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Yes, they aren't a novelty anymore, they don't screen from other people effectively, cheap clones are almost identical, too many people use them and the cool fa
by squarefoot 5y ago
Yes, they aren't a novelty anymore, they don't screen from other people effectively, cheap clones are almost identical, too many people use them and the cool factor dropped, yadda yadda yadda.
...or maybe most users after some years realized the true costs of having non replaceable batteries.
Making them replaceable on the AirPods would be very easy; and a nice move that would also bring them some more customers including me, but apparently milking users to the last cent pays more.
- fastball 5y agoHow would it be very easy to make the battery user replaceable? I don't even know where they stuck the battery.
- dghlsakjg 5y agoI’ve resoldered the batteries on my generic wireless earbuds that were very much meant not to be serviceable. It really wouldn’t be hard to make them serviceable, even if they weren’t user replaceable. There’s one in each bud, and another in the case. A battery only needs two electrical contacts on a component that is already self contained. Its a very simple device. The lithium ion ones in this size range are a few bucks each on the wholesale market. There are even standardized button cell sizes. It is very much a design choice. The other side of it is that lithium ion battery tech is at the point where the battery lifespans is starting to exceed the device lifespan. Certainly true for the cheap side of the earbud market
- squarefoot 5y agoThe battery is contained in the stick coming down from the AirPod body. They could make them threaded with concentric tracks at the top making contact with springs, so the user could simply unscrew them and swap with fresh ones, so that the parts cost of replacing the battery would be the battery itself plus a piece of plastic, some wire and a small almost empty pcb, surely not the entire device.
- brewdad 5y agoI know I would fidget with mine and end up unscrewing them partially leading to erratic behavior and eventually completely leaving me without a power source.
- theshrike79 5y agoOr unscrew it partially, breaking the moisture protection and get some sweat in there.
- humanistbot 5y ago> ...or maybe most users after some years realized the true costs of having non replaceable batteries Nope. This is a minority preference that HN folks are obsessed about, but most people aren't. The wireless headphone market is huge and booming, and replaceable batteries went out around the same time they did in cell phones. Last pair I had with a replaceable battery were Bose QC15s, sold from 2009-2015. Airpods may have lost their novelty, but people are buying up loads of wireless/ANC headphones from Bose, Sony, Sennheiser, Beats, etc. None of the newest generations have easily replaceable batteries.
- ddingus 5y agoWait a minute. If replacement batteries were cooked in from the start, prefs on all that would be different.
- coldtea 5y agoI don't think the intended customers care at all about replaceable batteries as an issue against purchase. And even as an expense it's insignificant anyway (given the lifetime until replacement)...
- Gigachad 5y agoPersonally I never had wired headphones last longer than a year before the cable gets damaged. For how much utility I get out of my AirPods, I think replacing them every 3 years is excellent value.
- pimeys 5y agoI have two pairs of Beyerdynamic studio headphones. The other pair is now 16 years old, still sound great and are in daily use. I've replaced the cable once, it was easy and cables are common to find. This is what I call value.