Apple AirPods Pro 2 Wireless Earbuds, Active Noise Cancellation, Hearing Aid Feature, Bluetooth Headphones, Transparency, Personalized Spatial Audio, High-Fidelity Sound, H2 Chip, USB-C Charging

The AirPods Pro 2 sound amazing—clear vocals, deep bass, and a nice balance overall. The active noise cancellation works surprisingly well, blocking out most background noise when I’m on the bus or at the gym. Transparency mode feels very natural too. They connect instantly with my iPhone, and the fit is comfortable enough to wear for hours without slipping. Battery life is solid, and the charging case is compact and easy to carry. A bit pricey, but definitely worth it for the quality and convenience.

I’ve tried several hearing aid substitutes over the years, my past favorite being the now unavailable Bose Hearphones and costing $500. Rather than just a sound amplifier, these had several functions allowing you to filter and focus sounds in various ways and for various situations. They were pretty good. But now Apple has added some great features to their AirPods 2—features that function like far more expensive hearing aids and at less than half the price of the Bose product. I’ve owned these for a month or so and am now just getting the hang of how to use them. If there is a downside to these earbuds it is the rather deep and confusing tech included in them (or, at least confusing for a grandfatherly type like me). Once they are Bluetooth connected to your iPhone (They connect very easily with the button on the front of the EarPod’s charging case.) they should automatically connect every time you put them in your ears. You will then be able to access all the functions by tapping the “settings” app on your phone. You will find a heading near the top of the list just below the box with your name and iCloud options. Tapping on this will allow you to drill down through several pages of options. There are a lot of options there and it can be confusing, but experimenting with the various functions will help you figure out their purpose. The key here is to drill down to find the hearing test. This will quickly test for hearing loss by leading you through a series of tones of varying in pitch and volume. The end result will be an audiogram that can be used to program your EarPods as hearing aids. As stated before, it took me several weeks to find and activate this feature, but when I did a whole new experience dawned. Just be patient and search around for this function. It works very well. Of course, these things also serve as EarPods to listen to music or podcasts. (May I recommend “Pat Gray Unleashed!” if your bent is conservative commentary and just plain fooling around). The quality of sound is phenomenal and the buds are more comfortable than most to keep in your ears for an extended time. To control the volume for this function you can TRY to use the external control buttons located on those silly looking stems that hang out of your ears (good luck) OR just open the “Control Center” page (slide one finger upward on your iPhone screen to access this page) where you’ll find the volume slider. If your EarPods are connected and in your ears you’ll see the slider is marked as controlling the AirPods. I really like these things now that I’m a little more familiar with them. The quality and value are exquisite. If I discover more, I’ll edit this comment. 4 MONTHS LATER: Apple has improved the controls for these in their latest iOS update. The functions I had to dig around to find are now more easily accessed. Getting to the hearing test is now fairly straight forward.

I purchased these Airpods 2 Pro after many bluetooth listening accessories, and these are my all time favorites. It is hard to beat the integration into the Apple Ecosystem, but apart from that, these have just been the most convenient bluetooth headset to use all around. I have 2 other in-ear earbuds systems and one Sony over the ear noise cancelling headset, and I prefer these. Sure, there are pros and cons, but for the quality of audio along with the ease of use at home and traveling, the airpods have just been my go to. The airpods have rich sound easy to manage form factor and are of little inconvenience to have around. Sure, my Sony WH-1000XM4's sound great, but do not readily connect or maintain connection for my use all the time. My other bluetooth headsets have great battery life, but volume is a guessing game when I initially connect and I can't secure that I won't have my eardrums blown out when I first start using them, which is an extra step to consider when using, which I shouldn't despite zeroing volume when I stop using said audio accessory. My other personal audio accessories are larger or slightly more cumbersome to use than the airpods pro 2s. The airpods can also act in multiple modes, negating the need for seperate open-ear or noise cancelling personal audio equipment, though using a little extra power to do so. The only gotcha I have a half a year later is that the battery life is slightly better on the other equipment, which isn't a huge deal because these are more compact and expected. Again, ease of use rules with audio quality to match - it only takes a few seconds to pop these in an be listening to music and/or transition to calling in a matter of moments. That just can't be be and I default to it when making most calls as hands-free is my preference and the conversations are held in both ears. Naturally, I am inclined to use these with my iPhone, Mac Pro and Macbook Pro by design and these units can be connected to both in simultaneous standby, but only switch to one or the other for active use. I do use other devices for listening on each computer, but I prefer these, again for convenience. I only switch to wired for ridiculously long gaming or movie-watching sessions. I highly recommend these airpods and will continue to buy replacements as needed. Try them and you'll see it is hard to go back to anything former without a highly specific reason. I hope this review helps!