Airpod battery life thoughts

[Gregintosh]

For listening they seem like they get close to the 5 hour amount, but for calls I'd say an hour and a half or so before they're at 10%. That's a bit less than I'd like but it's fine.

However the case seems to lose a lot of charge. I charged to 100% along with Airdpods then unplugged. By the next day the case was at 80%. Used the Airpods for a day, put them back into the case, and by they were charged again the case was down to 50%.

Seems like you have to charge the case daily or every other day to maintain a charge, and it doesn't feel like it comes close to charging the Airpods 4 or 5 times as advertised.

That loss of such significant charge so fast even when idle makes me worry the batteries won't make it very far, probably right after warranty expires, lol.

Overall, I think they'll serve me okay for the year, but I'm VERY open to searching for alternatives. Hopefully by next year there will be some. Apple tends not to update accessories often but I hope they do give this one an upgrade in a year or two.

Anyone else have a similar experience or do I have a bad set?

 

[The Game 161]

Granted I haven't used the air pods loads over Christmas but I haven't had to charge the case for a good 3-4 days now. And as I checked now the case is still on 27%

 

[miamialley]

Seems like they should have given the case an on/off switch to control charging. They'll add it to gen 2 and say it's an amazing breakthrough.

 

[FunkyTang]

There is a button on the case. Not sure what it does, probably reset.

 

[teidon]

I had somewhat bad battery drain when not using the Pods on both the Case and the Pods. But I calibrated the batteries and charged them full yesterday before going to sleep. This morning after about 10hours of no usage the Pods have 100% battery and the Case had 99%, which dropped couple % as I opened the lid a few times to see if the numbers would change.

So if anyone is having battery drain issues, try to calibrate the batteries by completely discharging them (so that the device turns off) and then charge them to 100%. There might be software issues on the AirPods causing the battery drain and a restart "fixes" it temporarily or the batteries report completely wrong charge levels until they are calibrated. Or something else caused the Pods to maintain their charge last night.

There is a button on the case. Not sure what it does, probably reset.

It is used to put the AirPods in pairing mode and also to reset them. Shorter press puts them in pairing mode and 15s or so press resets them.

 

[Sean006]

yeah im having strange battery readings also.
case was on a charger all night....
case 96%
left 100%
right 95%
wtf ?

if the case is always charging both should be at 100...i just took the right one out to use and noticed this.

 

[Diiiiips]

Yeah I had that yesterday evening. Took it off charger and left it overnight. Both earbuds got to 100 and the case was 95

 

[tomaustin44]

Seems like some very mixed experiences with battery life. Like most, my Airpods get the advertised 5 hours but the case discharge is very up and down.... some days it seems to be constantly trying to charge the Airpods, even when they're on 100%.... others I'll charge them all to 100% before bed, unplug and find that in the morning the case is still on 100%.

Definitely going to try and calibrate the battery as others have suggested but hoping the problem isn't a defect as I don't want to return them and have to wait 6 weeks for a replacement.

 

[powerocool]

yeah im having strange battery readings also.
case was on a charger all night....
case 96%
left 100%
right 95%
wtf ?

if the case is always charging both should be at 100...i just took the right one out to use and noticed this.

Same happened to mine... I guess that's the "smart magic"

 

[4389842]

I posted some observations on battery life in another thread.

It is bad form to cross post I guess so the short story:

1. I typically get 10 hrs of play time before the case hits 30%
2. Depending on how I would extrapolate my usage figures, I can expect 14 to 18 hrs of play time
3. The case typically only yields capacity to re-charge the AirPods 3.3 times

I'd love to hear what others are getting!

 

[TrueBlou]

I'm just in the process of writing my initial impressions of the AirPods, but here's what my first 24 hours yielded.

