Originally published at: Refresh Your Old AirPods with a Podswap - TidBITS
If the batteries in your first- or second-generation AirPods are suffering from massively reduced battery life, you don’t have to pay full price for a new set (and throw away the old ones). For half the cost, Podswap will exchange your expired ones for a set of refurbished, genuine Apple AirPods with new batteries.
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I’ve had my 1st gen AirPods since February 2017. At this point, the right AirPod only lasts 60 minutes on a good day, and the left for about 90 minutes, which leaves me alternating between listening with one AirPod while the other is charging and then switching. So this service seems like exactly what I need, unless the rumored new non-Pro AirPods are announced soon and offer some dazzling new feature. Even more than being cheaper than replacing with new, I especially like the idea of keeping them out of the landfill.
Is anyone else seeing Safari not opening the PodSwap page? Looks like an SSL certificate issue. Same in Firefox.
Thanks for this info, Jeff!!!
Apple has an announcement event next Tuesday, April 20. So, I would wait a few days and then, if there are new versions, decide which way to go. By the way, I had no problem accessing the Podswap site a few minutes before posting this message.
Yes, waiting until we see what Apple announces on the 20th is a good idea. Though Podswap is still a great option of maybe handing the AirPods down to a family member.
Yep, I’m already planning to wait until after the event on Tuesday!
I did my original AirPods a month ago with PodSwap. They were only getting about 30 minutes per use.
The first pair I got from PodSwap had a right AirPod that didn’t last very long (about an hour). But, their customer service was great - they sent out an additional refurbished pair to me at no cost before asking me to send back my original or the first received pair. That second pair worked great, so I sent in both the old ones.
So, my experience was a good one, even with an extra couple days waiting for that second pair. I’d recommend them if you’d like to spend $60 to get an old pair of AirPods working reliably as a backup/extra pair.
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Apple will recycle for free, so I’m not sure why someone would pay the 5 dollars to send them here. Similarly, I don’t think the price/benefit on a lost AirPod compares well here compared to Apple’s pricing but the battery swap is $40 dollars less for a full pair, so that’s a more significant price difference - assuming you don’t have AirPods Pro. Now to just figure out how I feel about a third party trying to do work with unofficial lithium ion batteries in a small glue-filled device that I stick in my head…
I just wanted to stop back and report that I gave up on waiting for Apple to announce new AirPods and initiated a Podswap last week. It took nearly a week to get the replacement buds, but they worked like a dream right out of the box — paired automatically with my iPhone and had apparently full battery strength right away. It feels so weird not having to juggle listening and charging one bud at a time, but I think I’ll get used to it. 
Just one data point, of course, ymmv.
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