AirPods Pro 2 Hearing Test fails with "Unable to classify due to background noise" error.

Very disappointed! Ready to return mine! Received Friday and have tried 7 - 8 times. This is a miss for Apple.

Like many others in this thread, I couldn’t successfully get the hearing test to finish and was getting the “Unable to Classify” message.

I use actual hearing aids and asked my audiologist if I could have a copy of my audiogram (the chart of my most recent hearing test). She emailed it to me and I in the Hearing Assistance menu of the AirPods, there was a way for me to enter my results by scanning the test.

You’ll have to be patient while the scan takes place. It scanned mine 20 times before it was all set.

The digitized results matched what my audiologist had charted. When I saved the results, the AirPods worked quite well as a backup set of hearing aids!

Hope this helps!

Thank you for your post, it helped me. I have “failed” the AirPod hearing test a dozen times. Saw your post, downloaded Mimi hearing test, and 10 minutes later my hearing aid function is operating!

Like many of you, I had this same problem. Here’s how I solved it:

I took the test early in the morning, in my parked car, in the garage with the car and garage doors shut (engine off, of course). After getting in the car, I then put on a pair of shooting ear protection over the AirPods (large over-the-ear headphones would probably also work) — you have to be careful not to bump the stem on the AirPod when putting them on or you’ll get an “AirPod not properly seated” message after the preliminary test.

Then get yourself as comfortable as possible, with your phone and right hand resting on something, and your index finger poised just above the screen. Try not to move *at all* during the test (except your finger).

Doing it that way got me results on the first try.

Here's a link to an article on macobserver.com that addresses this problem directly with some suggestions that I haven't seen mentioned in the community postings in this thread. I managed finally managed to get my test to complete using their suggestion to turn noise cancellation on. But there are other ideas presented to try, too.

I hope this helps at least some of the people who have posted here to be able to use the hearing aid capabilities. In my case, I can now hear the difference between when the hearing assistance feature is turned on and off.

Link to macobserver.com article about the AirPods Pro 2 hearing test not working

After numerous attempts to complete the hearing test, I went into the Settings app on my iPhone and I selected my AirPod Pro 2, and then I turned off the Spatial Audio Head Tracking option. Following that, I was finally able to complete the test and I can tell now that the AirPods are boosting the frequency range where I was found to be deficient. I don’t know if this was just luck or if turning off Spatial Audio Head Tracking option is what resolved the problem but my AirPod Pro 2 is finally functioning as a hearing aid.

Try getting the free Mimi app on your phone - taking its hearing test, then loading the audio gram that Mimi creates into apple’s air podpro2 hearing aid profile. I did it and am now able to use them as hearing aids.

Fortunately for me (having the same issue), I had recently undergone an actual hearing test and had the results in hand. There is a way to manually put in your in data. I believe you can have a free test done at Costco and ask for a printout for anyone still frustrated with this buggy tool. NOTE: Once I put the data in, it DID make a significant difference. I do have professionally made (prescription) hearing aids and I want to spend some time trying to really see the difference. I will say, once I had the data in and turned on the hearing aid tab -- it was surprising how well they seem to work. I have significant hearing loss, so I can't expect the AirPods2 to do the work of hearing aids tweaked by professional audiologists, but they are pretty darn good!

This approach worked for me too. I used to think that the issue was caused by external noise or the tapping sound, which may still be true, but after doing several successful tests I think too many false positives will also cause it to fail. What seemed to work best was to only respond after three distinct beeps. And if I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t respond.

Just tried that and no luck. I think you just got lucky that time.

When will this be fixed? Any updates?

Thank you! This worked - though I couldn't figure out how to access the Mimi Hearing Test ... but ... I entered the information manually from a recent audiogram ... and it worked perfectly!

Sure wish Apple would pay attention to this ongoing issue.

OK, same here. Current Firmware 7B19 on AirPods Pro 2 on OS 18.1. Tried several times on my iPhone 13 and my brand new iPad Pro in an inner closet of the master bathroom with doors closed. Prechecks before all tests were green lighted. I tried different ear tips - all were properly sealed and tested OK. I tried with noise cancellation on. The test runs to end on the left ear and then ends with the "Unable to Classify" message. Always that, nothing else.

Ok I had a pair of Bose noise canceling headphones and tried them in full noise cancellation mode - I got the left ear classified then same old error on the right ear- when I tried again I get the same issue back at the left ear - oh apple can you hear me now??