It doesn’t matter how easy they are to pair with your phone, paying $249 for a pair of wireless earbuds whose tiny battery dies after a year and a half just doesn’t feel worth it. Redditor Sam Cashook agrees, so instead of spending a small fortune on Apple’s most losable gadgets, he hacked together his own AirPods using about four dollars worth of electronic parts.
Let’s not beat around the bush here: the results of this hack aren’t pretty, and could potentially lead to the occasional light electric shock if you’re wearing these DIY AirPods during a sweaty workout. Cashook started with a pair of wired Apple earbuds that he neutered and then upgraded with the guts from a cheap bone conducting headset he bought on eBay for cheap. He simply had to wire the two together so that the earbuds’ speakers replaced the ones the bone conducting headset relied on. It required some delicate soldering work, but the results apparently work quite well.
Cashook also added a larger rechargeable battery to his homebrew AirPods, but otherwise, they function mostly as well as Apple’s do, including buttons for controlling playback and volume while they’re worn. The copious amounts of hot glue he used to hold it all together might not be quite Jony Ive’s design aesthetic, but let’s see him come up with a cheaper way to listen to his music wirelessly.