AirPods Pro 2 Hearing Aids Not in Canada

Both federal and provincial govts will need to deregulate the hearing aid industry. Short answer, don’t hold your breath.

Related article: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/hearing-aids-over-the-counter-us-canada-1.6622197

Look at the long list of countries where the Apple Airpod Pro hearing aid functionality is available. It includes many third-world countries but not Canada. This is nothing short of outrageous.

In Canada, corporate lobbies always win over consumers: the Big Three telecommunication companies are still charging an arm and a leg for internet and cell phone coverage, the big chartered banks are still charging high interest rates on credit cards and forcing a three-week pay cycle to change the due date every month and screw consumers with late payment fees, the audiologist and hearing aid lobby is still preventing consumers from purchasing over-the-counter hearing aids, 2 years after they have been made available in the US.

As I said, this is nothing short of outrageous.

Last year, I purchased the Sony CRE-C10 from BestBuy US and had them shipped to Shipito for re-shipping to me in the Montreal area. Last month, I bought the Sony CRE-C20 from Amazon US, and it was again shipped to Shipito for re-shipment to me in the Montreal area. To install the Sony app for these OTC-ITE hearing aids, I had to create a US Apple ID, log out from my Canadian Apple ID, and use a VPN to be able to get the Sony app from the Apple store while logged into my US Apple ID, set up my hearing aids with the app, log out of my US Apple ID, log in to my Canadian Apple ID to have access to all my purchases (music, movies, books, etc.).

Fortunately, I don’t need to repeat this process to fine-tune my hearing aids with the Sony app. Once installed on my iPhone, I can use it even when logged into my Canadian Apple ID.

But isn’t it ridiculous that I must do all this to access good OTC-ITE hearing aids in Canada? One needs to be a bit savvy to do what I did, which is not the case for many elderly Canadians who would benefit most from affordable OTC hearing aids. The more I think of this, the more outrageous it appears to me...

However Canadians can order OTC hearing aids from Amazon. I have a set arriving today. I would have much preferred to use AirPods but returned them to Apple.