    Date          Time              AirPods             Case                        Message

06/01/2017        15:25              100%              100%            (Start music playback. First full charge of AirPods and case)
06/01/2017        19:00              40%                98%            (Stop music playback, AirPods back in case)
06/01/2017        20:02              100%               89%
07/01/2017        01:00              100%               88%
07/01/2017        06:03              100%               80%
07/01/2017        08:51              100%               72%             (Start music playback, AirPods removed from case)
07/01/2017        11:28              58%            (Not Checked)       (Stop music playback, keep AirPods out of case)     
07/01/2017        13:56              50%            (Not Checked)       (Start music playback)
07/01/2017        15:36          13% L / 23% R          68%             (Stop music playback, AirPods back in case) 
07/01/2017        16:26              100%               45%             (AirPods still in case)

 

[edlex]

There is a button on the case. Not sure what it does, probably reset.

The button is for pairing to non Apple devices.

ETA: Sorry, I see that your question was already answered.

 

[4389842]

I'm just in the process of writing my initial impressions of the AirPods, but here's what my first 24 hours yielded.

    Date          Time              AirPods             Case                        Message


06/01/2017        19:00              40%                98%            (Stop music playback, AirPods back in case)
06/01/2017        20:02              100%               89%

...

07/01/2017        15:36          13% L / 23% R          68%             (Stop music playback, AirPods back in case)
07/01/2017        16:26              100%               45%             (AirPods still in case)

That seems to line up with my earlier report in the sense that the ratio of % of case charge drained to refill a % of the AirPods is similar: A value of roughly 0.3 % of case to recharge the pods by 1%... Although yours seem to do slightly better.

Yours drain more when the pods are recharged and just sitting in the case though.

I think what we are seeing is probably normal although the way Apple presents battery life might be misleading:

They claim up to 24 hours of listening time. Seeing that the AirPods themselves definitely yield 5 hours play time, I'd expect the case to hold enough charge to recharge the pods from 0 to 100 at least 4 to 5 times. I am only seeing 3.5 times and a play time that, at best, will reach 18 hours...

 

[TrueBlou]

That seems to line up with my earlier report in the sense that the ratio of % of case charge drained to refill a % of the AirPods is similar: A value of roughly 0.3 % of case to recharge the pods by 1%... Although yours seem to do slightly better.

Yours drain more when the pods are recharged and just sitting in the case though.

I think what we are seeing is probably normal although the way Apple presents battery life might be misleading:

They claim up to 24 hours of listening time. Seeing that the AirPods themselves definitely yield 5 hours play time, I'd expect the case to hold enough charge to recharge the pods from 0 to 100 at least 4 to 5 times. I am only seeing 3.5 times and a play time that, at best, will reach 18 hours...

Yeah, I'm reserving judgement until I've had them a week or two to see how it goes. I've a feeling the 24 hours of playback time might be a bit on the optimistic side, or at least unachievable in anything but optimal conditions. Still if things go as good as they have so far, I won't be complaining much, compared to some of the other wireless sets I've tried the AirPods are doing well.

Yeah there's quite a drop when idle. That was 17% in just under 13 hours. It's not a huge amount but slightly more than I'd have expected for what should be no more than trickle charging to keep the AirPods topped up.

 

[Diiiiips]

Has anyone seen how long it takes the case to charge the Airpods from 0-100?

 

[Lennyvalentin]

Yeah there's quite a drop when idle. That was 17% in just under 13 hours. It's not a huge amount but slightly more than I'd have expected for what should be no more than trickle charging to keep the AirPods topped up.

Had my pods sitting in the case for at least 14h after charging it fully, and checking battery capacity just now says 100% on the pods and 99% on the case.

Not sure if the case battery level would drop faster if I removed the pods and laid them on my desk, but I don't see why it would; when the pods are resting, they are supposed to live in the case. Thus I'm not sure why some people see so hugely worse battery performance of their cases. *shrug*

Maybe some airpod units have been mistakenly loaded with pre-production firmware, and this is causing the difference. It's not as if there are a lot of user-accessible settings to tweak that could explain this behavior...

