New battery design in AirPods Pro -- Longer service life?

[zorinlynx]

After looking at the AirPods Pro teardown I noticed they're using a vastly different battery design than the regular AirPods. They use a button cell instead of a thin Li-Po battery.

I suspect this new battery will allow for greater longevity, as it could be a classic Lithium Ion design and not Lithium Polymer which has a lower service life. To give you an example, celphones use Li-Po batteries and you only get 2-3 years of life out of them, whereas my Norelco shaver uses classic Lithium Ion and is still nixing my face hairs at almost ten years old.

This is all speculation, of course, but... it would be nice for a $250 product to last at LEAST 6-8 years!

 

[DeanL]

You can't compare a cellphone to a shaver.

 

[Toratek]

True, but the basic premise is correct- the VARTA cell in the device is exceptionally long lived compared to the tiny stick batteries in the previous models. The specific battery in the APP is rated to over 500 full cycles and still have 85% of original capacity. You can look it up here.

https://products.varta-microbattery.com//applications/mb_data/documents/sales_literature_varta/2018_05_HANDBOOK_CoinPower_en.pdf

That means that after playing music with ANC on, for 94 continuous 24 hour days, you still have 85% minimum capacity. That of course doesn’t count recharging time. As a practical matter that would be about two years of use for five hours five days a week. So, three to four years of usable lifespan, by which time you’ll probably have moved on to the next cool device...

it also means the odds of using Apple care for “battery replacement” after two years are not in your favor- odds are you will be 5% above the 80% replacement threshold under their terms.

(of course, leaving the things in a hot car changes that dynamic markedly. These cells don’t like temps over 45c while charging or 60c while discharging. )

 

[doboy]

I really wonder if this is the case since my first gen disappointed me.

 

[Toratek]

I really wonder if this is the case since my first gen disappointed me.

Completely different battery.

 

[iAmFille]

Let’s hope your theory is right. The biggest reason why I upgraded from my 1st gen was the terrible battery life I was getting with those lately. They whould never charge over 95% and lasted about 2.5 hours max after being fully charged the last 3 months which was really annoying at work sometimes when we work about 3 hours between breaks some days and they would just die out on me while playing music.

I did get those right when they released though but barely 2 years and that big downgrade in battery has been very dissappointing.