Roger Fingas
A U.S. judge has given the greenlight to a lawsuit against Apple over its Powerbeats2 and 3 headphones, but only if some amendments to the complaint are made.
While the seven customers in the lawsuit do have a case that battery life wasn't as good as promised, lawyers will have to fix allegations that the headphones failed in contact with sweat despite being marketed as sweatproof, the BBC quoted District Judge Richard Seeborg as ruling. The customers hadn't explicitly said whether they had sweated while wearing the products.
The plaintiffs did say they had owned multiple sets of Powerbeats headphones, but that none of them had lived up to Apple battery estimates of 6 hours for the Powerbeats2 and 12 hours for the Powerbeats3.
Apple has explicitly marketed the Powerbeats line as sweatproof, even using athletes like LeBron James to sell them. One of the affected plaintiffs, Christopher Bizzelle, said that he went through over five replacement sets of the Powerbeats2, but that each broke within a matter of months or weeks, at some point failing to charge or turn on. An Apple representative allegedly told him that sweat was the problem, but he nevertheless bought the Powerbeats3, going through multiple replacements of that as well.
Other customers have "similar stories," including failed replacements, the ruling reads.
The Powerbeats line is Apple's only set of headphones with any level of waterproofing. AirPods, EarPods, and other Beats headphones are a common sight at gyms, but not actually meant for intense workouts.
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16 Comments
"The customers hadn't explicitly said whether they had sweated while wearing the products."
I thought "sweat" was both singular and plural? As in "The customers hadn't explicitly said whether they had sweat while wearing the products."Never mind, I looked it up. Sweated is a word, you just don't hear it used too often.Power Beats 3 are terrible, a really bad product. I had a pair of those wich only lasted for 3 months, I had to replace them 4 times while the headphones were under warranty. I am happy that I sold then and now a I have a pair of Bose Sounsport wireless and belive me, this headphones are by far a better choice.
Well, this is one of the first class-action lawsuits I've seen against Apple lately that I feel like addresses a real complaint (I don't like the butterfly keyboard but ours hasn't failed). I didn't own these headphones specifically but if they are anything like the other sweat proof products we've had they weren't durable enough or waterproof enough to survive an intense workout in a gym or a hotter outdoor workout or run for more than a couple workouts.
[insert Beats was a terrible buy comment here]
You'll love butterfly keys when it's dead silent.
I've been using my Powerbeats3 for 18 months with no issues.
Hundreds of hours of aerobic workouts, with quite a lot of sweat.