Two years ago, Desmond Hughes heard so many of his favorite podcasters extolling AirPods, Apple’s tiny, futuristic $170 wireless headphones, that he decided they were worth the splurge. He quickly became a convert.
Hughes is still listening to podcasters talk about their AirPods, but now they’re complaining. The battery can no longer hold a charge, they say, rendering them functionally useless. Apple bloggers agree: “AirPods are starting to show their age for early adopters,” Zac Hall, an editor at 9to5Mac, wrote in a post in January, detailing how he frequently hears a low-battery warning in his AirPods now. Earlier this month, Apple Insider tested a pair of AirPods purchased in 2016 against a pair from 2018, and found that the older pair died after two hours and 16 minutes. “That’s less than half the stated battery life for a new pair,” the writer William Gallagher concluded.
Some tech companies have figured out how to make more sustainable products. The Fairphone, for example, allows consumers to easily swap out the battery and other parts. Other companies have made it easier for consumers to recycle their electronics at the end of their useful life, Rohwer said; Dell offers prepaid shipping labels and has partnered with Goodwill to create a convenient place for consumers to drop off electronics, and HP provides customers with envelopes so they can recycle their ink cartridges.
Yep that is the reality of all current batteries… just so many cycles and they start to degrade. Sometimes with a phone, you may be able to replace it but with more specialised gadgets like Airp[ods budget on just throwing them away.
See
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/your-airpods-probably-have-terrible-battery-life/585439/#
batteries #
batterylife