AirPods Max Severe Battery Drain

[VL_424]

Update: After performing a factory reset last week the issue seemed to go away. The last time I used the headphones was to demo them briefly on Christmas Eve, put them back in their case directly after. Today is the first time I removed them, battery was down to 1%. Not sure if this is because it’s been a few days since they were last used and not charged or if it might be linked to the multiple devices I own?

I’ve noticed based on previous comments that a few users on here who use more than one Apple device experience this issue. So far I’ve used these headphones with my iPhone, iPad and Apple TV.

 

[chicagofan00]

Been experiencing the severe battery drain issue lately as well. Just did the reset and threw them on the charger. We’ll see how it goes.

I performed the factory reset yesterday and then threw them on the charger. Took them off the charger at 12:40am last night and they were at 100%. I checked this morning at around 8:00AM and they were still at 100%. Haven’t used them all day today and honestly haven’t even bothered to check again where they are at right now. I’ll be interested to see where they are tomorrow morning when I put them on while working.

Put them on this morning and they were at 95% and will be using them throughout most of the day today to listen to music and for work conference calls. We’ll see how the battery life goes from here on out but initially it appears the factory reset has worked. Will be interesting to see if the issue returns like it has for others. I typically use mine with my iPhone or iPad, have not used them with my MBP or ATV as of yet.

 

[twinpeaks_sf]

How does one un/pair, and how is this different than the ‘press both buttons’ reset?

 

[francoc02o]

Mine have behaved since yesterday. Light usage yesterday, stopped using them at 90% last night. Didn’t use case, woke up and they’re 86%.

I unpaired and repaired yesterday for the first time, previously just factory reset. I’m really hoping that’s made a difference.

Now also try testing the battery drain when your AirPods are inside the case. and let us know it if it is working fine too. i find 4% over night just normal. I get the same sometimes. Other times just 1% (the more battery the AirPods have, the less it drains so far, I’ve seen).

 

[Herrpod]

Apple has people thinking a 4 percent battery drop on a pair of headphones not being used is a good thing now.

 

[francoc02o]

I have this issue. Re-pairing, resetting does not work for me.

63% down to 16% in a space of 6 hours in case. Then 16% down to 7% when I went to bed last night.

when they were released and people complained about lack of power button I rolled my eyes. Figured it was another thing people loved to complain about, but after battery drain like this I get it now.

I will be returning my pair - when you buy convenience having to charge every day is not convenient. Especially when it is the only product in the house using lightning (iPad, Mac USB-C, iPhone wireless)

I love everything about the headphones except the battery issue and at £550 I expect it to work as advertised and not have to wait for an update. Buy for what it is now and not the promise of what it will be or could be.

I totally feel you. Yet I think we are a minority with this bug, or at least a minority that is techy enough to recognize this bug. Ive search on the web for more people with this problem, but this is the only place where I’ve found it. Apple hasn’t announce nor claimed anything about it.
The AirPods max are a new product. Sometimes new products have software bugs when they are just released, but that doesn’t justify something this basic as a battery drain, especially when this device uses the same technology as the original AirPods and AirPods Pro (same H1 chip). So I totally agree that this is unacceptable.
I wanted to return and get a replace for mine too but the shipping is in 2 months so far, but I found the solution in the factory reseting so far, as i see with the most of people here.

However, I’ve seen another bug too: the iphone/iPad sometimes dont the organize them back after a few hours of not using them. It prompts: ”Not your Airpods Max. AirPods Max not connected to this iphone” and it keeps prompting this even when I select connect them. Again, the only solution is factory reset them.
But I dont wanna be with a product i have to keep resetting all the time.

If anyone have seen this topic in the forum please let me know.

 

[francoc02o]

Update: After performing a factory reset last week the issue seemed to go away. The last time I used the headphones was to demo them briefly on Christmas Eve, put them back in their case directly after. Today is the first time I removed them, battery was down to 1%. Not sure if this is because it’s been a few days since they were last used and not charged or if it might be linked to the multiple devices I own?

