Battery life in TWS, expectations, longevity and their fast obsolescence

youbi

Hi everyone,

Not sure how you guys feel about this, but since I’m currently experiencing the end of life of my old Airpods gen 1, I keep wondering if most companies have been taking the right approach about earphones, and if this is really the right way to do it. 🙁

Currently, most TWS are built in a way where you simply can’t replace their batteries, and that basically means that the minute you start using them, you are activating that final countdown that day by day, will take all the life those battery cells have to offer. It’s not really a matter of programmed obsolescence to the battery itself, it’s just a matter of physics, with current tech, batteries simply can’t last forever.

But if we take a look at the entire product and not just the batteries, then for the programmed obsolescence theory defenders it does ring some big red alarms. Since you are basically buying something that has an expiration date pretty well defined, and there isn’t much you can do against it. With some extra care you can indeed improve those longevity numbers a bit, but nevertheless death is always not that far away. 🙁

For my airpods that touch of death came after two and a half years, and now they’re basically just a fancy paperweight, since they can’t last for more than 10 min per use. Does that sound a fair deal to you guys? To me, definitely not, and I really think companies should make an effort to change this trend. From an environmental and economical point of view, we are really doing a terrible deal everytime we buy a new pair of TWS with this sort of preannounced obsolescence.

So what should companies do to change this? And how can we, as future clients, help change this? Would love to hear your thoughts on this, and in what ways companies could stand out and help shape a better future for the TWS tech.

Apple seems to have been focusing on some AI tricks to help increase the longevity of their airpods, by trying to guess when they need to be fully charged or not, and that way improving the battery longevity. Does this sound enough, or there are a lot more things that can be done?

Personally I think the ideal step any company wanting to stand out in this area could do, would be allowing the battery replacement without much hussle. But that does come with the necessary design equation to be solved as well, because having a bigger product just because the battery replacement will be easier can be something that not everyone will be willing to accept.

Other than that, I think there are some great opportunities to explore, like for example some sort of official replacement program when the earphones come to their end of life. Just look at what some new companies like Podswap are doing, and you can clearly see that if done directly by the OEM it could be a great way for the company to stand out.

Being Nothing a newcomer in the tech world, new ways to stand out in a sea of earphones OEM’s is always important, and what better way to do it, than to focus also on the environmental sustainability side of the product. 😉

TLDR - Wireless earphones aren’t built to last, what can Nothing do to change that trend?

Rob ⚡️

Hey, youbi - Great discussion! Thanks for sharing your experience! I have a few thoughts…

The wild success of TWS headphones has shown that consumers demand compact, lightweight, wireless in-ear headphones. Couple this with the fact that many require an IPXX rating to fight dust and sweat ingress while exercising and we can start to see how consumer demands might work against designs that would allow for easy repairs. Companies are densely cramming earbuds with delicate tech and sealing them with glue as there is no room for even a single screw or latch. This isn’t to say I don’t think repairable TWS headphones are possible, but as you mention above, I can appreciate the difficulty of balancing consumer demands with repairable design.

I think, as [deleted] mentions, this may be more about the shortcomings of current battery technology; the cells just can’t keep up with the longevity of other device components. Obviously, there are replacement batteries available for Airpods, but the issue is that they’re impossible to install without damaging the buds - so the issue comes back to design and the importance that companies place on repairability.

With that said, if sustainability and longevity are the consumer’s main priority, they do have the option to buy wired headphones, or perhaps over-ears that have the room to house a replaceable battery. However, I don’t think this is the case for most people; compromising on features, to accommodate a solution to a problem that they might have in the future, isn’t the most logical of buying behaviors.

(Do you mind paying a professional to repair your devices? Or would you prefer to be able to fix them with simple tools at home?)

Personally, I have a lot of respect for companies investing in research and software development to prolong the battery life of their devices. We all know that our charging behavior with smartphones can severely affect battery health, so any tools to help consumers mitigate bad headphone charging habits are a nice example of invisible innovation.

I am totally on board with your comment about a replacement program, I think it’s essential - companies that expect consumers to purchase a completely new set when all they need is a replacement L or R headphone should be ashamed!

Again, great discussion, I’d love to hear from someone in the industry who can shine some light on some of the points you’ve raised.

Cheers

lexlexus

youbi

Had B&O and battery lasted not that long, after that got SONY and they are now after 3 years still keeping a great more than 6 hours of music, and on the phone, I can see that after that they still have 40% battery left, the case has enough to charge twice.

Ear

[deleted]

Interesting topic of discussion, @youbi, thank you for bringing it up.

I remember when I heard about programmed obsolescence for the first time years ago, watching an enlightening documentary that showed how a company invented unbreakable women stockings, a lightbulb that has been on for 100 years (even more now) and how to trick printers when they decide it is their time to stop functioning.

Everything depends on the use you give to the products and the quality of them. When true wireless earphones entered the market, I doubt that companies were thinking about the immediate future. Why consider replacing batteries if we are barely doing it with phones?

Objects are condemned to be replaced after the span of time that companies think suits them best. It’s a business that we keep supporting and allowing as a society, forced to, most of the time. We still don’t have enough options to run away from consumerism in the overall aspects of life, especially when we talk about tech.

But, I also believe that now big companies are starting to realize the impact they have on the environment and slowly changing to turn around the footprint. We are losing the battle against our own damage to the planet.

AI sounds like a gimmick, as if we were trying to stop a dam leak with duct tape, though it is better than nothing. The option of having a replacement program sounds good, or even being able to buy just one of the earbuds if you lose one or it gets damaged. Skullcandy sells them separately, for example.

Maybe in a not so far away future we will see a better battery-type invention that does not degrade as quickly as the current ones, but I don’t think that will solve the problem; products will have to die, eventually. I feel that, at the moment, we are trapped in a never-ending circle.

BaltzarMattssonRimhagen

Solid state batteries.

Anonymous142

I mean Nothing is built to last these days. Let’s face it if companies did they go broke cause there would be no reason to sell you the next thing. With TWS the batteries are probably so small and integrated it he hard to change I’d imagine. However maybe there could be a way in a cool design to make them changeable in some way and perhaps add things like solar cells to power perhaps without draining the battery as much.

Gun_Put

Since the focus of this thread is to do things in a manner that’s good for the environment in the long run ( Mother nature is not going to hit back with an immediate cyclone everytime you toss a TWS in the garbage heap) one thing phone companies could do is to bring back the earphone jack.

Wired earphones will last more years than any TWS & hence be less of a burden on the environment.

They’ll also help stretch out the battery life of your wireless earphones.

As for replaceable batteries on TWS, it’s not impossible to design them to facilitate that but the companies will have to make up their minds on whether they’d rather sell you new earbuds after 2 years or a set of new batteries.

And we all know what they’re more likely to do.

At the end of the day, only when we ( policy makers +consumers +companies) get really, really serious about environmental degradation will it lead to pressure on the companies to do the right thing & also on consumers not to keep buying things mindlessly & to strive to add to waste as less as possible.