#AirPods 3 Have Better Battery Life, but It’s Not Clear Why

The AirPods 3 have made their way into the world, and with that comes the teardowns. We know the earbuds have battery life, but it’s not immediately clear what’s causing the bump even after the teardown has revealed all.

You can see the full teardown video from 52audio below, which shows all of the internals of the AirPods 3. Everything looks like you’d expect, but there’s a surprise in the battery. The AirPods 3 have a 133Mwh battery, while the AirPods Pro have a 160Mwh battery inside. However, the AirPods 3 are rated for six hours of listening time, while the AirPods Pro are expected to get 4.5 hours.

The logical conclusion is that the AirPods Pro have active noise cancelation, which uses more battery. However, turning this feature off bumps the battery life to five hours, which is still a full hour less than the new AirPods 3.

So what’s giving the AirPods 3 a full hour of additional battery life over the more expensive AirPods Pro? The main conclusion we can draw is that Apple has made some tweaks to power efficiency. It could also be that AirPods Pro push more powerful audio even with the ANC turned off, so they’re draining a little more battery while in use. Of course, those are both just speculation.

When compared to the AirPods 2, everything is going as expected. They have a 93Mwh battery, which is substantially smaller than the 133Mwh in the new AirPods 3. That’s all normal, but the battery life difference between the AirPods 3 and AirPods Pro is undoubtedly a little confusing and interesting.