3 ms·

AirPods' Dirty Secret

29 points by popcalc 4y ago

metadat 4y ago
> Released in 2016, the batteries are now aged and 10s of millions of AirPods cases are ending up in landfills. Planned obsolescence is dirty. Why is it such a struggle for a companies to be both successful and offer repairable devices?
- ChildOfChaos 4y ago
  They can be 'successful' in any 'normal' measure. The problem is big public corporations always have to grow, they can completely shatter all expectations for profit then two years later earn a little bit less than they did before, by any normal measure of success, you'd take that, you'd say the company was a run away success and if this was you personally you'd understand that overall you'd done fantastic, but the market doesn't like that. It needs endless growth. The problem you have, the better you do, eventually you run out of customers, so the things you can do to keep growing mean 1) releasing new product lines, 2) adding subscription services 3) Getting current customers to upgrade / replace there devices. There is little incentive to make headphones that last longer, although I'm not sure we even have the battery tech at the moment anyway. I love my airpods, but it is somewhat annoying that headphones have now become an item you have to replace every few years, just like everything else now. The one saving grace in this market, which is the built-in protection in capitalism for this kind of thing, is the market is flooded with so many brands, so once this is technically solved, hopefully others will come to market without this problem, hopefully forcing apple to follow suit.
- nsonha 4y ago
  Environmetal cost is not in the price, so is interoperability and other user-centric metrics. It requires governments to step in to make that happen, the EU requiring type-C is an example, although I don't neccessarily agree with straight ordering company to do thing, bet ter to simply create incentives via taxes
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
prvc 4y ago
Hard to imagine that what he did (in order to repair a single copy) doesn't have a massively greater negative environmental impact than obtaining a mass-produced replacement. Unless this were done at scale, it would probably be counter-productive.
- pawsforthought 4y ago
  I think you’re right, but then again, as an exercise in making the point that the AirPods’ design is deliberately adversarial, it works. Imagine if our electronics were designed consciously with repair in mind.
  - throw__away7391 4y ago
    > Imagine if our electronics were designed consciously with repair in mind. My prediction is that in the majority of cases we'd have slightly bulkier, slightly costlier devices, many likely a bit more prone to damage because of things like less effective seals or connectors failing, and that 1% of users would actually repair them. Probably a net negative in terms of environmental impact. Years ago there was a push especially in Europe to install dual flush toilets that allow you to perform either a less-water flush. Many years later we find that due to these more complicated mechanisms being just slightly more prone to malfunction, the net impact is actually more water being wasted. (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/29/dual-flush-toilets-wasting-more-water-than-they-save https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/29/dual-flu...) I'd suspect a similar sort of situation here.
    - popcalc 4y ago
      You do realize non-repairability was not always the norm? My tape walkman has a dozen phillips screws all over the outside. It has a slide out AA compartment. I'm sure you could mod it to use LiPo with no work. It hasn't failed in almost 40 years, but if it does there's nothing stopping me from opening it up.
      - throw__away7391 4y ago
acd 4y ago
I refuse to buy wireless headphones as long as you cant user swap batteries in them. I have a series of dumb/smart Sennheiser HD 650 cans. They have lasted twenty years. That is much better for the environment. Planned obscelence. Yes its a real thing!
- dzhiurgis 4y ago
  The protocols that use them move faster than batteries, let alone features. You can refuse it, but airpods business is close to Tesla sales.
eternityforest 4y ago
Airpods et al are actually the least shocking case of nonswappable batteries. Any battery would have to be removable while also protected, either electronically or by some mechanism that made accidental unscrewing unlikely, while also guarding against being swallowed as button batteries are. You would need a screw, and that would take a bit of space. I suspect the best answer would just be to use 2.4v LTO batteries, which last long enough that non-replacability is acceptable. You lose some runtime, but make up for it with faster charging. For everything else, we just need a better battery standard. Companies would use it, and if they didn't, you could just mandate that anyone making a device above a certain size had to use some open standard. At the moment, 18650s and other cylindrical lithiums are the only reasonable choice, but they aren't really safe, and they are tied to Li-Ion, a chemistry we will hopefully move on from someday. We could instead have an open version of what power tool companies have: smart batteries with i2c communication and protection built in.
ChrisRR 4y ago
I'm not clicking a video that gives me no information about the content of the video
ksec 4y ago
I think the Video ( in terms of context from https://kenp.io/airpods-dirty-secret/ https://kenp.io/airpods-dirty-secret/ ) is great. But most people come on HN when they are working. ( LOL ) Hence Video and audio content aren't exactly the best type of information. I brought first gen AirPod [1] but then quickly discovered AirPod is actually a consumable devices. You have to keep buying it. And I know a lot of people do that. Their fourth or fifth pair of AirPods. Normally I dont have a problem with this as a design decision. ( I would just stop buying after my first pair ) But this is coming from Apple, the company that claims, whether it was themselves or through PR submarine articles how they care about the world. Getting rid of headphones or charger because it was environmental friendly. [1] I bought the first gen, mostly because to vote with my wallet, my middle finger to the whole god damn stupid Bluetooth industry, AirPod was how a half decent bluetooth connection should work. I say half decent because AirPod isn't perfect, far from it. But it was finally touching my bar of good enough. Or may be all the other Bluetooth peripheral were crap that my expectation of AirPods were lowered.
- popcalc 4y ago
  I know a couple jet setters who've gone through 12 pairs!

