Friday 25 September 2020

Apple AirPods Suck ... no, read on, it's not what you think....

 For the record, I totally love my Apple AirPods, and am on my second pair since they were first released ....

I haven't (yet) got the AirPods Pro, but that's next year's purchase ....

Meantime, I was a little worried that (a) I was going deaf in my left ear and/or (b) my left AirPod wasn't working properly ...

Now I listen to a lot of audio through my AirPods, mostly spoken-word podcasts, but occasionally Apple Music ....

The symptom ... I'd noticed that the sound from the left-hand AirPod was way lower than that from the right-hand AirPod ...

I'd tried my normal tried-and-tested approach of: -

  • Gently cleaning them with a screen wipe, getting rid of dirt and ( alas ) earwax from the outside of both AirPods
  • Using a plastic toothpick to gently prise out the ( alas ) earwax from the speaker grills ( 3x ) of each AirPod
  • Using a plastic toothpick / spiked stick to ensure that the little "breathing hole" was clear on each AirPod
  • Using a cotton bud to clean out each "channel" of the AirPod's charging case
but .... NO DICE

I did double-check that the audio balance on my iPhone was correctly set, with a 50:50 balance between left and right ...

I also tried playing audio with only the left AirPod inserted, but it was oh-so-quiet ( sorry, Bjork )

The solution ?

Suck the AirPods ....

Yeah, I know, right ! That's just GROSS !

But it worked ...

I found the tip here 

I assume that the small amount of suction pulled any ( alas ) earwax out of the interior of the speaker grills, the bits that I couldn't ever possibly clean from the outside ...

Anyway, it worked ...

And, hey, it's my earwax !

Gross but true

1 comment:

Musaffir said...

Impressed with the uncanny resemblance of the Apple AirPods Pro Copy. The sleek design and seamless connectivity rival the original. Looking forward to the Apple AirPods Pro 2 Copy for even more advanced features.

Visual Studio Code - Wow 🙀

Why did I not know that I can merely hit [cmd] [p]  to bring up a search box allowing me to search my project e.g. a repo cloned from GitHub...