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Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

thepodswap.com

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Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#31

Post by conradev »

reaperducer wrote: post #26

The web site states: "The first-ever battery replacement program." I'm not sure this is true. Apple had an AirPods battery replacement program before COVID-19. I had my wife's done. I wanted to get mine done this past January, but it didn't seem to be an option anymore. Maybe because of the pandemic and the global supply chain problems and such. "Only current" battery replacement program, maybe. But not first-ever.

My understanding is that Apple never replaced the batteries, they just swapped the AirPods with new ones

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#32

Post by mikestew »

reaperducer wrote: post #26

The web site states: "The first-ever battery replacement program." I'm not sure this is true. Apple had an AirPods battery replacement program before COVID-19. I had my wife's done. I wanted to get mine done this past January, but it didn't seem to be an option anymore. Maybe because of the pandemic and the global supply chain problems and such. "Only current" battery replacement program, maybe. But not first-ever.

They could be referring to the fact Apple did not really replace your batteries, but instead just gave you a new set of AirPods.

OTOH, I guess Apple’s program does replace the batteries, just not in the way I thought they would.

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#33

Post by reaperducer »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #28
qeternity wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t just claim that they’ve shifted responsibility without arguing your point. It’s clear you have an axe to grind, but at the same time, where do we draw the line of individual responsibility? It’s not like we haven’t known for decades we were killing the planet…and yet here we all are. Why does the average Joe get off the hook here?

Generic electronics recycling is very expensive. I had to recycle an old 55" rear projection TV and it cost $150. Good luck getting the average person to pay that instead of disposing of it (illegally). It would be more efficient and cheaper for companies to create a recycling process and include that in the purchase price.

Generic electronics recycling is very expensive. I had to recycle an old 55" rear projection TV and it cost $150. Good luck getting the average person to pay that instead of disposing of it (illegally).

Blame your municipality.

When I lived in the southwest, the city required the trash companies to pick up or recycle EVERYTHING for free. From old paint to batteries to giant tube TVs to washing machines. Everything, or they didn't get the trash hauling contract.

This was to make it as easy as possible for people to dispose of things properly, rather than dump them in the desert.

If your city doesn't make this happen, it's a failure of the city to negotiate the contract properly and allowing the trash companies to shift the expense onto the homeowners.

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#34

Post by elliekelly »

polishdude20 wrote: post #11
denimnerd42 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's frustrating is that while batteries are consumable products they could last much longer if they stay between 80 and 20% capacity without overheating. (this is similar to what tesla does) I wish there was a "battery care" settings on all electronics that would respect limits like this so that I could get thousands of cycles out of my devices instead of only Apple has added a feature which tries to do this intel…

That might be what's already happening behind the scenes though. They tell you you're at 10% but that's actually 30% for example

It does feel like the final 10% of battery lasts way longer than the drain from 20% to 10%.

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#35

Post by rhinoceraptor »

reaperducer wrote: post #29
seriousquestion wrote: post #10

I've heard, anecdotally, of people losing their airpods often. I haven't yet, but curious how common that problem is?

I've heard, anecdotally, of people losing their airpods often. I haven't yet, but curious how common that problem is? It must be a thing, since Apple lets you use your devices to find your missing AirPods, and they are even part of the FindMe network. I've sometimes wondered how many AirPods have been flushed down toilets around the world. Even if only .001% of AirPods meet their demise this way, considering the numb…

I flushed the right ear of my Airpods pro. I bought a new pair the next day because I use them all day for video calls because they're so convenient.

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#36

Post by an_opabinia »

samatman wrote: post #14
bruceb wrote: post #3

I am pro refurbishing/reusing and having less waste but its hard to care about tiny airpods being tossed. Maybe they test the message and it resonated better than "Airpods should last longer than your last relationship" or "1 trick that Apple hates" etc.

It's just the Discourse in action. For whatever reason, AirPods, of all things, have become a go-to example of environmental waste and throwaway culture. It's bizarre to me. I'm fairly confident that for minutes of pleasure / embodied energy, AirPods score higher than almost anything else I own, certainly among things with a battery and chip. They also last multiples of the time I would get out of wired earphones, wh…

> last multiples of the time I would get out of wired earphones, which always die in a few months from work-hardening the copper wires until they break

Hmm...