29 points by popcalc 4y ago

> Released in 2016, the batteries are now aged and 10s of millions of AirPods cases are ending up in landfills. Planned obsolescence is dirty. Why is it such a struggle for a companies to be both successful and offer repairable devices?

ChildOfChaos 4y ago
They can be 'successful' in any 'normal' measure. The problem is big public corporations always have to grow, they can completely shatter all expectations for profit then two years later earn a little bit less than they did before, by any normal measure of success, you'd take that, you'd say the company was a run away success and if this was you personally you'd understand that overall you'd done fantastic, but the market doesn't like that. It needs endless growth. The problem you have, the better you do, eventually you run out of customers, so the things you can do to keep growing mean 1) releasing new product lines, 2) adding subscription services 3) Getting current customers to upgrade / replace there devices. There is little incentive to make headphones that last longer, although I'm not sure we even have the battery tech at the moment anyway. I love my airpods, but it is somewhat annoying that headphones have now become an item you have to replace every few years, just like everything else now. The one saving grace in this market, which is the built-in protection in capitalism for this kind of thing, is the market is flooded with so many brands, so once this is technically solved, hopefully others will come to market without this problem, hopefully forcing apple to follow suit.
nsonha 4y ago
Environmetal cost is not in the price, so is interoperability and other user-centric metrics. It requires governments to step in to make that happen, the EU requiring type-C is an example, although I don't neccessarily agree with straight ordering company to do thing, bet ter to simply create incentives via taxes

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

prvc 4y ago

Hard to imagine that what he did (in order to repair a single copy) doesn't have a massively greater negative environmental impact than obtaining a mass-produced replacement. Unless this were done at scale, it would probably be counter-productive.

pawsforthought 4y ago
I think you’re right, but then again, as an exercise in making the point that the AirPods’ design is deliberately adversarial, it works. Imagine if our electronics were designed consciously with repair in mind.
- throw__away7391 4y ago
  > Imagine if our electronics were designed consciously with repair in mind. My prediction is that in the majority of cases we'd have slightly bulkier, slightly costlier devices, many likely a bit more prone to damage because of things like less effective seals or connectors failing, and that 1% of users would actually repair them. Probably a net negative in terms of environmental impact. Years ago there was a push especially in Europe to install dual flush toilets that allow you to perform either a less-water flush. Many years later we find that due to these more complicated mechanisms being just slightly more prone to malfunction, the net impact is actually more water being wasted. (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/29/dual-flush-toilets-wasting-more-water-than-they-save https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/29/dual-flu...) I'd suspect a similar sort of situation here.
  - popcalc 4y ago
    You do realize non-repairability was not always the norm? My tape walkman has a dozen phillips screws all over the outside. It has a slide out AA compartment. I'm sure you could mod it to use LiPo with no work. It hasn't failed in almost 40 years, but if it does there's nothing stopping me from opening it up.
    - throw__away7391 4y ago

acd 4y ago

I refuse to buy wireless headphones as long as you cant user swap batteries in them. I have a series of dumb/smart Sennheiser HD 650 cans. They have lasted twenty years. That is much better for the environment. Planned obscelence. Yes its a real thing!

dzhiurgis 4y ago
The protocols that use them move faster than batteries, let alone features. You can refuse it, but airpods business is close to Tesla sales.

eternityforest 4y ago

Airpods et al are actually the least shocking case of nonswappable batteries. Any battery would have to be removable while also protected, either electronically or by some mechanism that made accidental unscrewing unlikely, while also guarding against being swallowed as button batteries are. You would need a screw, and that would take a bit of space. I suspect the best answer would just be to use 2.4v LTO batteries, which last long enough that non-replacability is acceptable. You lose some runtime, but make up for it with faster charging. For everything else, we just need a better battery standard. Companies would use it, and if they didn't, you could just mandate that anyone making a device above a certain size had to use some open standard. At the moment, 18650s and other cylindrical lithiums are the only reasonable choice, but they aren't really safe, and they are tied to Li-Ion, a chemistry we will hopefully move on from someday. We could instead have an open version of what power tool companies have: smart batteries with i2c communication and protection built in.

ChrisRR 4y ago

I'm not clicking a video that gives me no information about the content of the video

ksec 4y ago

I think the Video ( in terms of context from https://kenp.io/airpods-dirty-secret/ https://kenp.io/airpods-dirty-secret/ ) is great. But most people come on HN when they are working. ( LOL ) Hence Video and audio content aren't exactly the best type of information. I brought first gen AirPod [1] but then quickly discovered AirPod is actually a consumable devices. You have to keep buying it. And I know a lot of people do that. Their fourth or fifth pair of AirPods. Normally I dont have a problem with this as a design decision. ( I would just stop buying after my first pair ) But this is coming from Apple, the company that claims, whether it was themselves or through PR submarine articles how they care about the world. Getting rid of headphones or charger because it was environmental friendly. [1] I bought the first gen, mostly because to vote with my wallet, my middle finger to the whole god damn stupid Bluetooth industry, AirPod was how a half decent bluetooth connection should work. I say half decent because AirPod isn't perfect, far from it. But it was finally touching my bar of good enough. Or may be all the other Bluetooth peripheral were crap that my expectation of AirPods were lowered.

popcalc 4y ago
I know a couple jet setters who've gone through 12 pairs!