Why True Wireless Earbuds Have Terrible Battery Life (and How to Extend It)

Don't be surprised if your TWS earbuds don't last as long as your smartphone.

True wireless earbuds are all the rage in the audio industry right now, as is evident by their massive market growth. Although convenient, most wireless earbuds have terrible battery life and become unusable quickly. This forces you to buy a new pair sooner rather than later and further harms our already jeopardized environment.

This begs the question: why do TWS earbuds degrade so quickly? Especially since wireless over-ear headphones and neckbands last noticeably longer. In this guide, we'll explain all of that, plus give tips on extending your wireless earbuds' battery life.

When it comes to battery life, your true wireless earbuds are fighting against physics—and losing. For starters, an earbud is already too small to be able to contain a big enough battery.

Manufacturers can't make the case bigger because then it won't fit in your pocket easily, and they can't make the earbuds themselves bigger either because then they won't fit comfortably in all ears. In other words, convenience and comfort require sacrificing battery life.

Furthermore, most of the best high-end wireless earbuds, including AirPods, Galaxy Buds, Pixel Buds, and more, have Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) and Transparency Mode. These features are useful, but they put an extra workload on your earbuds and drain their battery faster.

Yet another problem with TWS earbuds is charging. Since fast charging can produce heat, it's harder to implement on earbuds than on smartphones. After all, nobody wants their earbuds to be warm when they take them out from the case. That's an immediate red flag for any user.

Although irritating, this is not as big a problem on phones because they rest on your hand, not inside your ears which are more sensitive. Wearing warm earbuds inside your ears can cause skin irritation and pose health risks.

We saw why wireless earbuds have bad battery life; now, let's see why they degrade so quickly and are a bad purchase altogether. You might know that all modern gadgets use lithium-ion batteries, which naturally degrade over time. But this degradation happens faster for earbuds than for your smartphone. Let us explain why.

These batteries are best preserved when sitting idle (not being charged and not being used) at 50% charge. If you're curious why, we explained how lithium-ion batteries work in depth. Basically, the longer your battery remains at full charge (or completely empty) and the more charge cycles it goes through, the faster it degrades.

And if you've noticed, wireless earbuds do exactly this. Given their design, they are always either in use, charging, or sitting idle at 100% charge inside the case. All of these conditions are bad for battery health and will result in quick degradation.

Granted, this is convenient since you want your earbuds to last for several hours at a time, and people buy earbuds for convenience anyway. But the side effects are too real to ignore. Over time, the cost of buying a new pair of buds every year or so will add up to a significant sum.

Smartphone batteries are big enough to still be reliable at 50–80% charge, but earbuds require being at full charge at all times to be not a bother. And if you use a wireless charger for your earbuds, you maximize their degradation since wireless charging is super inefficient and produces unnecessary heat, so try to avoid it.

This is why wireless earbuds are not worth it and why wired headphones are better than wireless alternatives by most standards. But of course, given the rising sales numbers, we're not expecting a shift in the trends anytime soon.

People will continue to buy wireless earbuds regardless of how unsustainable they are. Why? Because aside from being convenient—let's face it—earbuds are also fashionable. Having AirPods sticking out your ears instantly earns you some serious street cred. It's similar to what used to be the case with Beats headphones.

If you own a pair of wireless earbuds, there are still ways you can extend its battery life and slow down its degradation. Here are four simple tips to help do so:

We've covered how Active Noise Cancellation works in detail if you want to know why it uses more power. Turning it off will instantly extend battery life by an hour or two. As an alternative to ANC, you can switch from silicon to foam ear tips that provide better passive noise isolation.

Great job avoiding wireless charging, but you need to avoid another massive source of heat: the sun. Using your wireless earbuds in bright sunny weather can sometimes warm them up, contributing to faster battery degradation and reducing the maximum charge capacity.

If you're okay with losing a bit of convenience (and sound), a great make-shift solution to extending your battery life is to use just one earbud at a time. This can be helpful in situations where you don't have access to a power source but still want to use your earbuds for hours.

High-bitrate Bluetooth codecs such as LDAC, LHDC, and aptX Lossless sound better, but they drain a bit more battery since more data is being encoded and decoded at a time. If saving battery life is a priority, you should change the Bluetooth codec on your phone to a low-bitrate one such as SBC.

For more tips, check out our guide on preventing AirPods batteries from draining quickly.

We love new technologies as much as anyone else, but even though wireless earbuds are improving every year, their terrible battery life and poor battery health remain one key reason to avoid them. If you don't want to deal with cables, wireless neckbands or on-ear headphones might work better for you.

But if you can tolerable cables, you can find some great in-ear monitors (IEMs) that offer much better sound quality for the same price and never need to be charged.

Ayush is a senior writer at MUO and holds a bachelor's degree in business administration. He has been writing professionally since 2018 and his work at MUO has been viewed over 4 million times. He specializes in Android and has been an active user and enthusiast of the platform since the early 2010s. He's also keen on artificial intelligence, audio, productivity, and the iPhone.Ayush also leads the accountability program at MUO wherein he manages and helps team members increase their performance by setting goals, tracking output, offering guidance and motivation, answering queries, and sharing productivity tips.