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While third-party AirPod battery cases might save you a few bucks, it’s arguably not the best investment for the long-term health of your AirPods or AirPods Pro.
Here's a quick guide to cheap AirPods chargers and whether thirty-party alternatives are worth the risk.
While Apple has switched over to USB-C charging for most of its products, if you want to charge up your AirPods or AirPods Pro, you’re going to need the charging case. Depending on the generation it might either be Lightning-connected or USB-C connected for its own charging, but that doesn’t do you a whole lot of good if you’ve lost the actual case.
At which point you might be wondering if it’s possible to charge AirPods in some way without the case. It’s not as though the AirPods have a plugged connection within the case, so it must be feasible, right?
Well… no.
While technically AirPods do use induction-based charging – there’s no pins or sockets in an AirPods charging case – where charge passes from the battery in the case to each AirPod individually, this is carefully regulated by the case to ensure optimal and safe charging. You may find some guides online that suggest it’s possible to do so with the careful placement of USB chargers and pins, but these are rather dangerous hoaxes.
Under no circumstances should you try to charge AirPods (or basically anything else) with any kind of live electrical wire.
What all of that boils down to is the fact that if your AirPods case has been mislaid, stolen or destroyed, in order to get more life out of your AirPods, you’re going to need a new charging case.
Indeed it does – for a price.
Lose an AirPods case, and Apple will ask you for $139 for a replacement case. If you’re unlucky enough to lose an AirPods Pro Case, that’ll set you back $159 instead.
That’s not an inexpensive price to pay, especially for AirPods where the entire replacement cost of a 2nd Generation set brand new is only $219.
Not surprisingly, there are third party alternatives you can buy… but should you?
AirPods individually past the 2nd generation support Apple’s “Find My” technology, but that’s also true for the case of the AirPods Pro, so it’s well worth at least checking Find My before shelling out for a replacement case. All it will cost you is a few seconds of your day, but it could save you $159. If you’ve still got an AirPod within a case, that too can be located using Find My.
It doesn’t take much online delving to find cheaper alternatives, with some online stores selling “Replacement Wireless Charging Box For AirPods” for as little as $15 outright.
Sounds like a bargain, right?
Probably not. Actually, in the case of that $15 set – the cheapest I could find at the time of writing – I’d go further and say definitely not, but even the sets selling for between $50-$100 are unlikely to be a great investment over the longer period too.
The first detail to recognise is that unlike, say, iPhone accessories where Apple has a whole “Made For iPhone” (MFi) third party accessories licensing program, there’s no equivalent for AirPods at all. The only official charging cases you can buy for any model of AirPods or AirPods Pro are those manufactured by Apple itself.
Then there’s the question of charging quality, with a number of online reports and reviews noting cheaper cases that either only work for a limited time before conking out themselves – almost certainly due to poor quality or limited batteries – or in some cases, actively killing the AirPods placed into them. That’s likely if their voltage regulation isn’t carefully managed – and doing so involves more expensive electronics that you’re not entirely likely to find in a $15 AirPods charging case!
The other issue with third party AirPods charging cases is that they’re not going to be compatible with the way that Apple manages firmware updates to AirPods and AirPods Pro. Firmware probably isn’t something that you think about with AirPods, because most of them are more in the bugfix/compatibility space rather than introducing new features – but that’s another feature you’ll only see with an official AirPods charging case.
Be careful when shopping for “cases” for AirPods too, because there is a robust market for enclosure cases – like the protective cases you use for your smartphone – out there, some at prices that might suggest that they’re also charging cases, or with images of them installed on an AirPods or AirPods Pro case.
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