Rithwik Jayasimha and his friends, Arnav Bansal and Rithvik Vibhu, have found a way to enable Apple’s hearing aid features on AirPods Pro 2 in India, where the functionality is geoblocked. The trio built a signal-blocking system using a microwave with aluminum foil to activate the hearing aid settings. Jayasimha initially tried to use the AirPods Pro 2 for his grandmother but discovered that the hearing aid features were missing in India.
The group, with a mix of hardware and software skills, received interest from dozens of people in India who wanted to use the AirPods for their grandparents. To bypass Apple’s geographic restrictions, the researchers examined how iOS establishes a device’s location. They found that iOS checks the Apple Store region, time zone, language, and region settings, and sends a web request to determine the country code based on the IP address.
It also examines Wi-Fi service set identifiers (SSIDs) and device MAC addresses of nearby devices.
Hacking AirPods’ geoblock in India
The researchers constructed a Faraday cage using a cardboard box and aluminum foil, placing it on top of a microwave to block electromagnetic signals.
They then used an open-source Wi-Fi location database and Wi-Fi SSID cycling tool to trick iOS into locating the iPad in California, enabling the AirPods’ hearing aid functionality in India. While Apple offers the hearing aid features in over 100 countries, regulatory hurdles related to medical devices likely prevent them from being available everywhere. The researchers believe that the features will officially come to India in the coming months but plan to continue helping those who have reached out to them.
Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity professor at the University of Surrey, finds their work “very interesting” and says it shows how technical understanding can enable people to bypass app geofencing. The researchers note that Apple could likely close the loophole easily but haven’t heard from the company. The group plans to use the second version of their Faraday cage to run more experiments and help more people set up their AirPods.
They have found that the hearing aid features are valuable in their own grandmas’ everyday lives, with Bansal’s grandmother now using the AirPods instead of her old hearing aids, making her feel less like a patient.
