 2 that further
deliver on Apple’s commitment to health with experiences that
enrich users’ lives. These new features expand across products,
bringing informative and powerful ways to support users in their
sleep and hearing health for conditions that impact billions
globally.
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the full release here:
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Apple introduces groundbreaking new
features across sleep and hearing health. (Photo: Business
Wire)
Using an innovative new Breathing Disturbances metric, sleep
apnea notifications come to Apple Watch, adding to the many ways
Apple Watch acts as an intelligent guardian for users’ health. The
sleep apnea notifications are expected to receive marketing
authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other
global health authorities soon, with availability this month in
more than 150 countries and regions, including the U.S., the EU,
and Japan.1
Apple is providing the world’s first all-in-one hearing health
experience with AirPods Pro with active Hearing Protection2, a
clinically validated Hearing Test feature, and an over-the-counter
Hearing Aid feature. The first-of-its-kind software-based Hearing
Aid feature helps make access to hearing assistance easier than
ever at an approachable price point. The Hearing Test and Hearing
Aid features are expected to receive marketing authorization from
global health authorities soon, and will be available this fall in
more than 100 countries and regions, including the U.S., Germany,
and Japan.3
“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
Sumbul Desai, M.D., Apple’s vice president of Health. “With Apple
Watch, we continue to offer our users the ability to uncover
important health conditions with new sleep apnea notifications. And
on AirPods Pro, powerful features put users’ hearing health front
and center, bringing new ways to help test for and receive
assistance for hearing loss.”
A Powerful Way to Detect Signs of Sleep Apnea
Sleep is an important area of health as it impacts a person’s
overall physical and mental wellbeing. Sleep apnea is a prevalent
disorder in which breathing momentarily stops during sleep,
preventing the body from getting enough oxygen. The condition is
estimated to impact more than 1 billion people worldwide, and in
most cases, goes undiagnosed. If left untreated, it can have
important health consequences over time, including increased risk
of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and cardiac issues.
Breathing Disturbances is an innovative new Apple Watch metric
that uses the accelerometer to detect small movements at the wrist
associated with interruptions to normal respiratory patterns during
sleep. Every 30 days, Apple Watch will analyze breathing
disturbance data and notify users if it shows consistent signs of
moderate to severe sleep apnea so they can speak to their doctor
about next steps, including potential diagnosis and treatment.
Because overall quality of sleep is important, Breathing
Disturbances can also be used to assess restfulness of sleep.
Breathing Disturbances can be influenced by alcohol, medications,
sleep position, and more. Users can view their nightly Breathing
Disturbances in the Health app, where they are classified as
elevated or not elevated, and can be viewed over a one-month,
six-month, or one-year period.
For more informed conversations with their healthcare providers,
users can export a PDF that shows when sleep apnea may have
occurred, three months of breathing disturbance data, and
additional information. Educational articles are also available
within the Health app to help users learn more about sleep
apnea.
The sleep apnea notification algorithm was developed using
advanced machine learning and an extensive data set of
clinical-grade sleep apnea tests. The feature was then validated in
a clinical study — unprecedented in size for sleep apnea
technology. In the clinical validation study, every participant
identified by the algorithm had at least mild sleep apnea.
“Empowering consumers everywhere to have the ability to reliably
identify the presence of abnormal breathing patterns during sleep
can help uncover a woefully underdiagnosed and serious medical
condition such as sleep apnea,” said Sairam Parthasarathy, M.D.,
University of Arizona Health Sciences Center for Sleep, Circadian,
and Neurosciences’s professor and director in Tucson, Arizona.
“This is a major step forward in improving public health.”
Sleep apnea notifications and Breathing Disturbances add to a
range of sleep health features for Apple Watch users. In addition
to monitoring important overnight health metrics like heart rate
and respiratory rate, Apple Watch also helps users meet their sleep
goals and track their sleep over time.
The World’s First All-in-One Hearing Health
Experience
Approximately 1.5 billion people around the world are living
with hearing loss, according to the World Health Organization.
Research has also identified links between hearing loss and impact
on a person’s overall wellbeing, including dementia and social
isolation.
To help users better understand their hearing health, Apple is
introducing an end-to-end experience focused on prevention,
awareness, and assistance.
