{"id":914786,"date":"2026-09-30T02:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T02:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/914786\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T02:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T02:26:10","slug":"the-most-repairable-airpods-ever-are-still-frustrating-to-access","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/914786\/","title":{"rendered":"The most repairable AirPods ever are still frustrating to access"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apple’s AirPods 5<\/a> have replaceable batteries in the earbuds, but the charging case remains inaccessible even with the best tools available. Here’s how iFixit fared in its latest teardown. <\/p>\n

The AirPods line has always been a thorn in Apple’s side, at least when it comes to environmental responsibility. These earbuds and charging case have always been irreparable hunks of plastic destined for a garbage dump at the end of their short life. <\/p>\n

However, iFixit has discovered<\/a> a small glimmer of hope in the AirPods 5. The long-running repairability score for AirPods has been zero, until the latest model received a slight bump to two. <\/p>\n

The charging case is still impossible to access, so there’s no saving that no matter how skilled you are with a knife and heat gun. The improved score is owed entirely to a change in the earbuds. <\/p>\n

When properly clamped with a bit of heat, a technician can remove the earbud’s outer cover and expose the battery. That battery comes free from a bit of glue, and is attached via two prongs. <\/p>\n

Each earbud has an opposite polarity battery, so the batteries aren’t interchangeable between the earbuds. At the least, it seems users can save their earbuds from the garbage with a battery swap. <\/p>\n

The charging case has a larger battery, so it theoretically will take longer to reach end-of-life. However, when that happens, the owner has no choice but to buy a new charging case or a whole new set of AirPods. <\/p>\n

\"Hand<\/a><\/p>\n

An accessible battery goes a long way for repairability. Image source: iFixit<\/p>\n

Out of all of Apple’s products, AirPods are the ones that are consistently the worst for repairability. If Apple wants to reach its goals for Apple 2030<\/a> and reduce waste, getting more repairable products to the consumer has to be a priority. <\/p>\n

Perhaps Apple will learn how to introduce a more repairable charging case in AirPods Pro 4<\/a>. Until then, expect to have to buy a whole new pair of AirPods every two to three years as the batteries age and die.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Apple’s AirPods 5 have replaceable batteries in the earbuds, but the charging case remains inaccessible even with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":914787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,61],"class_list":["post-914786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=914786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}