Consumer electronics are usually a letdown. The solution should be to buy fewer of them.
Many of these consumer electronics don't actually save you time, but instead save you impulse control. There's nothing wrong with traditional headphones, except you have to think about putting them on, and wrapping up their cord when you take them off. This doesn't actually take time to do, mind you, but instead requires the consumer to exercise some impulse control, or to ignore some inconvenience.
We're a long way away from something like the invention of the washing machine, which saved countless women hundreds of hours a year. Prior to a washing machine, you'd be stuck next to the laundry for the duration of the laundry. Laboring the entire time. The washing machine automated a monotonous task, and allowed women to do nearly anything else while the laundry was going. It was an enormous game changer.
Compare that to something like Google Home. What does it do? It prevents you from having to type in your phone? It's not as if the voice prompt takes a meaningfully different time than typing a query into a phone. And for that matter, it's not as if walking over to a traditional computer and typing in your query takes a significantly greater time than either alternative. No, what the Google Home does is prevent you from having to think about switching your task, and that's about it.
Are AirPods any different? Corded headphones don't prevent you from doing anything, they just require a small amount more impulse control: to wrap them carefully every time. And in exchange, you get a product that is: expensive, has a short shelf live (due to using a battery), and apparently sometimes has reliability issues.
