2019 is officially the year of the wireless earbuds!
From Apple and Beats to Sony, samsung, and even amazon it seems like every company is
waking up to the fact the people want tiny wireless headphones.
We weren’t able to get to them all, but we did 4 teardowns on these notoriously un-repairable
products and here’s what we found:
Ironically, our first teardown—the Samsung Galaxy Buds—turned out to be the best one!
To our surprise, with a little pressure and a bit of careful prying the little buds popped
right open.
Inside, we found that the button-cell batteries were surprisingly easy to access, and not
soldered in place.
These Varta batteries aren’t super easy to find (even we have a hard time keeping
them in stock in our store) but they can be found elsewhere online should you need a replacement.
The galaxy buds’ simple construction warmed our hearts—and spoiler alert—they were
the best we would see all year.
They scored a very respectable 6 out of 10 on our repairability scale.
Later in March, Apple released the second iteration of their airpods—the Airpods 2.
We first tackled the case to see if it would be any easier to get into than the previous
model, but boy we were wrong.
We had to use a vice and a razor blade to get the case open thanks to the incredibly
strong glue holding it together.
Unfortunately after that mess, the case won’t go back together very well at all.
The buds themselves weren’t any easier than the first-gen buds as we again had to use
our exacto knife to cut them open to get a look inside.
The buds were home to drivers, delicate flex cables, and some precious silicon.
Worst of all, you still have to cut along the stem to get the battery out, which despite
our years of experience is terrifying every time.
The second-gen airpods were a disappointing follow-up to the Galaxy Buds, scoring of a
0 out of ten.
Power beats pro came around in June and boy we were hoping for anything better than the
AirPods.
Right away we had to use heat and a razor to get inside, so we weren’t feeling too
hopeful.
Luckily the cover of the buds came off non-destructively but the brains were glued in pretty tight.
After cutting through some adhesive we were able to pry up the little board and battery
out of the case, but as we were about to remove it we realized that the small board was connected
to another smaller board lodged in the driver cavity.
So we were caught with our hand in the cookie jar: we had to either cut the cable or slice
a bunch of plastic to finish the disassembly.
Things went sour realllll fast after that with the case putting up one of the biggest
fights in recent teardown history.
Despite the negative points, we couldn’t help but acknowledge that you could replace
the batteries in these if you were very determined and have a steady hand, so we awarded them
a 1 out of 10.
The new AirPods pro debuted at the end of October with a brand new design, noise canceling
tech, and even a force sensitive squeeze button.
They sure looked and sounded better but we were skeptical about whether or not they would
be easier to disassemble.
The case was our first victim and since the vice seems to be the key to get into these
things, we thought we would give it another try.
Annnnnnnd it worked!
After a considerable amount of prying, the case came apart and just a few glued-down
cables stood between us and the batteries on the small logic board.
With the case in pieces, we return to the vice with an unlucky pod.
Pressure and some persuasion with opening picks help separate the two halves of the
pod a little.
Right away we notice the battery—no longer hidden in the stem of the buds, but available
right away!
Unfortunately soldered in place, though.
The two halves of the Pro pod are connected by a friendly cable with a ZIF connector which
means you can separate them non-destructively, but they won’t snap back together nicely
like the Galaxy Buds.
The airpods pro might look and sound better than previous airpods—they even have some
slight repairability improvements!
But at the end of the day it was still impossible to reassemble them, which means their score
remained a 0 out of 10.
Honorable mentions: though we haven’t had time for a full teardown of Sony’s noise-cancelling
wireless buds, they can allegedly be disassembled non-destructively and use the same easily-swappable
VARTA button-cell batteries as the Galaxy Buds.
Amazon’s new Echo buds on the other hand, are constructed similarly to the Galaxy Buds
but are significantly more difficult to work with, despite their larger footprint.
All in all, we’re excited to see this new technology develops, but we hope that more
of these companies can follow in Samsung’s footsteps in 2020 and think about the repairability
of their next-gen wireless buds.