Apple equips AirPods with many functions that are often well hidden. One of them can potentially be misused as a spy tool. TECHBOOK did the test.
Did you know that you can use Apple headphones as a hearing aid? With the “Live Listen” function, AirPods can help to better understand a conversation partner in a noisy environment.
Live listening enables remote eavesdropping
The function was introduced back in 2014 to use the iPhone as an external microphone for MFI-compatible (“Made for iPhone”) hearing aids. Since iOS 12, you can set the AirPods as a hearing aid, so that live monitoring also works with Apple headphones. This is significantly cheaper than actual hearing aids. These can well be beyond the thousand euro mark.
It is therefore actually an operating aid for the hard of hearing, in order to be able to understand conversation partners better. user on Reddit but of course quickly recognized the potential for abuse. After all, an external microphone that can be several meters away – even in another room – is an excellent spy tool.
TECHBOOK has tested whether this really works. You can see the result here in the video:
Enable Live Listening on iPhone
Accessibility requires an iPhone running at least iOS 14. Live Listen works with AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, Powerbeats Pro, and Beats Fit Pro. Other Bluetooth headphones do not support the function.
To turn it on, you must first add the accessibility feature to Control Center. Go to the Ideas to the point control center. Now press the green plus next to the option Hear, if not already among the containing controls. If you now open the control center, an icon with an ear symbol will appear. Select this and then click live listeningto enable the feature.
Please only use the assistance if you really need it. Refrain from abusing live monitoring for wiretapping purposes.