Three engineers from India have developed a unique way to use AirPods Pro 2 as hearing aids for their grandmothers.
The hearing aid feature itself is not available in India and has regional restrictions. The innovation can be officially enabled only in the USA and remotely. However, craftsmen have found a way to get around this limitation.
Ritvik Jayasimha, along with friends Arnav Bansal and Ritvik Vibhu, placed headphones in a Faraday cage made from a microwave, a box and aluminum foil. The guys always monitor the microwave when they want to block the signals on the iPad. Together, this is a means to block local Wi-Fi signals.
Then, using special scripts and ESP32 boards for requests, they replaced the Wi-Fi data used to determine the region. To do this, they used data borrowed from Wi-Fi networks in California. This made the connected iPad “think” it was in the US.
After reconfiguring and simulating a new location, AirPods Pro 2 managed to fool the system, and the hearing aid function became available.
The developers noted that this method does not require changes to the headphone hardware or major software modifications. Technically capable users can conduct this experiment. [WIRED]
Source: Iphones RU
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