Hey Jonathan, do you think you can help me out with these?
Sarah? These are fully- earwax.
I've noticed this myself when using my old ear pods over the years.
They clog up in the mesh of these headphones, and at points it got so bad that I couldn't
even hear out of them. In fact, these are Sarah's second pair after clogging up her last set.
So I think this is probably a pretty common problem.
Being a bit of an earwax producer myself, I've often wondered if seeing a bunch of earwax
on my ear pods meant that I'm ruining my ears.
But after reaching out to a local hearing specialist, he told me in an email that,
Everyone has different earwax, some softer, some harder.
Having no earwax is a genetic anomaly. 2.
I always worry that I'm pushing earwax further in my ear, but he said that oftentimes you're
actually helping remove earwax from your ears, hence this mess.
3. Also, if you are someone who cleans their ears frequently, that could be causing your earwax
to become softer, making it all the more easy to clog your ear buds.
4. If you're seeing lots of earwax, you don't need to worry about your health, just the
health of your ear pods. Obviously, the easiest and most wasteful solution to the problem is to just buy a new set of
ear pods, which is what Sarah did the first time hers got clogged, but that's untenable.
Apple does service ear pods, but it's $70 each for a repair or replacement.
Or it's $50 just to get a battery service.
From what I can tell, it's the same service, just one's cheaper.
So make sure to say battery service to save $20.
So between $100 and $140 to deal with a naturally occurring body excretion, it all seems steep.
There have got to be better ways.
In doing this research, I came across a little startup called PodSwap.
Founded by Florida entrepreneurs Emily Alpert and Emma Stritsinger, the company swaps your
old AirPods with refurbished ones, and then they refurbish yours.
Remarkably, they've worked out how to replace the battery and clean ear pods.
At $50 to swap a pair of first gen AirPods and 60 for a second gen set, they're certainly
a compelling option.
So I got this pair of AirPods from a colleague, I can just show you what they look like.
How often do you deal with ear pods like this?
It's nothing we haven't seen before. Yeah, I mean, it's no secret that AirPods are pretty gross, so this is something we
deal with every day at PodSwap.
Like it's no surprise that people have sound issues when they send their AirPods to us
because they're so filled with earwax, so this actually is one of the reasons why you
made experience issues with sound on your AirPods. Does the earwax get really smushed through the mesh?
Yeah. We've seen ear pods that were shocked people can even hear out of because they're so
caught up. Like from the back through the front, it's just unbelievable, but they've been out since
2016, so it makes sense that someone's using them for the past four years and it just builds
up. We have to open them up and really get in there. Let's just say that.
So then, what does it mean for me as I embark and try and clean these ear pods?
Oftentimes when you attempt to clean them yourself, like we have a lot of people who
damage them ultimately, so careful out there.
Yeah. Well, thanks for all the help.
Okay, so let's see what these PodSwap ear pods look like and how clean they are.
Oh yeah, okay, let's see this other one.
Okay, these are pretty clean, so I wonder what's going on behind the mesh.
Let's find out.
So one of the concerns I have with cleaning AirPods is that the earwax has been pushed
through the mesh and so all I'm going to be doing is cleaning the surface and not actually
addressing the problem. So I want to know how bad it can get behind the mesh.
So I'm going to sacrifice these old ear pods that I've had since my iPhone 5 and see what's
what. Cue the music. I have no idea what I'm doing.
So there's a seam here and I want to get into it.
Looking at, I fix it, they use a knife.
I believe that these are glued together and with a bit of heat and a bit of pressure,
maybe I can pry these apart. Let's just see.
It's warm. Oh yeah, it's warm.
Oh yes, yes, it worked.
Hey, oh, okay, but I do need to get the speaker off now.
Yes. Oh, I got it. Okay.
Here we go. Interesting. It's not full of earwax, but it has gone through ever so lightly.
When the light goes through it, it's orange.
So that's delicious.
All right, so I think this is a design issue.
With the release of the AirPods in 2012, Apple made a big deal about how these headphones
could fit comfortably in more people's ears.
They use this funnel shape to help, but what doesn't help is where the mesh is placed right
near the tip. So if you're a waxy individual, you can probably see the problem.
So what about cleaning them? Well, I discovered this cute little thing recently.
It's an earbuds washing machine from a company called CardLax, who also make a portable
muscle stimulator, no matter. Now, this is a Kickstarter, and they kindly sent over a prototype to try cleaning one
of these AirPods. So let's see what it can do.
And if you want to pre-order one, they're currently going for about $50 on Kickstarter.
All right, gloves.
Not bad.
Still some residue here and there. It looks like it was used.
It's probably good for maintenance. But what if you want to try it the manual way?
Looking at some videos on YouTube, I also learned of a Irish phone repair shop called
Phone FixCraft that's been posting very gross microscopic videos of AirPods being cleaned.
It looks like he has a thin pick he uses to clear the wax and then scrubs it with some
sort of liquid and brush and sucks it out with a vacuum if it's really bad.
Oh God, I can't watch this anymore.
So when in my interaction with the ear specialists he mentioned, hearing aid cleaning tools,
which is interesting, so we ordered a set off Amazon for about $12.
Look at these fine picks and brushes. It might be a big help.
Oh my gosh, it's really coming out.
All right, let's go up to Sarah and get her to see how well I've done.
Sarah, I think I've cleaned them.
Oh my gosh.
Let's see if you can guess which one I cleaned manually and which one I cleaned with the
earbuds washing machine. All right. What do you think of how they look?
This one looks way cleaner than this one for sure.
I guess the real test is by trying them out.
Yeah, let's see if you can actually hear music.
Okay, let's try this side first.
Okay, so I still have to like turn it up a fair bit to see what it sounds like.
It does sound better. Okay, let me try the other side.
I don't know if they sound better. Okay, here's the thing is I have to still turn my audio up to like more than halfway
to hear something. Right, now put them both in. Okay.
This one sounds better than the other. This one does sound a little better.
Okay. But they're still not like they were when they were brand new.
So I hope these are charged up enough. These are from PodSwap.
Let's see if we can... Oh wow, it's way louder already.
Oh really? Yeah, insane difference.
Oh, this one's way better.
Like I can turn it down to here and it sounds loud enough.
Clearly I've failed, haven't I? Yeah, I'd say so.
Okay. Well, we have a conclusion.
Very sad one.
So I wasn't able to do it myself. I'm quite surprised and disappointed.
Emma and Emily at PodSwap certainly know what they're doing.
Me on the other hand, don't. God, this makes me want to keep on trying until I get it.
The disposability of AirPods has been an issue since they came out almost five years ago.
So it's no surprise that we'd want to keep them running as long as possible.
And as annoying as it may seem, I think maintenance is an important way to reduce the likelihood
of your AirPods getting filled with earwax. So if things do get bad and your batteries thin, PodSwap offers what seems to be the
most cost-effective and environmentally friendly way of breathing new life into older AirPods.
Which is remarkable considering how tightly these things are glued together.
Thank you for listening into this Mac Address. If you too are a producer of earwax, give us a like.
And if you've clogged up a set of earbuds before, might as well subscribe.
I'm also curious if any of you have found a really great working solution to this problem.
Let me know in the comments below because I'm desperate to figure this thing out.