Prevention
According to the Apple Hearing Study — a virtual longitudinal
public research study conducted in collaboration with the
University of Michigan School of Public Health and the World Health
Organization — one in three people are regularly exposed to loud
environmental noise levels that can impact their hearing. That can
include common scenarios like taking the subway while commuting,
mowing the lawn at home, attending a sporting event, and many
more.
In order to help users prevent exposure to loud environmental
noise while preserving the sound signature of what they’re
listening to, Hearing Protection comes to AirPods Pro. The ear tips
help to provide passive noise reduction, while the H2 chip helps to
actively reduce louder, more intermittent noise at 48,000 times per
second. On by default across all listening modes, Hearing
Protection is helpful in a variety of loud settings. Plus, with an
all-new multiband high dynamic range algorithm, sounds at live
events like concerts remain natural and vibrant.
Awareness
Hearing loss often worsens gradually, leaving many people
unaware that they may be living with the condition. Eighty percent
of adults in the U.S. have not had their hearing checked in the
last five years, according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing
Association. To give users even more insights into hearing health,
Apple is introducing an intuitive, clinical-grade hearing test
based on the standard clinical approach called pure-tone audiometry
that users can take themselves with their AirPods Pro and a
compatible iPhone® or iPad®.
Users can take the convenient test in about five minutes from
the comfort of their own home. The Hearing Test feature leverages
advanced acoustic science and provides users with an interactive
experience. When a user completes the test, they will see an
easy-to-understand summary of their results, including a number
representing hearing loss in each ear, a classification, and
recommendations. The results, which include an audiogram, are
stored privately and securely in the Health app, and can be shared
with a healthcare provider to have more informed conversations.
The Hearing Test builds on learnings from the Apple Hearing
Study and was developed using large-scale, real-world data. The
feature was then validated against the clinical gold standard of
pure-tone audiometry.
“Hearing health is a cornerstone of overall wellbeing.
Protecting and preserving our hearing enhances our quality of life
both in the short-term and long-term,” said Rick Neitzel,
University of Michigan School of Public Health’s professor of
Environmental Health Sciences and principal investigator of the
Apple Hearing Study. “I’m thrilled Apple is introducing important
tools to support people’s hearing health. These tools will help
people protect their ears from noise pollution, be aware of changes
in their hearing over time, and have important conversations with
their healthcare providers when they need additional support.”
Assistance
Learning about hearing loss is a critical step to getting
necessary assistance, which can often be challenging due to cost
and access. Global research shows hearing loss often goes
untreated. In fact, the Apple Hearing Study revealed that 75
percent of people diagnosed with hearing loss haven’t received the
assistive support that they need.
AirPods Pro add an innovative over-the-counter Hearing Aid
capability for users with mild to moderate hearing loss. Using the
personalized hearing profile from the Hearing Test, this new
feature seamlessly transforms AirPods Pro into a clinical-grade
hearing aid. After setup, the feature enables personalized dynamic
adjustments so users have the sounds around them boosted in real
time. This helps them better engage in conversation, and keeps them
connected to the people and environment around them. With the
incredible audio quality of AirPods Pro, the user’s personalized
hearing profile is automatically applied to music, movies, games,
and phone calls across their devices, without needing to adjust any
settings. Users can also set up the Hearing Aid feature with an
audiogram created by a hearing health professional.
The Hearing Aid feature was clinically validated in a
controlled, randomized study that evaluated the perceived benefit
of the feature and its custom settings compared to an
audiologist-assisted setup.
After taking the Hearing Test, the user’s hearing profile can
also help to personalize the AirPods Pro listening experience for
even more people, including those with little to no hearing loss
who can still benefit from specific adjustments at individual
frequencies. To help provide the best listening experience, Media
Assist is an all-new feature that helps boost certain parts of
speech on a phone call or instruments within a soundtrack to help
an even broader population.
These features build on the hearing health tools Apple currently
offers its users. For example, with the Noise app, Apple Watch
users can enable notifications for when environmental noise levels
might affect their hearing health. On iPhone, users can set a
headphone volume limit where they can turn on Reduce Loud Audio and
drag a slider to a preferred decibel level. Apple also offers
additional accessibility features for users to customize settings
to meet their hearing needs.
“For decades, Apple has led the way in designing products for
everyone and supporting users with a broad spectrum of hearing
abilities,” said Sarah Herrlinger, Apple’s senior director of
Global Accessibility Policy and Initiatives. “These features on
AirPods Pro will make an impact on so many people by driving more
awareness around hearing health and empowering individuals with new
customizable tools to help them stay connected.”
