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The saddest voice comes from your Wireless earbuds Not a Billie Eilish song, what was it made for? It’s the low battery warning tone, especially when you’ve just sat down on your way home. After a day of music, calls, and the occasional TikTok video (on your break, ahem), can you reasonably expect to have some juice left over for the ride home? The answer must be yes. Or it could be, depending on some things.
Most manufacturers of active noise canceling, or ANC, wireless earbuds publish battery life specs with varying degrees of specificity, ranging from basic playback time with and without ANC to a hypothetical treatise on battery life with different codecs and features. Some also provide talk time specifications, but none provide guidance on what to expect from mixed usage scenarios or using the latest advanced features. So which of these features drain your battery the most?
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Real-world battery life
Most common battery drains:
- ANC and transparency modes
- Listening volume
- High-resolution audio streaming
Less common but potentially draining battery:
- The distance between the phone and the earphones
- Spatial audio processing/head tracking
Average mid-range to high-end earbuds, e.g apple air buds pro, It’s rated for 8 hours of ANC-powered audio streaming, with some models from Samsung and Bose claiming much less (4 to 5 hours). Talk time with ANC for the AirPods is also less, around 5 to 6 hours. This means that if you’re doing a mix of media streaming and phone calls, with many models, you’re looking at 5-7 hours of battery life at best per charge with ANC on.
Many features can drain your battery.
The most common battery-draining features are ANC and Transparency mode, as well as listening volume and Hi-Res audio streaming. These are the places where you can start to squeeze some extra life out of your batteries.
Turn off ANC or Transparency, and you’ll notice a noticeable increase in listening/talk time. For example, if the specs say 8 hours with ANC on, it usually takes 10-12 hours with it off. Other strategies include keeping the volume below 40% (for both battery life and your hearing), and if you have sound The earbuds support multiple codecsChoosing a lower quality can help. This may not be possible with iPhones, which have more limited encoding options compared to Android devices.
There’s also an ever-expanding world of other power-hungry features, including pulse monitoring, fitness tracking, spatial audio, live translation, Audio Equalization (EQ) and find (or equivalent). This can lead to death due to thousands of reductions in the battery life of your earbuds. You’ll need to take a little tour through the different settings to manage all of these, but if you’re running low on power, you can turn some of them off to avoid being banished to the land of silence.
TL;DR: Turn down the volume, turn off any features you absolutely don’t need, and keep your phone close by.
Fast charging to the rescue
Do not let the earbuds reach 0% before recharging.
If conserving power by compromising on features isn’t your style, your other option is to take advantage of fast charging via your earbuds’ charging case. Most earbuds provide an additional hour or two from just 3 to 15 minutes of charging time. We hope this helps you finish your long trip or trip.
Earbud cases generally give you two to four full charges, but what if the case battery is also low? If this happens to you regularly, and assuming wall charging or connecting to your laptop isn’t possible, consider this Small portable power bank. We have recommendations for Android and Apple products. For your next pair of earbuds, some models have cases with enough capacity to charge your phone as well. We love Anker Soundcore P41iwhich has a 3000 mAh battery in its box.
Final note: To maintain your earbuds’ battery health over the long term, avoid letting them reach 0% before recharging. Maintaining the charge level between 20% and 80% is a best practice to extend long-term battery life.