In 2022, a Texas family filed a lawsuit against Apple for damaging their son’s hearing after an Amber Alert went off while he was wearing Airpods. According to Google, the maximum volume of phone headphones is around 105 decibels. The family are claiming that the son now requires hearing aids after his eardrum ruptured.
Is this plausible?
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The 105 decibels is the maximum output physically possible by the headphones. The software can limit max output to 80-85db but Amber Alerts bypass this, so 105 decibels is possible.
https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/noise-induced-hearing-loss
Apple did add the option to change the tone volume after this incident. So there must be something here. Also, it’s unlikely that the volume was only 105 db. But from most medical sources, typically up to 110 db is acceptable and may only cause hearing loss after decades. A siren hits up to 120-130 db.
Punctured ear drums usually occur because of pressure differences and not just loud sounds, so there may be more here than just loudness as AirPods do change the pressure around the ear (the Pro’s actually have an exhaust to alleviate the pressure build up from the sound and the seal around the ear).
Yeah, I’d say it’s 100% plausible.
That dB level isn’t crazy high, but rupturing your eardrum typically has more to do with sound pressure level (SPL) which very well might be possible when you’re talking about little speakers as close to the eardrum as possible and creating a partial air lock. That and like other people have said, you don’t need to rupture anything to get some serious tinnitus.
To rupture? I would be highly dubious of that claim. Without some kind of factor weakening or otherwise changing things, there’s no headphones out there that could do that, even with a perfect seal.
Damage hearing, absolutely. But that’s a far cry from rupturing an ear drum. That’s hard enough to do on purpose. I’ve seen people try to clap hands on the ears to attempt a rupture and never seen it work.
I’ve had some big fucking handguns go off near my ear without a rupture. Couldn’t hear shit for days in one case, but no injury to the membrane itself. Fuck, I’ve been right near the stage for Iron Maiden and was fine the next day.
Eardrums are hard to rupture at all, much less without a very good seal and large amounts of air moving.
Is there any actual evidence in this case? Is it easy in Texas to fake a claim like this?
No idea. Don’t know anything about the case, nor any texas specific lawsuit issues.
Not typically. Instantaneous noise levels of Lp 115 dBA have a significant risk of permanent injury, and long term exposure above Lp,den 50 dBA (especially at night) will shorten your life.
But hearing damage is cumulative, if you go about shooting guns without protection or other noise pollution, you might get injured at lower levels.
It’s plausible since humans probably have different sensitivities for their ears. I live in a city with a train that goes right through the middle of it. It’s got no guard rails and if you’re driving you could reach out and touch it if you wanted. They are required to blast their horns every X meters for safety at max decibels of 110. The closest I’ve been is 3 or 4 meters when it went off. I didn’t get any hearing damage from it though and I haven’t heard of anyone else getting any. That could be related to how close the source of sound was though.
So I would conclude with it’s probably unlikely that was the sole cause as people are around trains all the time. Plus I’m sure plenty of people get amber alerts through there.
I spent 6 months living in a tent 200 yards away from the centerline of a runway with large 4 engine aircraft landing regularly. I have a wicked case of tinnitus, hearing aids, and no ruptured ear drums.
