How To Fix AirPods Max Condensation Issue (Water In Ear Cups)
AirPods Max condensation. Source: Twitter
Are your AirPods Max condensing? Did you find water inside your ear cups and even on the drivers? You’re not the only one experiencing this! We’ve just been mailed about the problem! Apparently, the over-ear headphones condense during longer listening sessions!
AirPods Max condensation issue might go that far and affect the sound quality when the Bluetooth headphones are used in Active Noise Cancelation or Transparency mode. It’s also worrying that the AirPods Max aren’t water resistant and repeated condensation could cause additional hardware problems.
What Is AirPods Max Condensation?
During condensation water droplets form on the surface of a cold object when it comes in contact with warm and humid air. So, if you found water in your ear cups and even on the drivers it’s most likely caused by condensation. That’s unless you used your AirPods Max during strenuous exercise sessions that caused you to sweet abundantly.
Fact: One factor that could encourage the AirPods Max condensation issue is the main manufacturing material, which is metal. Metals are good thermal conductors and thus more prone to get cold or warm than other materials at the same room temperature!
How To Check AirPods Max Condensation?
To see if your premium over-ear headphones are collecting water you have to remove the ear cushions. They’re magnetic so you just have to pull them and they will pop off. This way you can get a glimpse of the drivers. If you find water droplets, your AirPods Max are condensing too!
Fact: It seems that the right-hand ear cup tends to condensate more. That’s because it host more internals like the Digital Crown and the Noise control button, which might cause this ear cup to reach higher temperatures during usage!
How To Fix AirPods Max Condensation Issue
Fixing should be easy because you can use a soft wipe to collect the water. Leave the drivers exposed in a ventilated room for a couple of more minutes and they should dry out!
However, more important is how to prevent the AirPods Max from condensing again! To be able to achieve this you first have to pinpoint the cause. Physics is clear. Condensation is affected by temperature, humidity and exposure time. So, here is what you can do:
1. Avoid Sudden Temperature Changes
The AirPods Max could be prone to condensing if you use them right after they’ve been exposed to a cold environment. For example if they’ve been temporary stored in a car in cold temperatures and you start using them as soon as you arrive home, water droplets could start forming inside of the ear cups.
Fact: This isn’t new. Any electronic device that has been exposed to a cold environment has to be allowed to accommodate to the warmer environment before turning it on!
2. Avoid Humidity
Wearing the AirPods Max in a humid environment can also cause them to condensate. Avoid wearing them in a bathroom or while jogging during a foggy day!
3. Avoid Long Listening Sessions
A tip that will surly reduce the AirPods Mac condensing risk is to give the ear cushions time to breathe. Remove the headphones from your ears periodically if you’re planning to wear them for the entire workday.
4. Know When To Wear The Case
The AirPods Max case has been a hot subject for Apple mockers, considering it’s braw-like design. However, it’s an important accessory. Placing your headphones in a case, could protect them from extreme cold and thus discourage condensing when you start to wear them.
On the other side, at home, or in a warm environment you might want to keep them out of the case for a while, after you stop using them, to allow the ear cushions to ‘breathe’!
AirPods Max Wind Noise?
In some cases, extreme condensation effect can cause the AirPods Max audio performance to drop. A strange wind-like noise is played when Active Noise Cancelation or Transparency mode is enabled. It appears that the driver might attempt to cancel out the ‘noise’ caused by the condensing water!
How To Remove Water From AirPods Max Drivers
As mentioned above, Apple’s over-ear headphones aren’t water resistant and liquid shouldn’t be present in the drivers. However, if the AirPods Max condense to such an extreme you can apply a method used by the Apple Watch to eject water.
Trick: Just play the YouTube video available below and route the audio through the AirPods Max. Don’t wear the headphones while performing this water eject procedure!
At the time of writing we couldn’t replicate this issue, but we’ve found several other AirPods Max condensation reports on Reddit and similar websites. Are you also plagued by this problem? Use the comments’s section and share your own experience!
Related: How to fix the AirPods Max Noise Cancelation bug!
P.S.: Do you know that you can connect the AirPods Max to Android devices?
I have only had my AirPods Max for less than 2 hours and have already seen the condensation begin. However, I was looking for it to see if it would actually happen, because I was skeptical of the reports. However, they’re true, and for exactly the reasons you state in your article. In my case they were very cold when they arrived (there’s ice and snow outside my house and no doubt the UPS truck was like a freezer) and they were cold when I put them on. I only made it 1/3 the way through Dark Side of the Moon when I took them off to see if there was, in fact, moisture, and sure enough there was. Not to the extent that there were droplets, like in the pictures you show, but had I left them on for the duration of the whole album I am sure there would have been. I expect that once they’re at room temperature this will be far less of a problem.
Jerry, thanks for your feedback. Keep us updated about how this plays out. Let us know if you also experience droplets.
But how did they sound and feel?
Great choice of initial album!! :-)
One problem…. Mine have are ear detection so I’m unable to play video. Now what???
Can you please be more specific?
You have to go into the settings/options of your airpods max and untick “automatic head detection” !
Hope that works out for you.
Thanks for helping out Hugo.
Same exact issue hear. I started to notice it after googling the “wind noise” issue. Then sure enough found droplets all over the drivers and in the cups. I also think there is a reddish ring forming at the center of driver? Rust? Very concerned and getting upset that apple doesn’t yet seem to be owning the clear design flaw. I’m very deeply invested in the apple ecosystem and I’d expect much support for from a company that I’ve been very loyal to for 2 decades. I do hope they choose to do the right thing.
i experience the same problem, but when i took off the ear-cups there was no water droplets. And when playning the video how high should the volume be?