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If you’re in the Apple ecosystem, there are few earbuds out there better suited for your devices than AirPods. AirPods sync between all your Apple devices, sound great, and ship with features like Live Translate and even a heart rate monitor. The problem comes, however, if something happens to your buds—especially when your battery starts to lose its capacity to hold a charge. Unlike your iPhone, whose battery is easily replaceable, AirPods aren’t simple to repair. As it happens, they might not be repairable at all.
It seems that hasn’t changed with Apple’s latest earbuds, the AirPods Pro 3. iFixit put the newest AirPods Pro through a teardown test to see how repairable they might be. The result? A whopping zero out of 10: totally unrepairable.
AirPods Pro 3 can’t be fixed
There are a number of issues in the AirPods Pro 3’s design that lead to iFixit’s declaration here. Chief among them is that Apple chooses to seal the entire casing with strong glue. In order to open up the buds, you need to heat them to loosen that glue, then pry the buds open with sharp tools. You need to both avoid melting the plastic of the earbuds themselves, while also trying hard not to disfigure the case while slicing it open. It’s a tough balancing act.
Once inside, however, the trouble only continues. The battery is also held down with strong glue, so, once again, you need to apply heat without melting the earbud itself. Even if you successfully remove the battery, it’s extremely difficult to reassemble all of the elements here—or to, god forbid, attempt to replace one of those elements should they break. Apple has designed these earbuds to pack a ton of tech into a tiny package, with both glue and soldering, which means you run the risk of destroying crucial components when moving them around. It’s all too easy to accidentally ruin the microphones or noise cancelling tech here.
The same goes for the stem of the buds, and even the AirPods Pro 3 case: Both are all glued up, and are too easy to destroy while attempting to open or fix a component. In fact, iFixit says these “repairs” are so difficult, many repair shops don’t even bother. Between the need for special tools and the risk for failure, they simply forgo AirPods repair attempts.
This nothing new for AirPods. According to iFixit, all of Apple’s previous Bluetooth earbuds have the same problem. As it happens, all AirPods models—save for the AirPods Max—have achieved a zero out of 10 on iFixit’s scale.
What do you think so far?
Are there repairable earbuds?
While many other earbud brands score better on the repairability scale, many also don’t fare much better than AirPods. Scroll through iFixit’s list, and you’ll find other scores ranging from zero to three out of 10. It seems a lot of companies follow Apple’s lead here and solder their batteries and components together with glue.
Still, there are some winners here, according to iFixit. The undeniable champ comes are the Fairphone Fairbuds, which scored a perfect 10 out of 10. The batteries in the earbuds are easy to replace, the case is modular and easy to disassemble, and Fairphone offers replacement parts and instructions. Samsung’s Galaxy Buds Live are the runner-up with an eight out of 10: They’re similarly repairable to the Fairbuds, but they don’t have official repair instructions or parts, other than the batteries for the earbuds. Sony’s WF-1000XM4 scored a respectable seven out of 10, as they also have easy to replace batteries with a modular case—though they don’t include official parts or instructions.
If your primary goal when buying earbuds is repairability, you do have options out there. If you want the best possible experience when using your Apple devices, AirPods are still where it’s at. Just know that when something fails, such as the battery or another component, your Apple earbuds are kind of toast.
