In less than two years, the rechargeable lithium-ion battery found in your AirPods is due to die an untimely death.
Bullshit. I got four years out of each of my pairs and I used them several hours a day. Also replacing the battery when it does wear out is is something like 50 bucks. Sure, you can’t do it yourself but Apple will give you a refurbished pair, and they will recycle your old battery.
And they provide free recycling for all their products — you’re basically paying for it to be recycled when you buy AirPods and any that go into landfill that’s entirely the customer’s fault.
No wired headphones I’ve ever owned lasted even close to that long - the cable eventually fails with several hours per day of swinging around and being packed tightly into your pocket.
That said, I’ve switched to bone conduction headphones now, and will probably never own another pair of airpods unless they go down the same path.
Lithium iOS is inherently unstable and that instability goes both ways. They designed it to only last 2 years, but there will be plenty that go beyond that, just as there will be plenty that die in , <2 years. The majority will die at about 2 years, as designed.
Sound is vibration. We typically think of it as vibration transmitted through air (to get to your auditory canal), but it doesn’t have to be. Sound vibration can be conducted through your bones (which your auditory canal is enclosed in) so you can hear without something being in your ears because the sound gets inside you through a different medium.
Do you have an electric toothbrush? Turn it on and bite down with your teeth on it. Notice how it gets MUCH louder? Thats the sound traveling through your jawbone (and skull) to get to your auditory canal.
I have a pair originally purchased for running but they’ve turned out to be useful in numerous situations where I wanted to listen to something without losing awareness of my surroundings.
Replacing a single earbud is $49, and the case is another $49, so replacing all three batteries is $147, which at least for the regular model is close to buying new AirPods. It’s pretty much a given that the repair costs more than the product is worth after a new model launches.
Apple also doesn’t swap the batteries, they replace the earbuds completely, “recycling” otherwise fully intact earphones. Not sure about the case.
You’re right that they probably last more than two years (that depends on a lot of factors though), and while features like adaptive charging hints that Apple doesn’t want them to die quite as quickly, they still aren’t designed to last and certainly aren’t designed to be repairable.
My Gen 2s are 2 years old and I use them all day for meetings with a short charge around lunch. I don’t really pay attention to the battery and I’m using them for calls for about 6-8 hours.
Then I usually sleep with one in my ear and fall asleep to a podcast. I usually get a battery warning beep sometime between 3 and 6 am, and I go to bed at 10pm.
All in all, I treat these things like shit, I they’re in use for half the day, I leave the case on a hot ass MagSafe puck at night, and they’re still in really good shape. I just used them from a flight from
CA to NY with no problems.
Like many, my first Gen vanilla AirPods were struggling after 2 years, but Apple seems to have figured out how to prolong these little batteries.
Bullshit. I got four years out of each of my pairs and I used them several hours a day. Also replacing the battery when it does wear out is is something like 50 bucks. Sure, you can’t do it yourself but Apple will give you a refurbished pair, and they will recycle your old battery.
And they provide free recycling for all their products — you’re basically paying for it to be recycled when you buy AirPods and any that go into landfill that’s entirely the customer’s fault.
No wired headphones I’ve ever owned lasted even close to that long - the cable eventually fails with several hours per day of swinging around and being packed tightly into your pocket.
That said, I’ve switched to bone conduction headphones now, and will probably never own another pair of airpods unless they go down the same path.
Lithium iOS is inherently unstable and that instability goes both ways. They designed it to only last 2 years, but there will be plenty that go beyond that, just as there will be plenty that die in , <2 years. The majority will die at about 2 years, as designed.
That being said,
What’s that? I’m intrigued lmao
Edit: ion* lmao typo stays tho
Sound is vibration. We typically think of it as vibration transmitted through air (to get to your auditory canal), but it doesn’t have to be. Sound vibration can be conducted through your bones (which your auditory canal is enclosed in) so you can hear without something being in your ears because the sound gets inside you through a different medium.
Do you have an electric toothbrush? Turn it on and bite down with your teeth on it. Notice how it gets MUCH louder? Thats the sound traveling through your jawbone (and skull) to get to your auditory canal.
I have a pair originally purchased for running but they’ve turned out to be useful in numerous situations where I wanted to listen to something without losing awareness of my surroundings.
I’m looking at waterproof bone conduction headphones to use in the hot tub, clearly you like yours, are they waterproof too?
$50 bucks? I bought two batteries for $4 each from China and they came with sealant to recreate the waterproof seal.
This only works when you can open the earphones and the battery is not soldered (my hands are not so steady not to fuck anything up)
Replacing a single earbud is $49, and the case is another $49, so replacing all three batteries is $147, which at least for the regular model is close to buying new AirPods. It’s pretty much a given that the repair costs more than the product is worth after a new model launches.
Apple also doesn’t swap the batteries, they replace the earbuds completely, “recycling” otherwise fully intact earphones. Not sure about the case.
You’re right that they probably last more than two years (that depends on a lot of factors though), and while features like adaptive charging hints that Apple doesn’t want them to die quite as quickly, they still aren’t designed to last and certainly aren’t designed to be repairable.
My Gen 2s are 2 years old and I use them all day for meetings with a short charge around lunch. I don’t really pay attention to the battery and I’m using them for calls for about 6-8 hours.
Then I usually sleep with one in my ear and fall asleep to a podcast. I usually get a battery warning beep sometime between 3 and 6 am, and I go to bed at 10pm.
All in all, I treat these things like shit, I they’re in use for half the day, I leave the case on a hot ass MagSafe puck at night, and they’re still in really good shape. I just used them from a flight from CA to NY with no problems.
Like many, my first Gen vanilla AirPods were struggling after 2 years, but Apple seems to have figured out how to prolong these little batteries.