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dukee101

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 17, 2009
294
147
Do AirPods batteries (in the case and the earbuds themselves) experience the same kind of battery degradation as phones? We all know how bad battery degradation can be with phones. Does that carry over to this audio accessory? It is after all the same underlying battery technology (lithium-ion).
 

44267547

Cancelled
Jul 12, 2016
37,642
42,494
Do AirPods batteries (in the case and the earbuds themselves) experience the same kind of battery degradation as phones? We all know how bad battery degradation can be with phones. Does that carry over to this audio accessory? It is after all the same underlying battery technology (lithium-ion).

Anything rechargeable or in the case of lithium ion batteries, will degrade overtime. Battery life is based on cycles and usage. It’s no different than the lithium ion battery technology used in the Apple Watch, which increasingly overtime, will slowly decrease. That’s the nature of anything that’s rechargeable with a limited life expectancy.

https://www.apple.com/batteries/why-lithium-ion/
 

JTravers

macrumors 6502a
Jun 28, 2010
733
228
Yes, if you use them a lot, you'll notice a drop in battery life after a year or so. After one year of heavy use, my AirPods went from ~4.5 hrs battery life to ~3.5 hrs. The charging case makes this drop more bearable.
 

Phone Junky

macrumors 68030
Oct 29, 2011
2,515
4,420
Midwest
After 10 months of use, one of my AirPods went bad. Apple replaced it under warranty. The replacement has better battery life than the existing original.
 

EdisEdward

macrumors 6502a
Feb 4, 2013
544
145
I've had my AirPods since day 1. literally used them every day since then for an average of at least 5 hours a day. have not noticed any degradation in battery. this doesn't mean the battery hasn't degraded, all i'm saying is that I haven't noticed anything and it hasn't affected my daily use at all. this is primarily due to the AirPod case and the ability to recharge quickly and efficiently
 

Phone Junky

macrumors 68030
Oct 29, 2011
2,515
4,420
Midwest
After 10 months of use, one of my AirPods went bad. Apple replaced it under warranty. The replacement has better battery life than the existing original.
This is after 45 minutes of use. Guess which one is 14 months old and which one is 4 months old.
33ED112B-1FFE-4326-8F3D-E652845A3782.jpeg
 
Last edited:

WilliamG

macrumors G4
Mar 29, 2008
10,007
3,894
Seattle
To bump this thread, my launch day AirPods get 1 hour and 10 minutes of talk time before dying. They used to get near 2 hours at launch. My wife’s are the same.

Massive battery degradation.
 

Evel_Knievel

macrumors newbie
Jan 4, 2019
1
1
Just finished testing my old AirPods (21 months old) against a new pair I got for Christmas. It's a little hard to get exact numbers, but I paired the old case with one new and one old earpiece and watched the old one deplete much faster than the new one. I would have to charge the old earpiece a time or two to keep it from dying while the new one had plenty of juice left. I then swapped earpieces and cases and repeated...The 21 month old earpieces have from 1/3 to 1/2 the capacity of the new ones. Seems like one earpiece was slightly better than the other, but I'm comparing new vs old so that difference may be in the new pair rather than the old pair. The old case has about 75% capacity left. I'm actually keeping the new earpieces with the old case and figure I can get about 4 charges out of the case before it's completely dead. My wife can have the old earpieces with the new case. LOL! I doubt she'll notice and she doesn't use them like I do. I will say that the old pair were still very functional. They would deplete pretty quickly on a phone call but they charge up to 100% much quicker than the new ones (less capacity...same charge rate, I assume). I never had any issues making calls or listening to music with the old ones; just had to charge them when they dinged at me. On the other side of the argument that's horrific battery degradation in the earpieces for less than 2 years! My guess is that the earpieces stay fully charged 90+% of the time, which can be hard on batteries.
 
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