AirPods are one of those products that embody Apple’s philosophy of “simplicity and functionality.” They have worked with amazing seamlessness since their first launch in 2016. Over the years, Apple has continued to refine the design and add smart features like Spatial Audio and Active Noise Cancellation, which is constantly improving. However, despite all this evolution, you may have noticed one day that one of the two earbuds loses its charge much faster than the other, which might worry you and make you think there is a manufacturing defect.
Why does one earbud’s battery run out faster than the other?
If you encounter this situation, it is not necessarily a technical defect; rather, the way you use the earbuds might be the primary culprit. Imagine you are at the airport, waiting for your flight, and you want to listen to music while simultaneously wanting to hear important announcements or talk to your friends. The easy solution we all resort to is putting one earbud in the ear and leaving the other in the charging case.
This specific habit is what can cause the significant disparity in battery life. In one personal experiment, it was found that using one earbud for a long time led its charge to reach 13% while the other remained at 74%. Although the “Transparency Mode” feature exists in AirPods Pro, which allows you to hear your surroundings clearly, many prefer to remove one earbud to avoid feeling disoriented or because they think that talking with two earbuds in the ear seems impolite to others.
The science behind AirPods battery degradation
The real problem lies in “charge cycles.” When you charge one earbud more than the other, that earbud goes through more charge cycles, which reduces its overall capacity to hold energy over time. This explains why we find the “Optimized Battery Charging” feature in Apple devices like the iPhone, which aims to reduce degradation by limiting the time the battery spends charged at 100%.
Scientific research indicates that fully charged lithium batteries suffer from mechanical stress at the electrodes, which can lead to deformation over time. Simply put, keeping the battery in a fully charged state for long periods adds significant pressure to it. Therefore, if you are constantly using one earbud and leaving the other to charge, you are accelerating the aging of one of the two batteries while the other remains in good condition, creating a performance gap that you will not be able to fix later.
The ideal solution to keep your AirPods battery life balanced is to always treat them as a single pair rather than two separate pieces. Try to always use them together, and if you need to hear your surroundings, rely on the Transparency mode in AirPods Pro, or remove them both when having a long conversation. Maintaining the balance of charge cycles is the secret to extending the life of your favorite earbuds for extra years.
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