Apple’s recent update to the AirPods Pro 2 has introduced a clinical-grade hearing aid feature, aimed at addressing the global hearing impairment challenge affecting around 1.5 billion people, according to the World Health Organization. After discovering this feature, a man from Bengaluru was eager to get a pair for his grandmother. However, when he tried to enable the hearing aid functionality, he realized it wasn’t available in India.
Determined to make it work, he enlisted the help of his friends, who were tech enthusiasts, to bypass this restriction. Together, Jayasimha, Arnav Bansal, and Rithvik Vibhu figured out how to trick the AirPods into thinking they were located in a region where the feature was available.
“The AirPods use SSIDs from nearby Wi-Fi networks to determine location, so we needed to trick the device,” explained Bansal. The trio crafted a “Faraday Cage,” using materials like aluminium foil, copper mesh, a microwave, and an ESP 32 chip to manipulate the device’s location detection.
The microwave emitted electromagnetic waves at 2.4 GHz, matching Wi-Fi signals, to disrupt the local network. Using an open-source Wi-Fi location database, they made the AirPods think they were in San Francisco, thus enabling the hearing aid feature.
Jayasimha shared how the new hearing aid functionality was a game-changer for his grandmother, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease. He recalled the inconvenience of her old, expensive, and bulky hearing aids, which were difficult to adjust. With the new AirPods, the feature is easy to tweak using the equalizer without needing professional assistance from an audiologist.
So far, Jayasimha and his team have helped over 30 people unlock the hearing aid functionality on their AirPods. “We’re all self-confessed nerds. I didn’t even go to college but I have always been fascinated by technology,” Bansal added.