Why do my AirPods Max always die in winter?

[Wingnuts]

Hi all,
I have had AirPods Max for the last 5 years now. I wear them all of the time and have had them replaced every year in winter.
I reside in New Zealand and we have high humidity levels all-year round. We have fairly good consumer law so units are replaced/repaired without warranty. I often opt for complete replacement as I find the "repair" only lasts a few days.

Apple Support is very fragmented here so everything tends to take a few weeks. I now find myself just buying a retail pair from apple.com and returning it when my "replacement" arrives.

My latest set has just died and I was wondering what could be causing them to fail? It must be something to do with the cold/humidity - but I'm not sure what... I'd like to fix whatever I can as I am wasting an enormous amount of resources (Apple's money/time/fuel) shipping these units around the world (replacements come from overseas as we do not have local web-store stock).

Replacement/Repair Cases:
July 2022 (winter - terrible noise from this one)
August 2022 (winter)
October 2022 (spring)
June 2024 (winter)
May 2025 (winter)
April 2026 (autumn, but it's been very cold)

 

[Conutz]

I seem to remember something about condensation…

 

[Wingnuts]

I seem to remember something about condensation…

Yes I believe it's the condensation issue. I haven't found anybody else who has narrowed down their replacement timeframe to seasons/temperature differences. I assume North American customers are limited to the 1yr warranty/AppleCare plans (if any) for repair options...

New Zealand has high humidity and mild winters. We don't heat our homes as much compared to the Northern Hemisphere either. I can only think that a product redesign would cost more than the number of repair/replacement cases that Apple have to deal with. I guess a product redesign would require removal of the aluminium housing?

I wonder if people from similar climates has experienced the same issues?

 

[DBR2025]

Plenty of info being left out here. Do you wear them in the gym? When running? Wearing them for hours on end?

If this was due to being in New Zealand then every Airpod Pro Max would be failing.

 

[Wingnuts]

Plenty of info being left out here. Do you wear them in the gym? When running? Wearing them for hours on end?

If this was due to being in New Zealand then every Airpod Pro Max would be failing.

Not used in the gym, nor do I sweat an awful lot. But I do wear them for long periods in a cold house.
The AirPods Max aren't an ultra-common product here due to the price, but you periodically see NZ people on forums complain about the same issue: E.g.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceNZ/comments/1ku18t8/cga_replacement

and

https://www.reddit.com/r/Airpodsmax/comments/140lmbe/a_loophole_if_your_airpods_max_are_starting_to

(in comments)

I think the New Zealand market is too small to the proportion of broken product complaints - so could still be weather/climate accelerating the issue. I also believe they have a region specific "exemption" for this specific product to replace/repair immediately without much internal escalation (when out of the 1-year warranty period). It's too easy to replace compared to other high value goods like iPhone/iPad/Mac.