They're kind of a Ship of Theseus, insofar as I have replaced every element but the drivers multiple times. I'm fairly handy with a soldering iron, and have been repairing them myself with parts for the manufacturer.
I think that this about the best case for repairs.
One replacement of the cord generates more plastic waste than the entirety of the airpods I use.
I've also been going through wired headphones at a rate of about 1 per year, as they are mechanically fragile. However, I don't think that this year I will be replacing the airpods I have been using for the last year... granted the battery will eventually fail. But to me, the lifetime on the airpods is so-far exceeding that of the wired earphones.
So am I wrong in thinking that between having replaceable components that are wasteful in themselves and the increased lifespan of the device, I'm just paying a rather large premium to -reduce- e-waste?
The battery is a much bigger issue than the cord. If it get recycled correctly sure, but most people won't recycle it...
You are a pretty tiny exception.
So it goes hand in hand with removing the headphone jack. Remove the ability to not require a battery, and then don't allow people to replace the battery.
My wired headphones all broke after about ~2 years (100-150€ models from Sennheiser and Teufel, plus the ones shipped with phones). In my Beats Studio 3, the hinges broke before the battery even degraded. As an extreme example, my 1st-gen iPad still lasts hours, but hasn't seen a software update in many years.
Planned obsolescence ticks me off, but I don't feel it has gotten any worse with non-replaceable batteries. Everything you buy breaks after 2 years, that's just how the incentives work for companies.
I find Sennheiser and Audiotechnica build quality products that last if you buy their higher end stuff. In the case of AT, the M50x's aren't even that expensive and they are as good as the day I bought them.
I think that was also what happened to the Sennheiser ones, but it's too long ago to say for sure. Makes me happy to see that so many of you are luckier than me :) - Sennheiser is just around the corner from where I live so I want them to be the good guys.
With quality over-ear headphones with easy to replace parts ? Sure.
With in-ear earphones? Depends on the user. Many people I know tend to break/fray the cable or lose them atleast once a year. Most in-ear earphones were used as a semi-disposable item.
If you buy some top end headphones with replaceable cables and replaceable ear covers you can get 10+ years out of them. The majority of pairs I've owned haven't lasted near that long. About 2 years is pretty typical before I fatally snag a cable, drop them in water, run them over, or lose them. Even barring some kind of life ending issue, cables and ear covers don't usually last much more than 2-3 years for me, even on pricier headphones. I do have a pair of AKG headphones which have lasted me about 5 years now after replacing the ear covers (which is itself a form of e-waste), but since they are so bulky I wear them a small fraction of the time I wear my AirPods so it's difficult to compare.
Pleather and foam earpads (which I'm assuming is what you mean by ear covers) aren't really e-waste in the same way that batteries and circuit boards are, the pleather can be recycled as well as the foam, and higher end pads are animal skin anyway.
Even IF such a magical product exists, I would still buy the AirPods because not having cables is exactly the reason I wanted them.
Why would I lie about a product I own on some internet forum? Furthermore why do feel so attacked by the fact you can find good cheap tech if you do any amount of research? I'm glad you're happy with your AirPods, but $250 is a lot of money for a lot of people who would rather just take better care of their headphones.
The big reason people like the AirPods is because they don't have cables which is a huge convenience. They also let you make phone calls, dictate text messages, and control your phone (and anything controllable by your phone via voice interaction) by voice. If none of this appeals to you and you don't mind the cables, fabulous, but don't pretend the two products are comparable.
Also the base AirPods are $139, not $250.
you mean ship it off to live in a landfill in africa/india. even their much vaunted green initiatives keep handing off trash til they reach a company that does this
Source?
The only exceptions to this I know of is the Pixel lineup (Pixel 1 got Android 10) and "Android One" phones https://www.android.com/one/, although this only guarantees 2 years of OS upgrades and 3 years of security updates.
> Monthly security updates to be supported for at least 3 years after initial phone release
In Norway these devices are covered for up to 5 years after date of purchase. This follows the product, so unlike some warranties it also covers second hand purchases as well.
In most cases, whether intentional or not, only the battery needs to be changed, but because of the way products are designed now, you have to throw the other 80% of the product in the trash.
When world's governments become a little more environmentally-conscious, they'll see this solution as a no-brainer, just like the EU saw a single charging standard necessary to combat electronics waste.
It's a shame to see "green Apple" spearhead the exact opposite of this movement with products that become environmental waste once their battery drops below 50% or so their original capacity.
For example, why is it one of my most cherished possessions, a single pair of bluetooth headphones, paying a penalty while my roommate gets 3-5 Amazon shipments a day to our house for free and eats cheap meat with every meal if we actually care about the environmental impact of things? We need to be more creative than crafting legislation for individual scapegoat products and consumer-blaming.
And from my experience, wired headphones tend to break after a couple of years as well, for different reasons.