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AirPods case bad standby battery life

CMoore515

CMoore515

macrumors 6502a
Sep 27, 2015
765
884
Des Moines, IA
My case hasn't been charged since last Saturday night. I've been using AirPods quite frequently, but no noticeable drain. Seems now that the novelty and constant case opening has slowed down, my battery has improved.

Case is at 27% right now and will see how long I can push it.
 
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tomaustin44

macrumors regular
Oct 26, 2013
185
90
Is anyone running the latest 10.2.1 beta? Erfon from Cult of Mac mentioned on their podcast that the beta had ironed out some of the wrinkles he'd been having. He was mainly talking about connection issues but I'm just curious as to whether the update has any effect on battery life.
 
MathersMahmood

MathersMahmood

macrumors 65816
Sep 5, 2016
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England
tomaustin44 said:
Is anyone running the latest 10.2.1 beta? Erfon from Cult of Mac mentioned on their podcast that the beta had ironed out some of the wrinkles he'd been having. He was mainly talking about connection issues but I'm just curious as to whether the update has any effect on battery life.
Click to expand...

I have connection issues. Battery seems to be better.
 
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MathersMahmood

MathersMahmood

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Sep 5, 2016
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Something weird I just noticed. Checked my notifications notifications and noticed that my right AirPod was active and draining battery even when it was in the case. So I checked and it was on 80% while in the case and the case was charging it. Haven't used them in hours.
 
J

JTravers

macrumors 6502a
Jun 28, 2010
733
228
Just another data point. I charged both the AirPods and the case 100%. Then I only checked the battery level when taking the AirPods out to use them or when putting them back in after use. I made sure to only take them out to use them if I knew I'd be using them for 15-20 mins minimum.

Total usage I was able to get from the AirPods before everything was completely drained - 22.5 hrs over 4 days.
 
T

tomaustin44

macrumors regular
Oct 26, 2013
185
90
MathersMahmood said:
Something weird I just noticed. Checked my notifications notifications and noticed that my right AirPod was active and draining battery even when it was in the case. So I checked and it was on 80% while in the case and the case was charging it. Haven't used them in hours.
Click to expand...

Huh. That's weird. Beta bug?? Keep us posted on whether it happens again.

JTravers said:
Just another data point. I charged both the AirPods and the case 100%. Then I only checked the battery level when taking the AirPods out to use them or when putting them back in after use. I made sure to only take them out to use them if I knew I'd be using them for 15-20 mins minimum.

Total usage I was able to get from the AirPods before everything was completely drained - 22.5 hrs over 4 days.
Click to expand...

That's great usage. I've been trying to stick to the 20 mins + whenever I open the case but think I've been failing because I often will just use one Airpod and leave the other in the case. The temporary fix only seems to work for me if I'm using both. Am really hoping Apple is going to push a fix in 10.2.1.
 
Last edited:
J

JTravers

macrumors 6502a
Jun 28, 2010
733
228
tomaustin44 said:
That's great usage. I've been trying to stick to the 20 mins + whenever I open the case but think I've been failing because I often will just use one Airpod and leave the other in the case. The temporary fix only seems to work for me if I'm using both. Am really hoping Apple is going to push a fix in 10.2.1.
Click to expand...
That's probably a scenario that can only be fixed by updating the firmware. I'm guessing that once you open the case to take out one the other one "wakes up" and starts draining - and the case continuously charges it.

I decided to always take both AirPods out of the case even if I was only using one. Also, if I ended up only using them for 5-10 minutes, I would put them in my pocket and not charge them until at least 20 mins had passed. Not sure if that did anything. In normal usage, I wouldn't have done that, but I was just trying to measure how much usage I could expect to get out of them in "ideal" conditions.
 
G

gerbrian

macrumors member
Jun 2, 2014
82
8
I have submitted the case battery drain as a bug in the apple bug reporting system 2 weeks ago and got this reply today:

"
Apple Developer Relations24-Jan-2017 11:44 PM


Engineering has provided the following feedback regarding this issue:

This issue is under investigation. No additional information is available at this time.
"

Hopefully we'll see something soon.
 
T

tomaustin44

macrumors regular
Oct 26, 2013
185
90
gerbrian said:
I have submitted the case battery drain as a bug in the apple bug reporting system 2 weeks ago and got this reply today:

"
Apple Developer Relations24-Jan-2017 11:44 PM


Engineering has provided the following feedback regarding this issue:

This issue is under investigation. No additional information is available at this time.
"

Hopefully we'll see something soon.
Click to expand...

