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AirPods Max Severe Battery Drain
- Thread starter VL_424
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Well as I said on Friday, battery life seems very good. Charged up on Friday morning at 11am to 100%. Used them for about 7 hours including a couple of movies via ATV and 48 hours later, still reading at 80%. I have put them in the bra case each time after using them ensuring that they are not connected to my phone, ATV, iPad etc.
I have no doubt that there are issues for some that will be fixed by a firmware update.
By the way, mine were already on 3C16 when they arrived so they didn't need a firmware update. Not sure if that makes a difference.
I have no doubt that there are issues for some that will be fixed by a firmware update.
By the way, mine were already on 3C16 when they arrived so they didn't need a firmware update. Not sure if that makes a difference.
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I was having problem where mine would be dead the next day after having full charge and in the bra case. Factory reset yesterday and left caseless on my headphone stand. This morning says it’s at 90% which is a lot better then being completely dead. Will have to try with case now to see how much I lose.
Yep, these are stupid headphones. Imagine claiming you’re a green corporation and then releasing headphones that needlessly drain and kill battery life when not being used.
this is getting annoying, put them in the Dumb Case at 90% at 1 AM. At 10 AM, they were still showing up in the battery widget at 84%. It's been 2 months since release. Where's the damn software update. Why does it take 18 hours to turn off bluetooth in this dumb case. Is Find My gonna save my headphones if they get stolen? no. so stupid. AirPods themselves are a perfect product with the charging case that offers full protection and charging. The Max just ruined that experience. They could have added the iPad smart connector to them, would allow wireless charging in the case. The case could have 2 thin large battery cells on either side, providing charge through the inside with the smart connector. Hire me @Apple jesus christ lmao
While I am calm about this because I know they will either find a firmware fix, or refund the product if they end up with a product that cannot be fixed, there are a few grey areas coming up for me. Assuming that they release a fix, do we already have increased wear on the battery from it being discharged so many times ?. I received these on day one, and normally I would have probably recharged them probably once per week, but they are needing to be charged every day if not multiple times per day. That means that I probably would have had charged them less than 10 times under normal circumstances, but have now probably charged them 40x. Therefore these will probably have a significantly shorter lifespan than intended.
Charging constantly to 100 percent is terrible for the battery, which is why regular AirPods don't have a long life (that and the tiny batteries). 500-600 dollar headphones shouldn't be like this. You should never have to worry about battery life when you're not using your headphones.
I used my MacBook always plugged in for 6 years. The battery health was above 95% still. And got me 5 hours use after all those years . Battery cycles was at 110. Regular AirPods die fast after 1 year bc their small 90 mAh battery deteriorated and the life took a more noticeable hit. AirPods Max are 600 mAh so it should be a bit better. Might see 15 hours battery life in a couple years if you let it discharge often. Smart charging and trickle charging allow us to keep them plugged in more often
Well, it remains to be seen what effect this will have on the existing battery, but purchasers of a $500+ pair of headphones shouldn't have to put up with it. I am fine with the hiccups in the short term, that is part of being an early adopter, but the end result will be what interests me.
Glad I returned them nearly a month ago. Just checking in to see if this issue has been resolved since I did enjoy them. My XM4s have been unused for 2 weeks (have actually used them passive wired many times in this period). 90% battery remaining. I'm a big apple lover as well but those saying it's normal or expected .... 
So after the first three days of use with no factory reset......7 hours usage using my phone and ATV and 65 hours in the case, my battery read 79% which I consider to be adequate. Charged them back to 100% 21 hours ago and straight back in the case and now still reading 100%.
I dont have automatic switching on so I wonder if that’s the issue that causes the drain for others or possibly a power drain after the firmware upgrade which I didn’t have to do or maybe it’s a faulty batch of cases.
I dont have automatic switching on so I wonder if that’s the issue that causes the drain for others or possibly a power drain after the firmware upgrade which I didn’t have to do or maybe it’s a faulty batch of cases.
Mine started this way, but after about a week it all fell apart. As of right now, no matter what I do, it literally goes from 90%+ to less than 15% every day whether I use them or not. Factory resetting them helps for a day or so, then it returns to the same issue. Auto Switching turned off is a good idea, I will check that. At the end of the day, I am not that bothered as long as it gets fixed soon.
Thanks for the information and I will keep an eye on it. Something must change for something like that to happen. I will ensure that I don’t change any configuration on my phone and see what happens. If it’s suddenly drops without any changes then I will send it back to Apple for replacement Because the performabce just shouldn’t change.
Let me know if it improves if you switch off auto switching
update - just checked and it’s dropped 2% in 9 hours and I can confirm that the headphones definitely go into deep sleep mode because i tried to connect them via my phone and got the message below. I have to take them out of the case to wake them up so they are definitely going to sleep in the case when disconnected from my phone
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- Connect your AirPods to the iPhone.
- Open Settings.
- Tap Bluetooth.
- Find your AirPods in the connected devices list and press the small (i) button on the right of the row.
- Tap ‘Connect to this iPhone’ setting.
- Change the setting from ‘Automatically’ to ‘When Last Connected to This iPhone’.
It means it will only connect to that device if it was the last device you connected with
Exactly and if the headphones are in sleep mode, you may have to manually connect it. This means that the headphones has gone into low power mode Which is what should happen. This is working well for me as my battery is only losing between .25%and .33% per hour.
Obviously it would be good if Apple got their act together and released a firmware update so that we don’t have to connect to a single device without losing significant battery charge
I don’t understand why the experiences are so diverse. My headphones are six days out and still losing just .25% an hour in the case. I can only think that mine already had the latest firmware - 3C16 when I got them