How to Protect your Hearing in iOS 14

Do you remember the last super loud concert you went to? How did you come out of the club or concert hall completely disoriented and woke up the next day wondering if you would ever hear something again? Of course, that ringing in your head probably died down after a few days, and eventually everything seemed to be okay. But there’s a good chance that if you keep breaking your eardrums with loud noise coming from external environments or increasing the volume through your headphones, little by little healthy hair cells are surrounding your inner ear – the ones that send electrical impulses to your brain to interpret them. sound – will be damaged.

Damaged cells cannot send impulses to the brain, and they cannot regenerate or be repaired. Repeated damage will result in permanent hearing loss. Anything louder than 85 decibels is considered a threshold that can lead to hearing loss. If you usually use headphones to listen to music or watch movies on your iPhone or iPad, the Reduce Loud Sounds feature in iOS 14 helps protect you from damage caused by high volume. Here is how to use the function.

Headphone decibel adjustment

With iOS 14, you never have to worry about sound too loud, as the Sounds & Haptics setting can help you control it. To choose Settings> Sounds and haptics> Headset security and activate Reduce loud sounds. This command allows you to set a decibel level beyond which your Apple device cannot play sound. IOS decibel levels range from 75 to 100 at 5 decibel intervals. The levels are categorized by common and everyday sounds like vacuum cleaner, noisy restaurant, heavy city traffic, motorbike, car horn and ambulance siren.

You can also track and adjust headphone audio levels in iOS 14. After setting a maximum threshold, the app will detail statistics for volume levels and exposure time. It’s more accurate with headphones made by Apple or Beats by Dr. Dre, but the app can also measure noise exposure from other brands of wired and wireless headphones.

Live listening

Another iOS feature called Live Listen, which debuted on iOS in 2014, allows your mobile device to act as a microphone remotely. Designed to work with MFI compatible hearing aids, it eventually branched out to include AirPods and other Apple-branded listening devices. Live listening lets you use your mobile device as a directional microphone and listen to audio through your AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, or Powerbeats Pro. To start using live listening with your AirPods, your headphones need to be connected to your iPhone and then add a hearing icon to Control Center.

The Control Center hearing aid helps you protect your delicate eardrums when listening to music or videos through wireless headphones. Just add Audition to the control center with Settings> Control Center. While your recording is playing, the Audition icon follows the audio output to indicate safe or unsafe audio levels. You can observe the audio levels from your headphones in real time as you listen. Long pressing the icon gives you the decibel level, where anything above 80 decibels is considered dangerous. Make sure Bluetooth is on and your headphones are charged.

Headphones accommodation

If you have one of Apple’s own earphones or earphones – AirPods Max, Apple EarPods (with 3.5mm headphone jack or Lightning connector), AirPods (2nd generation), AirPods Pro, Powerbeats, Powerbeats Pro, or Beats Solo Pro – you You can use iOS 14 to customize audio levels to amplify soft sounds and adjust sound frequencies through Headphone Adaptation.

Go to Settings> Accessibility> Audio / Visual and light Headphones accommodation. You can customize settings for your iPhone’s voice or FaceTime calls or for media streaming like movies, podcasts, audiobooks, Siri, voicemail, and live listening.

You can also adjust the audio settings of your headphones with the custom audio setup feature. This allows you to listen to audio samples, choose the ones that sound best, and then apply any suggested custom settings. You can also use audiogram data derived from the Health app or manually adjust tone and amplification settings. Tap Listen to a sample to listen to an audio sample with your settings and adjust them dynamically as you listen. A simple Balance slider is also available.

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