Apple's AirPods are notorious for being unserviceable, and a new teardown video shows the AirPods Pro 3 do nothing to address that.
The popular tiny earbuds are also some of the most environmentally unfriendly products Apple makes. Each update, iFixit emphasizes this with their brutal teardowns of the AirPods.
The AirPods Pro 3 got a score of 0 out of 10, which is the norm for all AirPods. They're completely unrepairable in any regard, and battery replacements are still impossible.
Even the AirPods Charging Case is unrepairable, even though it's a reasonable size. The case isn't made to be disassembled, and the battery is glued in a way that makes replacement unapproachable.
Check out the full video to see how iFixit attempts a reasonable dismantling at first, but quickly shifts to total destruction of the earbuds. Portions of the battery and other components are attached through the plastic in a way that leaves them non-removable without damage.
The video notes that each earbud has a 0.221Wh cell, and the charging case has a 1.334Wh battery. The single battery unit, down from a twin-cell unit in the AirPods Pro 2, explains the reduction in total listening time, dropping from 30 hours to 24 hours.
The zero score shows that Apple hasn't budged on repairability across generations of AirPods. Though, competitors that have adopted similar wireless bud designs have included replaceable batteries.
