AirPods Max Severe Battery Drain

[francoc02o]

Throwing my info out there to further help. Usually have mine inside the case. I only have them connected to the Iphone X, don't own any other Mac devices. they drain pretty consistently around 4% overnight. They actually have really good battery otherwise.

Yeap. This is the normal behavior.
4% for 8 hours, 10% per 24 hours , considering that the last 6 hours of those 24 they are in ultra low power mode.

 

[gusnyc]

My question is, if the AirPods Max "think" they are still connected (and playing music). Why are these discharging from 100% to 1% in 8-10 hours? Isn't the battery life 18-20 hours of use?

 

[JasonHB]

Well, this last week I have been deliberately using my headphones between my iPhone and iPad, listening to music at night, in the region of 3 hours total also making some calls, had 5 hours of online training sessions on Monday and Tuesday, after charging them on Sunday.

The bloody things won’t run out of battery now. After all of that, they are still at 47%!!!!!

Jason

 

[AppelGeenyus]

My question is, if the AirPods Max "think" they are still connected (and playing music). Why are these discharging from 100% to 1% in 8-10 hours? Isn't the battery life 18-20 hours of use?

Because they're not.

 

[BaddAdvice]

First time keeping mine in the case overnight (because I forgot to take them out of it when I got home) and dropped from mid-70% down to 1% this morning. I generally plug the APMs in overnight, but neglected to do that last night. Hard reset and charging now. If I don't put them in the case and don't plug them in, I'm getting the 6 - 10% drain overnight. Add me to the list!

 

[doolar]

I’ve had no problem with this so far. I never intended to use the case at home, but became annoyed that the headphones stayed connected to my devices when not in use, so I started using the case. They lose a few percent over night in the case. Seems to be working alright.

I still think the case is a joke, and feel the same about the fact that I just can’t power the headphones down. But the battery’s been fine, no excessive drain yet.

 

[mostlynameless]

At this point for you, it doesn’t matter is it’s connected or not to your devices. Your A1 chip is already stuck in an infinity loop load triggered by the firmware update to 3C16 (lots of people had the same behavior when their aripods are new and they update). You are going to keep experimenting the battery drain weather you use them or not (even if they are inside the case) at an average rate of 4-6% per hour (8 hours (overnight) = 40%) because the headphones are stuck, frozen or however you want to call them.

SOLUTION
The solution is the hard reset as I just explained, cause that would reboot the airpods.
After that you’ll be totally fine.
After that most people have a 10% battery drain during the FIRST 24 hours of not use. Except when they left the AirPods fully charged at 100% (they retain more battery when they are at 100%).
After the first 24 hours of continuously not use , we have not drain rate cause they AirPod get into an ultra low power mode after the 18 hours continuously not use (And people use them back before we achieve this time window). And by no use i mean inside the case. If you leave them outside the case, it takes 72 hours to get that ultra low power mode. And you have to consider that you CANT touch them during this 72 hours , cause the headphones have an accelerometer, sensitive to movements, so any touch should wake them up, and the counting starts from 0 again.
if you want to minimize the drain during the first 18 hours, you need to turn the Bluetooth off from all your devices, SPECIALLY desktop Macs and APPLE TV
Finally, if you want to retain all battery over night, perform a hard reset before going to bed and put them inside the case, so they are fully disconnected (This is the actual way to turn the headphones off).
Next time in the morning pair them back with you iphone.

The problem can happen again in the future, this time triggered by the automatic switching feature presumably, but you can still solve it temporarily with the hard reset until the bug fix comes out.

hope this help you

I've tried all that and they still aren't going to sleep in the case.

The other morning, in the case, they woke up and informed me via my iPad that they only had 5% battery left (they went to bed at 44%). So, I'm losing about 5% an hour regardless of anything I try.

That gives these about a 20 hour battery life and I think that is worse than my original Apple watch.

I might have to return these. So, soundwise, what is comparable?

 

[yegon]

Mine have been fine since completely abandoning the case.

My anecdotal pet theory is that, as I have them set for maximum headband size, if you then put them in the bra, the magnets for sleep don’t align properly and it falters between wake/sleep. The APM don’t sit as well in the bra at maximum size. I could reduce the size every time I put them in, but that’s a pain, and would put excess wear on the slide mechanism over time.

As they will never leave the house (I use XM4’s on the go, for which specific purpose I consider them better than the APM’s) and the battery has been fine without the case, it’s problem solved for my usage. Still prefer a shutdown button though, which I’d use only at night or when I leave for work.

 

[Zimmy68]

I think the magnets are causing the issue. When I keep them in my bag with my iPad Pro they seem to lose juice. When I had them in their case away from everything, I didn't lose any juice the entire weekend.

 

[mikezmac]

The bra case seems to cause the overnight power drain for me. The infamous low power mode means “We will make sure your Airpods maxhave Low to No Power!

This is super annoying. More than not when I want to use them the batter is dead now.

 

[francoc02o]

Just got my second pair of AirPods max. I’ll see if I have this problem again.

 

[francoc02o]

Just got my second pair of AirPods max. I’ll see if I have this problem again.

Update:
I opened the box and they were with 86%.
They came already with the 3C16 firmware, so no update needed.

I will only use them with my iPhone tonight . And check for the battery drain tomorrow morning.

I forgot how confortable they are and the amazing sound quality. I love them!!!

 

[F23]

Ive been putting them on a charger when Im done using them. 100% every time. No more OCD.

 

[nikotown]

My question is, if the AirPods Max "think" they are still connected (and playing music). Why are these discharging from 100% to 1% in 8-10 hours? Isn't the battery life 18-20 hours of use?