I’ve noticed based on previous comments that a few users on here who use more than one Apple device experience this issue. So far I’ve used these headphones with my iPhone, iPad and Apple TV.

Yes. That’s a potential cause, based in my own experiences and other users here so far I read. Yet I’ve Been doing some test, using them with other devices (Apple Watch, iPad Pro, Apple TV HD) and I haven’t had the battery drain again. I still need to use them with the Apple TV 4K again though and see how it goes.

 

[francoc02o]

How does one un/pair, and how is this different than the ‘press both buttons’ reset?

Factory reset is only by pressing both buttons for 15 sec until the led light blinks white. It means all the settings from the AirPods ( how you use the crown, the other button, the spacial audio, thw switching, etc) goes to factory defaults again. After a factory reset you have to connect you AirPods again, but your iPhone will still know is the same device you used before cause it has the same serial number

Unpairing means you make your iPhone FORGET this device. In fact, to do so, you go to bluetooth settings and click on “forget device”. When you do this, you unpair the airpods not only from your iPhone, but also from your iCloud account, which means that you are unpairin it from all you apple devices that are using that iCloud account.

If you want to fully remove the AirPods and start with them like new do this:

1. Unpair it from iCloud: forget device from your iphone.
2. Factory reset: press the crown and the ANC button for 15 sec until the white light blinks.
3. Go to find my: remore the airpods.
4. Connect them again with your iphone.

 

[twinpeaks_sf]

So, after factory resetting, they drained from 73% to 67% overnight (12 hrs) in the “case”. Still more than I’d like, but not the 92% to 1% drop I was seeing over ~20 hrs the day before.

 

[twinpeaks_sf]

Factory reset is only by pressing both buttons for 15 sec until the led light blinks white. It means all the settings from the AirPods ( how you use the crown, the other button, the spacial audio, thw switching, etc) goes to factory defaults again. After a factory reset you have to connect you AirPods again, but your iPhone will still know is the same device you used before cause it has the same serial number

Unpairing means you make your iPhone FORGET this device. In fact, to do so, you go to bluetooth settings and click on “forget device”. When you do this, you unpair the airpods not only from your iPhone, but also from your iCloud account, which means that you are unpairin it from all you apple devices that are using that iCloud account.

If you want to fully remove the AirPods and start with them like new do this:

1. Unpair it from iCloud: forget device from your iphone.
2. Factory reset: press the crown and the ANC button for 15 sec until the white light blinks.
3. Go to find my: remore the airpods.
4. Connect them again with your iphone.

Thank you! Appreciate the detail.

 

[francoc02o]

So, after factory resetting, they drained from 73% to 67% overnight (12 hrs) in the “case”. Still more than I’d like, but not the 92% to 1% drop I was seeing over ~20 hrs the day before.

This is the same average battery drain rate im having now.
Apple should add a idle battery life specifications to see what’s expected when not using them.

 

[twinpeaks_sf]

I would rather not nit-pick — and in principle — I'm OK without a power button... if I could trust these things. Been listening to music for 1.5 hrs and it's still showing 100%. A separate issue may be the reliability of the battery status.

 

[alee]

I would rather not nit-pick — and in principle — I'm OK without a power button... if I could trust these things. Been listening to music for 1.5 hrs and it's still showing 100%. A separate issue may be the reliability of the battery status.

I'm probably charging these at the EOD anyway... unless I'm on a 19 hr flight (where I'd probably take a headphone break a few times anyway), I think the end value for me is that they'll definitely make it through a day... probably 2 days if I forget to charge it.

 

[Herrpod]

I would rather not nit-pick — and in principle — I'm OK without a power button... if I could trust these things. Been listening to music for 1.5 hrs and it's still showing 100%. A separate issue may be the reliability of the battery status.

I don't know why people are surprised that it stays at 100 percent for so long. On every single Apple product they overstate the amount of time it stays at 100. My phone, iPad, MacBook etc etc all do the same thing. It stays at 100 for what really amounts to about 5-10 percent battery life, and then drops sharply from there.

