Losing one side of your AirPods, don’t rush to buy a new one: Here’s how to get a replacement headset without losing money

Great way to get replacement AirPods

Losing one side of an AirPod has almost become the norm. But finding a replacement headset is harder than finding a needle in a haystack.

Apple headphones are easy to lose. Their batteries also degrade quickly. Sometimes one ear is damaged before the other. However, buying a replacement pair of AirPods is almost as expensive as buying a whole new set of headphones. Instead of handing money over to Apple, many people are looking for more economical ways.

In March, Elana Taubman, a 34-year-old sixth-grade math teacher, went for a jog and went to the grocery store. She put her AirPods in her pocket instead of in the charging case. When she got home, she only had one earphone left.

Taubman returned but could not find the dropped AirPod. She’s on the “Buy Nothing” group on Facebook, where people don’t sell but give away everything from kitchenware, used furniture and even half-eaten pizzas.

She posted a message about a lost AirPod ear, offering to get it back if someone accidentally picked it up.

However, a neighbor said that there is another AirPod that is not in use. Taubman came to pick up the aforementioned headphones, and within a few hours, she had a complete set of AirPods again.

Apple’s white Bluetooth headphones have been a hit since going on sale in 2016. The company’s wearables, home appliances, and accessories business — which includes AirPods, Apple Watch and HomePods — is the piece of cake. technology giant in its own right, with sales totaling over $40 billion by 2022.

In the same year, Apple accounted for about 24% of the global wireless headset market, according to technology market research firm Counterpoint Research.

Replacing one side of the old AirPods is a cost-effective way to save money, as well as contribute to environmental protection. But not every ending is as happy as Taubman’s.

Nelson Rodriguez lost his right ear at the gym in June 2021 and posted a request to find a replacement in the “Buy Nothing” group. One person gave her headphones to pair with the old one.

The problem was that the AirPod that was returned was newer than the old one. “When I put them on, I had the problem that the old one ran out of battery faster than the new one,” says Rodriguez, 38.

Rodriguez used the odd couple for a few months, then gave the set to his younger brother.

It’s hard to save

Pairing two random AirPods isn’t always seamless, as was the case with Shahla Jabeen.

The 37-year-old housewife lost her right AirPod Pro and searched for three weeks to no avail. She turned to the “Buy Nothing” group and asked if anyone had something suitable.

The next afternoon, a woman brought out an AirPod she had picked up nearby. Jabeen paired it with an existing headset following Apple’s instructions.

That’s when the AirPods kept screaming into Jabeen’s ear.

“This headset was reported as lost,” Jabeen recalled Siri’s steely voice speaking into his ear. It also says the original owner can track her location.

“The warning pops up every time I open my headphones. It makes me nervous.”

After a few days, Jabeen gave up. She went to the Apple Store, handed over her used AirPod, and bought a replacement at the list price.

Joan Chew ran into another problem in late 2020. Chew, a 63-year-old retiree, was looking for a suitable AirPod to give to her son, who lost his headphones while running. She also joined the group “Do not buy anything” to search.

Orin Herskowitz, a 51-year-old administrator at Columbia University, found an AirPod in the park in December of that year. After cleaning, he posted to find the owner within a few hours, Chew became the lucky winner.

However, after her son put it in the charging case, a message appeared stating that these two AirPods are of different generations and cannot be used together. Chew passed it on to someone more suitable.

Apple’s AirPods are famous for their strict technological constraints and rules, and their expensive prices, making it difficult for many people who want to save money on buying new headphones to escape the company’s “profitable claws”. .