Yeah, something's else going on here. I get better battery life when listening to music vs "standby"

 

[francoc02o]

Update:
I opened the box and they were with 86%.
They came already with the 3C16 firmware, so no update needed.

I will only use them with my iPhone tonight . And check for the battery drain tomorrow morning.

I forgot how confortable they are and the amazing sound quality. I love them!!!

I listened music till 79%. , I tried from iPhone, Apple Watch, MacBook Pro, and Apple TV HD.
Later, after 8 hours in the inside the smart case, the battery was 75%.
So 0.5% per hour, which I think is ok.

 

[francoc02o]

Something I noticed is that even though my AirPods Max are inside the case , inside my drawer. I can connect them from my MacBook or iPhone right from Bluetooth settings, without needing them to be out the case.
I’m sure this is the cause of the problem. Bluetooth is always on, even is de the case

 

[francoc02o]

12 hours later inside the smart case, it when from 75% to 67% (0.67%/ hour)

so far we have :
- from 2am to 10am (8h): 79% to 75% (0.5 drain/hour)
- from 10am to 10pm (12h) 75% to 67% (0.67 drain/hour)

Average:
12% on 20 hours : 0.6 drain/hour

consider that I connected my iPhone and MacBook to the AirPod max while they where inside the case for testing purposes.

 

[UKapple73]

Ive been putting them on a charger when Im done using them. 100% every time. No more OCD.

Hmm. I’m not really comfortable doing that myself
For a start, I don’t like keeping stuff plugged in all the time, and keeping battery at 100% all seems like a recipe for premature battery degradation to me. Lithium ion batteries don’t like being kept at 100% and that’s a fact. This could so easily be avoided if we had an update to simply force them into the ultra deep sleep mode

 

[Bazooka-joe]

So my headphones arrived today and I’m going to take a softly softly step-by-step approach to try and understand any battery drain.
So they arrived with 87% charged. Tested them with just my iPhone and they were fine and I’ve now charged them with just a 5 watt charger up to 100% in the case. It didn’t take long.
I’ve disabled switched off automatic switching on both my iPhone and iPad so that means I have to manually connect to Bluetooth on my phone to check the battery level but that’s fine as it means that the headphones shouldn’t be looking to connect to my phone. Just checked the battery life on the headphones after two hours and they are still reading 100% whilst still in the case. I shall try them out in anger tonight and then stick them back in the case and check the battery reading in the morning. If all is good and the battery level has lost less then 1% per hour overnight then I shall use them tomorrow evening connected to my Apple TV and then put them away back in the case and check the battery life Saturday morning.

 

[francoc02o]

12 hours later inside the smart case, it when from 75% to 67% (0.67%/ hour)

so far we have :
- from 2am to 10am (8h): 79% to 75% (0.5 drain/hour)
- from 10am to 10pm (12h) 75% to 67% (0.67 drain/hour)

Average:
12% on 20 hours : 0.6 drain/hour

consider that I connected my iPhone and MacBook to the AirPod max while they where inside the case for testing purposes.

so now I’m 12 more hours later inside the smart case and 4% drain. The behavior is been this:

- From 2am to 10am (8h): 79% to 75% (0.5 drain/hour)
- From 10am to 10pm (12h) 75% to 67% (0.67 drain/hour)
- From 10pm to 10am (12h): 67% to 63% (0.33 drain/hour)




consider I connected my iPhone and MacBook to my AirPods max while there were inside the case, to verify a connection is possible even when they were inside , at 4pm.

Average:
16% in 28 hours: 0.57 drain/hour.

 

[UKapple73]

So the battery will completely drain in 6 days, without using them once
WOW

 

[Bazooka-joe]

Ok so I have left mine in the case for 8 hours disconnected from my phone. Battery reading was still at 100%.
Took them out and put them on and they automatically connected to my phone. Played some music for 35 minutes and still reading at 100% which is a little bizarre as I would’ve thought they would’ve dropped one or two percent by now.
I’ve just put them back into the case and they disconnected from my phone. I will check in the morning to see what the battery reading is.
If the current battery reading so far is accurate then I’m quite impressed

 

[francoc02o]

So the battery will completely drain in 6 days, without using them once
WOW

we have to consider that the headphones have never entered to the ultra low power mode , which is after 18 hours. I’ve been waking them up every 12 hours so we still don’t known the drain rate there, which should be a way less is after 18 hours where day turn off Bluetooth and find my.
The important thing is to keep them disconnected.

Note: the total days under the current average drain rate (in simple low battery mode) is not 6 days:

100% / (0.57/hour) = 175 hours > 7days.

how ever , under the last rate , I would still have left:

63% / (0.33/hour) = 191 hours ≈ 8 days.

 

[UKapple73]

we have to consider that the headphones have never entered to the ultra low power mode , which is after 18 hours. I’ve been waking them up every 12 hours so we still don’t known the drain rate there, which should be a way less is after 18 hours where day turn off Bluetooth and find my.
The important thing is to keep them disconnected.

Note: the total days under the current average drain rate (in simple low battery mode) is not 6 days:

100% / (0.57/hour) = 175 hours > 7days.

how ever , under the last rate , I would still have left:

63% / (0.33/hour) = 191 hours ≈ 8 days.

Yeah but we do use them. Any kind of usage we are looking at 3-4 days, my beats studio 3 I could turn off and they’d last me weeks sometimes!!

 

[Shadowbech]

Yeah but we do use them. Any kind of usage we are looking at 3-4 days, my beats studio 3 I could turn off and they’d last me weeks sometimes!!

Yea, one thing nice about Beats is that, I have one and you can turn it off when not it use and last for ages. Unlike APM, they clearly should have that feature. I've been putting mine on the stand without the case, to see how long it last. It still last 3-4 days but of course listening to music but I do lose about 4% every 8 hours when not in use.