Does iPhone keyboard sound work with hearing aids?
Made for iPhone hearing aids pair through Accessibility settings, not the ordinary Bluetooth screen used for AirPods, which is reason enough to wonder whether a keyboard click reaches them at all. Once paired, they become an audio output route like any other, so the same rules that already govern AirPods apply — ring/silent switch included.
If you rely on hearing aids to use an iPhone at all, the setup already looks different from how everyone else connects headphones. You pair them from Accessibility, not from the ordinary Bluetooth screen AirPods and speakers use, and that alone is reason enough to wonder whether a keyboard click even reaches them the same way, or whether typing sound is one more thing built around people who do not need to think about any of this.
Made for iPhone hearing aids pair differently, on purpose
Hearing aids and cochlear implant sound processors built to the Made for iPhone programme show up in Settings → Accessibility → Hearing Devices, not in Settings → Bluetooth. They use a low-energy wireless protocol designed specifically for hearing aids — built for all-day battery life and a stable link rather than for the bandwidth music streaming needs — which is a genuinely different pairing path from the one AirPods use, not just a different menu for the same thing. This has been part of iPhone’s accessibility support for a long time, well before AirPods existed.
AirPods Pro’s own Hearing Aid feature is a different case entirely
More recently, Apple added a clinical hearing aid feature directly to AirPods Pro (2nd generation) through a software update, turning the earbuds themselves into a hearing aid rather than pairing a separate device to work alongside the phone. Because that feature runs on ordinary AirPods hardware, it pairs and behaves exactly like any other pair of AirPods — through the regular Bluetooth screen, not through Hearing Devices — so everything already true about keyboard clicks and AirPods applies to it without any extra caveat. The distinction that matters for sound routing is not “hearing aid or not”, it is which pairing path the device actually went through.
Once paired, it is an audio output route like any other
This is the part that matters most, and it holds regardless of which screen you paired through. A keyboard click does not pick its own output — it rides the same short system-sound mechanism used for things like the Mail “sent” chime, and that mechanism plays through whatever iOS currently treats as the active audio route, the same route a ringtone or a notification sound would use. Hearing Devices pairing puts a device into that same pool of possible outputs as Bluetooth pairing does; iOS does not treat one as more or less eligible for system sounds than the other. The moment your hearing aids become the active route, a keyboard click follows them there the same way it would follow AirPods, without the keyboard doing anything special to make that happen.
The ring/silent switch still decides whether it plays at all
Wearing hearing aids does not bypass the ring/silent switch on the side of the phone. Keyboard clicks are a system sound and follow that switch exactly the way they do on the speaker or through AirPods: flip it to silent and the click stops, no matter which device is currently the active output. It is the ringer volume that matters too, not the media volume — the same distinction covered in the guide on turning on keyboard sound and haptics, and it does not change because the output happens to be a hearing aid rather than a speaker.
Recording and calls still mute it, hearing aids included
A recording microphone or a live call suppresses keyboard sound at the system level, as covered in the guide on why keyboard sound stops working in some apps, and that suppression has nothing to do with which output device is active. Taking a phone call through your hearing aids mutes keyboard clicks exactly as much as taking it through the built-in earpiece would, because what triggers the suppression is the open microphone, not what the call happens to be coming out of.
Sorting out which one you have
- Silent everywhere, hearing aids or not → the ring/silent switch, most likely.
- Plays on the speaker but not through your hearing aids → check that they are actually the active audio route and not just connected — the same check worth doing with AirPods, since a phone can stay linked to a device while still playing through its own speaker.
- Silent in one specific app, on any output → you are probably recording or on a call in it — see the guide on that.
Where Kibo fits
Kibo’s key sounds use that same lightweight system-sound mechanism as Apple’s own click rather than opening a dedicated audio session of their own, so they inherit this behaviour exactly: they follow whatever the active audio route is, hearing aids included, however that device happened to pair, they still answer to the ring/silent switch and the ringer volume rather than the media volume, and they go quiet during a recording or a call for the same system-level reason. None of it needs configuring inside the keyboard, and none of it needs Full Access, which Kibo only reads for the clipboard buttons.
Frequently asked questions
Do keyboard clicks play through Made for iPhone hearing aids?
Yes. Once paired, they are an audio output route like any other, and a keyboard click is a system sound that follows whatever route iOS currently treats as active — the same mechanism that already governs AirPods, just reached through a different pairing screen.
Are hearing aids paired the same way as AirPods?
No. Made for iPhone hearing aids and cochlear implant processors pair through Settings → Accessibility → Hearing Devices, using a low-energy wireless protocol built specifically for hearing aids, rather than the ordinary Bluetooth screen. Apple’s own AirPods Pro hearing aid feature is the exception — it runs on standard AirPods hardware, so it pairs through Bluetooth like any other AirPods.
Does the ring/silent switch still mute keyboard sound with hearing aids in?
Yes. Keyboard clicks are a system sound and follow the ring/silent switch regardless of which device is the active audio output, hearing aids included.
Try it on your own keyboard
Kibo is a free custom keyboard for iPhone with real mechanical key sounds, a wardrobe of themes and RGB backlight effects. No account, no ads, and it works with Full Access left off.