> It's just the Discourse in action... I'm fairly confident that for minutes of pleasure / embodied energy, AirPods score higher than almost anything else I own, certainly among things with a battery and chip

It's interesting to reduce environmentalism to "joy per unit size * time." To its credit, if you do the accounting right, a lot of environmentally really bad things, like gasoline and meat, have very poor joy per (size time), while being a tourist in a conserved rainforest has very high joy per size time.

But it's still flawed. Like Bitcoin has high joy per unit size and time, it turns cheaper electricity into more money you can spend on jetskis. No intellectually honest person claims that is environmentally friendly. You've chosen a framework that's idiosyncratically very friendly to electronics and things nerds are into, that I'm not sure would even make sense to people in almost any time prior to 1970. They by and large lived without the joys of electronics and did nothing to address the environmental disaster they're dying too soon to experience. Surely you see the same thing happening now, and right to repair is just one of many fronts of forward-thinking people trying to right those wrongs.

I'm not advocating for "end to end emissions" as the framework either, because what you're saying people hate on Apple for is almost always true about Tesla. People complaining about electric cars having higher emissions are both wrong and saying that stuff in bad faith.

But to go on social media and complain about the "Discourse" you are participating in is definitely intellectually dishonest. AirPods are shitty in their own unique way, and I'm not sure if any intellectual is seriously advocating, in their raw quoted form as opposed to a headline, that the way that they are shitty is exclusively your reductive perspective on "environmentally friendly."

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#37

Post by ddlutz »

elliekelly wrote: post #34
polishdude20 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be what's already happening behind the scenes though. They tell you you're at 10% but that's actually 30% for example

It does feel like the final 10% of battery lasts way longer than the drain from 20% to 10%.

estimating battery life is hard, it might be due to that.

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#38

Post by TaylorAlexander »

samatman wrote: post #14
bruceb wrote: post #3

I am pro refurbishing/reusing and having less waste but its hard to care about tiny airpods being tossed. Maybe they test the message and it resonated better than "Airpods should last longer than your last relationship" or "1 trick that Apple hates" etc.

It's just the Discourse in action. For whatever reason, AirPods, of all things, have become a go-to example of environmental waste and throwaway culture. It's bizarre to me. I'm fairly confident that for minutes of pleasure / embodied energy, AirPods score higher than almost anything else I own, certainly among things with a battery and chip. They also last multiples of the time I would get out of wired earphones, wh…

This seems way too conveniently dismissive of the environmental issue. Apple is the 800 lb gorilla that sets industry expectations. They have been gluing batteries and making repair difficult across their product line for a decade. This leads to higher consumer costs and manufactured goods filling landfills prematurely. As one of the most visible companies in the world making repair difficult, the criticism is well-deserved. The airpods are perhaps the height of unrepairable apple tech.

Sure any valid criticism of Apple is going to invite a pile-on from the apple haters but it does not follow that the original criticism is invalid.

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#39

Post by throwaway81523 »

specialist wrote: post #20

Just guessing: Podswap has stock of both new "blank" bud cases and batteries. Crack open buds using some kind of jig. Scoop out the electronics. Solder to new battery. Cram it all back together. That's how I'd do it. Bonus points for choice of colors. I'd love clear or forest green or deep purple. Watching a few air pod tear down videos, I find it weird the battery itself isn't part of the case. Like just use white i…

Their FAQ is pretty clear that they actually replace the batteries somehow. I'm glad someone figured out how to do that, but I agree with you that the airpod batteries (like the batteries in everything else) should have been replaceable in the first place.

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#40

Post by tedunangst »

denimnerd42 wrote: post #6
Etheryte wrote: post #2

As someone who gets a ridiculous amount of use out of their pods, I really hope this business pans out. I think the product is great, but batteries are consumable products. In fact, I would hope that one day it would be mandatory to offer battery replacements for all products you sell. (Do correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think Apple currently does this for pods?)

what's frustrating is that while batteries are consumable products they could last much longer if they stay between 80 and 20% capacity without overheating. (this is similar to what tesla does) I wish there was a "battery care" settings on all electronics that would respect limits like this so that I could get thousands of cycles out of my devices instead of only Apple has added a feature which tries to do this intel…

Alas, a product that lasts five hours for 100 cycles gets much better reviews than a product that lasts four hours for 1000 cycles.
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