It's AirPods Teardown Day! This time, we've got the brand new AirPods Pro, which have noise canceling and even a force-sensitive squeeze button. We've done teardowns of AirPods before, and they are a nightmare to disassemble.
Are these new AirPods Pro gonna be any different? Probably not. So let's get destructive. First things first, we'll start with the charging case.
Using a vise, we warp the case, which cracks the adhesive and gives us a slight gap to get some opening picks in place. This thing is really stuck together. So we move on to prying with our metal spudger, which eventually pops the clips and the contents mostly slide out.
We've got a couple of glued down connectors to disconnect before we can fully remove it. Some serious prying eventually separates the inner black case, and then that allows us to pry up on the two batteries and the small board. Unlike the AirPods 2 we tore down in May of this year, this case uses a two-cell battery that has a capacity of 1.98 watt-hours, up from 1.52 watt-hours in the AirPods 2 case.
Finishing up with the case, we removed the technically modular lightning connector, which is screwed in place. Now let's turn our attention to the pods themselves. Since we had success with our vice earlier, let's try it again.
We warp the pod just enough to break the seal holding the two halves together, and we're able to get an opening pick in place. With some more very tedious prying, we eventually get the pod apart. Our first look inside reveals that we've actually got some interesting changes here.
The battery, which is usually found in the stem of the AirPods, is now a button cell battery similar to the one we found in the Galaxy Buds. We also spot a ZIF connector, which means it's actually possible to non-destructively separate the two halves of the AirPods. But these AirPods aren't going to let us disassemble them without a fight.
Not only is this ZIF connector and cable glued down, the AirPods are screaming at us when we get near them with tweezers. Getting the battery out requires digging through tons of rubbery adhesive, but eventually we're able to pry it free only to discover that it's soldered to a cable connected to the driver. Getting to the driver requires removing a plastic brace that requires a ton of destructive force to remove, but once it's removed the driver comes right out. We've still got the stem half of the pod to investigate, and no matter how we try, we're unable to get these parts out of the housing. So, it's time for cutting.
With the contents free, we spot a couple of microphones, some golden antenna hardware, and a mysterious black rectangle flanked by metal brackets. We're assuming this is the new force sensor. With our AirPods completely destroyed, I mean disassembled, it's time to talk repairability.
It's no surprise that the AirPods Pro scored a 0 out of 10. And here's why. While theoretically semi-serviceable, the non-modular glued together design and lack of replacement parts makes repair both impractical and uneconomical. If you want to see what a more repairable set of earbuds look like, check out our Galaxy Buds teardown video. And don't forget to hit subscribe while you're there. Happy fixing!