Additional features coming to Apple Watch, iPhone, and iPad
include:
- The new Vitals app on Apple Watch gives users a way to check in
on their daily health status and view key overnight health metrics,
like heart rate and respiratory rate, and gain better context when
it comes to their health.
- The Health app offers additional support for pregnant users to
reflect changes in their physical and mental health during this
important time. Users can view the current gestational age and log
symptoms in Cycle Tracking. Apple Watch users can also receive
recommendations to review features like high heart rate
notifications.
- Time spent journaling can be saved as mindful minutes in the
Health app, and users can log their state of mind right in
Journal.
Since launching the Health app in 2014, Apple has introduced
meaningful features that focus on 18 areas of health and fitness
across Apple Watch, AirPods®, iPhone, and iPad. Apple is committed
to empowering users on their health journey by building actionable
features into the products they use every day that are grounded in
science, and have privacy at the core.
Built with Privacy at the Core
Privacy is fundamental in the design and development across all
of Apple’s health features. When a user’s device is locked with a
passcode, Touch ID®, or Face ID®, all of their health and fitness
data in the Health app — other than Medical ID — is encrypted. Any
Health data backed up to iCloud® is encrypted both in transit and
on Apple servers. When using iOS, iPadOS®, and watchOS® with the
default two-factor authentication and a passcode, Health app data
synced to iCloud is encrypted end-to-end, meaning that Apple does
not have the key to decrypt the data and therefore cannot read
it.
Availability
- Some features may not be available in all regions or all
languages, or with all makes and models.
- The sleep apnea notifications are expected to receive marketing
authorization from the FDA and other global health authorities
soon, with availability this month in more than 150 countries and
regions, including the U.S., the EU, and Japan. The feature will be
supported on Apple Watch Series 9, Apple Watch Series 10, and Apple
Watch Ultra® 2.
- The Hearing Test and Aid features are expected to receive
marketing authorization from global health authorities soon and
will be supported with AirPods Pro 2 with the latest firmware when
paired with a compatible iPhone or iPad, and will be available this
fall in more than 100 countries and regions, including the U.S.,
Germany, and Japan.
- The Hearing Protection feature is expected to be available in
fall 2024 and will work with AirPods Pro 2 with the latest firmware
when paired with a compatible iPhone, iPad, or Mac® running the
latest operating system. The feature will be available in the U.S.
and Canada.
Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction
of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in
innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, AirPods, Apple Watch, and Apple
Vision Pro. Apple’s six software platforms — iOS, iPadOS, macOS,
watchOS, visionOS, and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across
all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services
including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, iCloud, and Apple
TV+. Apple’s more than 150,000 employees are dedicated to making
the best products on earth and to leaving the world better than we
found it.
1 The sleep apnea notification feature is pending FDA clearance
and is expected to be available later this month. The feature will
be supported on Apple Watch Series 9, Apple Watch Series 10, and
Apple Watch Ultra 2. It is intended to detect signs of moderate to
severe sleep apnea for people 18 years or older without a diagnosis
of sleep apnea.
2 The Hearing Protection feature works with AirPods Pro 2 with
the latest firmware when paired with a compatible iPhone, iPad, or
Mac running the latest operating system. The feature will be
available in the U.S. and Canada. See support.apple.com/120850 for
total attenuation and more information.
3 The Hearing Test and Hearing Aid features are expected to be
available fall 2024. The Hearing Aid feature is pending marketing
authorization from the FDA and other global health authorities. The
Hearing Test and Hearing Aid features will be supported on AirPods
Pro 2 with the latest firmware paired with a compatible iPhone or
iPad with iOS 18 or iPadOS 18 and later, and is intended for people
18 years or older. The Hearing Aid feature is intended for people
with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss.
NOTE TO EDITORS: For additional information visit Apple Newsroom
(www.apple.com/newsroom), or email Apple’s Media Helpline at
media.help@apple.com.
© 2024 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo,
Apple Watch, AirPods Pro, iPhone, iPad, AirPods, Touch ID, Face ID,
iCloud, iPadOS, watchOS, Apple Watch Ultra, and Mac are trademarks
of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of
their respective owners.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240909409417/en/
Zaina Khachadourian Apple zkhachadourian@apple.com
Lance Lin Apple lance_lin@apple.com
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