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Comment by judge2020 | Hacker News Reader

judge2020

I don't think they're made to be replaced, it's more a side-effect of the battery being smaller and more susceptible to wear. The original airpods I got 2 years ago still work for about an hour and do fine.

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> The original airpods I got 2 years ago still work for about an hour and do fine.

In 2 years the battery life fall to 1 hour? This is just crazy unsustainable!

As a counter-point, I'm running on 3 years and still get a few hours out of mine. The gamechanger for AirPods was the convenience of the charging case.

I'm just surprised I've never run them through the wash.

Same here, 2+ year old AirPods that still hold charge for about an hour. I’ve used them heavily in the first year and still average about 3-4 hours a week for conference calls and a couple more hours of music. In the first year I was using them 3-4 hours per day, sometimes even more.

If that's the case why isn't the battery replaceable. I spent less money on way better audio quality headphones (Sennheiser HD25) over 20 years ago and they are still going strong. So far I replaced the cable once and the ear pads every few years. Though I would like to buy airpod pros for traveling I cannot bring myself to buy something that will last only 2 years. That is a disgusting example of inbuilt obsolescence and should actually be illegal to sell.

While in general I am for replaceable part I really fail to see how this desire can be put into really. AirPods are really really small in terms of how much tech they include.

Please take into consideration that making something replaceable means (in general) adding more stuff to the product. I doubt at this scale that is it possible to maintain the small size and to also have replaceable battery with the current hardware capabilities.

Apple could do it in store with specialized tools if necessary. This way they could at least capture some revenue and keep the design miniaturized. How are we to fight climate change on one hand and accept this on the other hand?

> How are we to fight climate change on one hand and accept this on the other hand?

Is "this" referring to "Apple Airpods" or "free market capitalism"?

Yes.

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