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Comment by jonawesomegreen | Hacker News Reader

I own a pair and as well as everything you mentioned, the killer feature for me is not dropping out. Every other pair of bluetooth earbuds I've had were constantly dropping out on me when running through an airport or if I decided to pace around a room on a conference call unless I held my phone just so. I've found the range on AirPods to be fantastic. I work from home and if I want to pace around the house while I'm on a conference call, no problem. I couldn't even walk around in the same room before.

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The range is surprising. I've walked to another part of the house and then wondered, where did I leave my phone? Because the airpods just didn't quit.

Tangential but your comment reminded me: years ago (I hope this is no longer true) the iPhone would, when pinged via "Find my iPhone", play the alert sound to the current output.

So if my iPhone was playing music via AirPlay, the alert sound would go to, you guessed it, the AirPlay speakers. Completely pointless.

Still true.

They fixed it in recent years, this used to bother me as well.

In a casino cardroom I once forgot to pick up my phone while I walked to a self-serve coffee station at least 30 yards away (with no walls in-between).

There was no disruption in the audio. In fact it didn't occur to me until I got back and saw my phone on the table that anything had even happened.

I've definitely had great connectivity and range with my AirPods too (although I admittedly haven't tried many other Bluetooth headphones in several years, during which time I suspect they've all improved somewhat). The only time mine cut out is very briefly but consistently when I'm on pedestrian crossings. My theory is that it's induction loop vehicle detectors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induction_loop

This may have to do with the signal power put out by each AirPod. One site in particular has noted that AirPods transmit at power levels equivalent to an Apple Airport base station. I wish there were more data out there corroborating these claims, though.

https://macintoshhowto.com/hardware/extreme-emf-exposure-fro...

Note: I own AirPods and use them regularly at the gym. That is to say, I'm not afraid of my own AirPods, but acknowledge that they broadcast pretty loudly.

The "field strength meter" results quoted in that article are nonsense. No units, no frequency, no notes on usage...

I find it very hard to credit that the AirPods, which transmit a few metres powered by a really tiny battery, would put out so much more power than a phone, which may transmit hundreds of metres powered by a very much bigger battery.

That said, I own AirPods, I am surprised by how great they are, but I rarely wear them because the radiation worries me.

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