Engineer creates first USB-C AirPods charging case
William GallagherEngineer Ken Pillonel with his USB-C-charged AirPods
The same engineer who put a USB-C port onto an iPhone, has now done the same thing with an AirPods case — specifically so all his Apple devices charge the same way.
YouTuber and engineer Ken Pillonel replaced his iPhone's Lightning port with a fully-functional USB-C connector in October 2021, then sold it for $86,000. Now he's repeated the feat with an AirPods charging case.
"Don't you find it annoying that you have to carry multiple chargers with you every day?" he asks in his new, brief YouTube video. "Let's do something about it."
The video is a short teaser for a fuller one which promises to go into more detail about the specific steps Pillonel took. But it shows him removing the Lightning connector, using an engineering drawing app to model what he wanted, then turning that into a component.
"And now I finally have all my Apple products charging with USB-C," he concludes. "It took a lot of effort but it was worth it."
It's previously, and widely, been reported that the European Union is pressing for all smartphone manufacturers to adopt USB-C as a charging standard. However, those same proposals are expected to cover other devices too, potentially including AirPods.
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