Using the mic has a rather large battery life impact I've noticed. My pods went from 100% to 50 in about 1 hour of skyping. My mate reported there was a lot of pops in the audio too, which is a bit worrisome. I would have hoped the mic would be as rock-solid as music playback is.

 

[TrueBlou]

Had my pods sitting in the case for at least 14h after charging it fully, and checking battery capacity just now says 100% on the pods and 99% on the case.

Not sure if the case battery level would drop faster if I removed the pods and laid them on my desk, but I don't see why it would; when the pods are resting, they are supposed to live in the case. Thus I'm not sure why some people see so hugely worse battery performance of their cases. *shrug*

Maybe some airpod units have been mistakenly loaded with pre-production firmware, and this is causing the difference. It's not as if there are a lot of user-accessible settings to tweak that could explain this behavior...

Using the mic has a rather large battery life impact I've noticed. My pods went from 100% to 50 in about 1 hour of skyping. My mate reported there was a lot of pops in the audio too, which is a bit worrisome. I would have hoped the mic would be as rock-solid as music playback is.

It's a bit random, though I'm reserving final judgment until I've had them longer.

That said I'm on day 3 now and since initially charging both the case and AirPods to 100%, the case hasn't been charged at all.

I've been using the AirPods a lot, basically as close to constantly as their battery will allow, since I got them.

I've put my EarPods back in this afternoon and based on the previous charges the 17% in the case should be enough to get the AirPods close to fully charged again by the time I've finished using them.

So extrapolating previous performance, I'm on track to get pretty dang close to the claimed 24 hours of playback from a single charge.

It's also worth noting that while they were sitting this morning they dropped 1% in 3 hours 43 minutes. Which if sustained would be vastly different from the previous 17% in 13 hours. So there's no rhyme or reason to it at the moment.

Definitely not complaining then, odd charge levels aside the AirPods seem to be capable of achieving Apples claimed figures and I'm very happy with that.


Here's the updated table to show how it's been going for the past three days and like I say, this is with the case and AirPods initially charged to 100% and then using only the battery in the case for recharging the AirPods. (Yes, I probably am slightly obsessively over curious, which is why I'm keeping track )

    Date          Time              AirPods             Case                        Message

06/01/2017        15:25              100%              100%            (Start music playback. First full charge of AirPods and case)

06/01/2017        19:00              40%                98%            (Stop music playback, AirPods back in case)

06/01/2017        20:02              100%               89%

07/01/2017        01:00              100%               88%

07/01/2017        06:03              100%               80%

07/01/2017        08:51              100%               72%             (Start music playback, AirPods removed from case)

07/01/2017        11:28              58%            (Not Checked)       (Stop music playback, keep AirPods out of case)  

07/01/2017        13:56              50%            (Not Checked)       (Start music playback)

07/01/2017        15:36          13% L / 23% R          68%             (Stop music playback, AirPods back in case)

07/01/2017        16:26              100%               45%             (AirPods still in case)
07/01/2017        17:37              100%               45%             (Start music playback, AirPods removed from case)
07/01/2017        22:03              18%               38%             (Stop music playback, AirPods back in case)
08/01/2017        09:03             100%               18%          
08/01/2017        12:46              100%               17%             (Start music playback, AirPods removed from case)
08/01/2017        15:20              56%               (Not checked)

 

[Goreli4]

I posted some observations on battery life in another thread.

It is bad form to cross post I guess so the short story:

1. I typically get 10 hrs of play time before the case hits 30%
2. Depending on how I would extrapolate my usage figures, I can expect 14 to 18 hrs of play time
3. The case typically only yields capacity to re-charge the AirPods 3.3 times

I'd love to hear what others are getting!

Hello! Tell me please, how much did your headphones work from one charge immediately after purchase? I took my 2 days ago and more than 3-3.5 hours they do not work. Very upset!