A 3D-Printed AirPods Pro Case That Enables Easier Battery Replacements ⇥ theverge.com

Jon Porter, the Verge:

“I am taking on a significant project to demonstrate how one of the most popular gadgets today — Apple’s AirPods Pro — could have been easily made repairable with minimal effort,” [Ken] Pillonel says in a press release. “My primary objective is to encourage consumers to be more mindful of their choices and to motivate manufacturers to prioritize sustainability.”

With his project, Pillonel attempted to recreate each component of the AirPods Pro charging case before modifying them to be held together with nuts and screws rather than glue. The modifications make it easier to get inside the charging case without breaking it in order to swap out the battery — no soldering required.

Pillonel’s making-of video is extraordinary. It is still hard for me to believe that there exists a range of headphones priced from $130 up to $549 that need to be thrown away after just a few years, even if all the components are still good, because the battery can no longer hold a charge. Pillonel has not yet demonstrated a way to replace the batteries in the headphones themselves, but this is an impressive DIY effort that solves half the problem.