AirPods 5 batteries come out. Apple still will not sell replacements
iFixit raised AirPods from a decade of zeros to 2/10 after opening the buds with a hair dryer. Apple still offers no parts, no manuals and a case that has to be destroyed.
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A buyer of AirPods 5 gets Active Noise Cancellation on the $129 pair and IP57 dust and water resistance. Pay $149 and the same earbuds arrive in a wireless charging case, with Apple's five-hour ANC rating and a volume swipe on the stem. What that buyer does not get is a battery Apple will sell, a repair manual, or a case that opens without being destroyed.
iFixit's September 29 teardown is the first time the repair shop has moved AirPods off a ten-year streak of zeros. The new score is 2 out of 10. Elizabeth Chamberlain, writing with Shahram Mokhtari, put the catch in the same breath as the praise: "They're the most repairable AirPods earbuds ever. Which isn't saying much: they still earn just a 2 out of 10, and the charging case is as difficult to open as ever."
The buds open. The store still will not help
Inside each earbud, iFixit found pronged batteries of the sort Apple used in AirPods 3 and dropped in AirPods 4. Unplugging them is ordinary once the housing is open. Getting there used to mean a rework station and a specialty jig. This time the team got into a pair and lifted the cell, and a second opening used a hair dryer on its lower heat setting and a clamp. That is the actual user gain: a skilled technician, or a determined owner with kitchen tools, can reach the battery without slicing the plastic to scrap.
iFixit wrote that "for the first time, we think skilled technicians and even intrepid DIYers will probably be able to replace AirPod batteries with a decent success rate." The shop also said the first stem attempt melted plastic, and that the successful route still needed careful heat and patient prying. This is a possible home repair, not an easy one.
Apple's own store still treats the buds as disposable. "Apple's Self Service Repair program still doesn't provide a repair path for these buds," the teardown notes. No official cells, no official instructions. The design change only matters if a third-party battery appears, and if the owner picks the correct one.
Left and right are not interchangeable
A swap test looked like software pairing at first. The left cell in the right bud showed charging in the app and delivered no charge. The batteries are physically different: reversed polarity, prongs welded slightly off-center. A spare for one ear will not revive the other. MacRumors' Juli Clover reported the same finding: the left and right earbuds use different batteries with reversed polarity.
TechRadar, covering the same work, placed AirPods 5 against products that already treat battery access as a feature. Fairphone's Fairbuds make accessing the case battery far simpler. Sennheiser's Momentum True Wireless 5, the site noted, "are built with replaceable batteries and even come with a compatible screwdriver." Apple's 2/10 sits on that comparison, not on a curve of its own past zeros.
Four hours, five hours, and a case you throw away
The support window the user actually receives is the life of two batteries. Apple rates the $149 wireless-charging version at up to five hours of playback with ANC on, one hour more than AirPods 4, and up to 22 hours with the case. Dave Pakula, Apple's vice president of Hardware Engineering, said at launch: "We're thrilled that with AirPods 5, we're able to bring Active Noise Cancellation — one of our most beloved features — to our most affordable AirPods." ANC on the cheap pair is real. A path to keep that pair alive after the cells fade is not.
The charging case is the other half of the runtime, and iFixit called it a disaster. Seams stayed tight on a rework station. Plastic welds stood where screws could have gone. Reaching the case battery left the housing destroyed. When that larger cell dies, the owner buys a new case or a new set.
iFixit's closing ask is the policy, not the score: "We'll take the progress. Now give us the parts, the manuals, and a case we can open without bleeding on it." Until those exist, the user gets noise cancellation at $129, a slightly longer-rated $149 variant, and a battery the teardown can remove. Longevity still depends on a spare that Apple does not sell.
Image: iFixit's source-video thumbnail, used to identify the teardown discussed above. Video narration is paraphrased from the retrieved transcript; quoted lines are from iFixit's published article. MobileTech has not independently opened AirPods 5.