 

[Herrpod]

I'm probably charging these at the EOD anyway... unless I'm on a 19 hr flight (where I'd probably take a headphone break a few times anyway), I think the end value for me is that they'll definitely make it through a day... probably 2 days if I forget to charge it.

The problem isn't that they'll last a full day when new. The problem is that devices that are constantly draining battery with no way to ever stop it will lose battery life quickly over time. So your 19 hour battery life will be not be 19 for long at maximum charge. For a company that claims to care so much about the environment, designing headphones that will die much quicker than they should is unconscionable.

 

[mashinhead]

I had the same thing happen to mine and returned it because of it. I honestly can't believe that it makes more sense to have a product, that isn't smart enough to manage itself, sit there and drain battery when not in use for $550, than it is to put a power button on there and have a human who is smart enough to manage it, turn it off when they decide they aren't using it.

I also quite frankly find it insulting. It's like Apple is saying to its users "you're too dumb to decide for yourself what you want to do. We're smart, we know what you want." Especially when, you clearly don't know what I want. I want to turn it off when I'm not using it. I want it to stay on the device i asked it to, instead of you thinking you know what device I want to to be on.

 

[twinpeaks_sf]

Another 6-7% drop overnight in the case — probably normal and my baseline. I'm being very careful to watch them disconnect from the Battery widget before I put them in; otherwise, just laying them on my desk throughout the day.

 

[GreenLightLuke]

Another 6-7% drop overnight in the case — probably normal and my baseline. I'm being very careful to watch them disconnect from the Battery widget before I put them in; otherwise, just laying them on my desk throughout the day.

I wouldn’t say 6-7% should be normal or acceptable. You’re losing almost 1/10th of the battery by not using it.

Different strokes and all that, sounds like it’s acceptable to you so enjoy them.

 

[francoc02o]

Well, I've been testing the battery after unpairing from my iCloud, and factory reseting the AirPods max, and then trying them with all my devices (iPhone 12 Pro, Apple TV HD, Apple TV 4K, Apple Watch , iPad Pro, MacBook Pro) and I haven't had the battery drain I had during the first week so far again.
And I tried to recreate everything I did in the first week to find the cause of it.

Im starting to think that the cause of that battery drain was due to the updating process to the 3C16, that somehow overload the proccessor and it got into an infinite loading loop, and this must have been a very focused random bug, in a very minority of people.

 

[F23]

Apple always ensuring its customers develop OCD. Now I have to worry about my headphone's battery drain instead of just enjoying them. They seem to hold the 100% charge overnight, but after use they steadily drop 10% over night which is ridiculous.

 

[yegon]

Well, I've been testing the battery after unpairing from my iCloud, and factory reseting the AirPods max, and then trying them with all my devices (iPhone 12 Pro, Apple TV HD, Apple TV 4K, Apple Watch , iPad Pro, MacBook Pro) and I haven't had the battery drain I had during the first week so far again.
And I tried to recreate everything I did in the first week to find the cause of it.

Im starting to think that the cause of that battery drain was due to the updating process to the 3C16, that somehow overload the proccessor and it got into an infinite loading loop, and this must have been a very focused random bug, in a very minority of people.

My experience is similar, although my problem seemed to happen a couple more times.

Since factory reset AND unpairing (which I didn’t do first two times), they’ve been fine for a few days now. I’ve not being using the case, just leaving them on the coffee table. Drain overnight appears to be only about 3%-5% now. 70% to 67% last night.

 

[chicagofan00]

Mine have been fine so far after doing the reset and I have not experienced the severe battery drain overnight issue since. I’ll continue to monitor but hopefully it was just an issue due to the firmware update and that future updates will go smoothly.

 

[Huntzjr]

I just took my AirPods Max out of its storage bra after not using them for a week . I stored them away charged at 100% and the battery drained down to 53% .

 

[F23]

I just took my AirPods Max out of its storage bra after not using them for a week . I stored them away charged at 100% and the battery drained down to 53% .

your profile pic is my reaction

 

[error]

I've got the same experience a few days ago: a 50% battery drain during the night. AirPods Max inactive and outside the case. This is one of the reasons I will probably return the product to Apple next week. Let them sort out the bugs first.