Good to know, thanks for posting.

xenzo1990 said:
No firmware update in 10.3 beta 1.
Click to expand...

Ah thats a shame, although perhaps was a bit of a long shot. Apple Care only seem to have been acknowledging the issue in the past 10 days so perhaps it's still a bit early to be expecting a fix.
 
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mark.macrumors

macrumors newbie
Jan 29, 2017
8
3
By the way, why do you guys think the Airpods continue being delayed? Even at this moment, the Apple site's ship estimate remains 6 week, and almost non of the apple store worldwide has it available, isn't that odd and highly abnormal?

I can't help but wondering what's really going wrong here...
 
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bronksy

bronksy

macrumors 6502a
Oct 5, 2006
735
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London
mark.macrumors said:
By the way, why do you guys think the Airpods continue being delayed? Even at this moment, the Apple site's ship estimate remains 6 week, and almost non of the apple store worldwide has it available, isn't that odd and highly abnormal?

I can't help but wondering what's really going wrong here...
Click to expand...

If there was a problem then surely none would ship. There's a large gap between shipments too so they could very easily pull supply completely.

It may well be something to do with manufacturing and costs. Not necessarily a technical issue but more supply and demand issue.
 
MathersMahmood

MathersMahmood

macrumors 65816
Sep 5, 2016
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tomaustin44 said:
Wow that's good to hear... so your not having to use for at least 20 minutes anymore??
Click to expand...

No i did not do that from the start. What i have been doing is removing both airpods and putting them back in the case.

mark.macrumors said:
Can you check the firmware version of the Airpods? e.g. did it get updated by new iOS Beta? Thanks :)
Click to expand...

Firmware is still 3.3.1 on the airpods but something has improved my airpods battery life since i installed 10.3 beta.

WilliamG said:
This makes no sense unless the AirPods case firmware itself was updated. Can you tell us what firmware is reported?
Click to expand...

Well the battery has improved after 10.3 so something has improved the battery life of my airpods after I updated. But the AirPods is still at 3.3.1
[doublepost=1485796426][/doublepost]
mark.macrumors said:
By the way, why do you guys think the Airpods continue being delayed? Even at this moment, the Apple site's ship estimate remains 6 week, and almost non of the apple store worldwide has it available, isn't that odd and highly abnormal?

I can't help but wondering what's really going wrong here...
Click to expand...

Low stock. Apples stock has been shocking this year.
 
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WilliamG

macrumors G4
Mar 29, 2008
10,007
3,894
Seattle
If there's not a firmware update to the AirPods case itself, it's unlikely there's a fix for the case battery drain unless it's the way the AirPods themselves connect/disconnect from the iPhone or iPad itself that's causing the issue in standby.

Either way, not convinced at this stage.
 
M

mark.macrumors

macrumors newbie
Jan 29, 2017
8
3
I doubt it's just low stock, or unexpected high manufacturing cost. Compare to the complexity of iPhone, Airpods is much simpler, and iPhone's manufacturing could catch up within a month for a MUCH larger demand world wide....

I am quite suspicious about what's really going on about Airpods right now, there must be something fundamentally not-right, which prevent rapid ramping up of mass manufacturing...
 
L

Lihp8270

macrumors 65816
Dec 31, 2016
1,143
1,608
WilliamG said:
If there's not a firmware update to the AirPods case itself, it's unlikely there's a fix for the case battery drain unless it's the way the AirPods themselves connect/disconnect from the iPhone or iPad itself that's causing the issue in standby.

Either way, not convinced at this stage.
Click to expand...
However, nobody has reported the battery issue when connected via Bluetooth to android or windows devices.

So it may be that the bug is actually in iOS.
[doublepost=1485874322][/doublepost]
mark.macrumors said:
I doubt it's just low stock, or unexpected high manufacturing cost. Compare to the complexity of iPhone, Airpods is much simpler, and iPhone's manufacturing could catch up within a month for a MUCH larger demand world wide....

I am quite suspicious about what's really going on about Airpods right now, there must be something fundamentally not-right, which prevent rapid ramping up of mass manufacturing...
Click to expand...
Look at the tear down and reverse engineering videos of them.

They're a more complex build than an iPhone, and one that I believe will have a larger percentage of human work in comparison to the iPhone.

Also consider that the form factor hasn't changed much and has been slowly developed over a decade, the manufacturing processes are well in place.

The AirPods are a new product, with a new form factor.
 
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