{"id":788236,"date":"2026-10-01T06:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T06:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/788236\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T06:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T06:06:10","slug":"apple-finally-made-airpods-repairable-sort-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/788236\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple Finally Made AirPods Repairable\u2026 Sort Of"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been true for a while now that Apple\u2019s AirPods have been effectively disposable, with [iFixit] slapping each successive generation with an abysmal 0\/10 repairability score. The moment that any of the built-in batteries faltered you could effectively toss the whole package out as e-waste.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Interestingly, with the fifth generation it would seem that a battery swap in the earbuds is now actually possible without whole-scale destruction, according to the [iFixit] teardown video<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although it\u2019s still a far cry from the demonstrated FairBuds battery replacement, this time around a bit of gentle heat allows for the glued-together earbud to cleanly separate, with inside a socketed coin cell. The catch here is that the polarity on these sockets differs between the left and right earbud, which was discovered after a quick swap.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately this same easy-to-open change doesn\u2019t carry over to the case for the earbuds, which still requires\u00a0 physical destruction of the plastic to get to its battery. Accordingly [iFixit] gives this generation of AirPods a generous 2\/10. Although a step in the right direction, it seems clear that if repairability or even simply being able to replace the batteries is a concern, the AirPod\u2019s probably aren\u2019t for you.<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s third generation AirPods made [iFixit] really angry<\/a>, so this is borderline glowing praise. Of course, the issue with non-removable batteries<\/a> remains a problem, especially when new EU regulations that should have fixed this get watered down<\/a>.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been true for a while now that Apple\u2019s AirPods have been effectively disposable, with [iFixit] slapping each…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":788237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[59,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-788236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-gb","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}