this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2024
488 points (93.6% liked)
Technology
58151 readers
3771 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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.
Mine are two years and they’re working really really well. I’ve noticed a capacity drop, but it’s far more than enough for my needs.
The batteries definitely need to be replaceable. This would be trivially easy.
With that said, I’m not so convinced they are designed to fail in less than two years either. Article strikes me as sensationalist with a grain of truth.
PS: mine even come with a feature to reduce battery aging by delaying full charge until the device is expected to be used. Why bother if planned obsolescence is your explicit goal?
How would you compare capacity at purchase vs now?
Approximately 80% In my rough estimation. It’s fine for a workout which is my threshold for usability, but has begun to suffer on long flights. I use these while working out 3 to 5 times per week and on trips.
This seems generally in line with lithium ion batteries in smart phones.
This seems acceptable to me, though it may not be everyone's experience, based on the thread
It’s kind of hard to tell with my 2 year old Pro 2s. I treat mine like dog shit. They’re in use constantly for 8 hours of remote meetings, and I leave them in for podcasts at night. I throw them in the case at lunch and during dinner, but it’s not because I’m getting a battery warning. It’s because I’m stepping away from the desk. All in all, I hit these things pretty hard.
My guess is that they’re probably down to 4+ hours of audio and 3+ hours of call time after 2 years. Long enough that I’m likely going to take a break, and put them in the case before I hear a battery warning.
That said, my old non-pro Gen 1 AirPods were really starting to struggle after 2 years. After 2 years I needed to swap between right and left buds to get through an hour call. They made it about 45min with the mic on, and those didn’t have ANC and head tracking.