AirPods Pro is already an excellent pair of wireless headphones. But when I found a problem, it seemed incapable of solving it, it was a $ 25 ear tip that kept it from becoming useless.
I was late for the AirPods Pro party, buying mine only on Black Friday last year. However, I quickly fell in love. The sound quality is properly balanced, so it works for whatever you want to hear; are easy to use; and active noise cancellation (ANC) is surprisingly strong for a pair of headphones.
Due to the fact that I work a lot more from home in recent months, I often wore AirPods Pro while sitting at my desk, writing. Here it works brilliantly, offering discreet music, while keeping the noise of colleagues and neighbors. What I didn’t realize at the time was how limited the efficiency of the buds might be.
The problem arose when I started running again, after taking a break because, well, of laziness. As in all relationships, a routine change brought with it a new source of stress, as I discovered that running with AirPods Pro made every step a potential disaster.
A cheap but huge AirPods Pro upgrade
While matching the medium-sized gel ear tips included in the AirPods Pro box was good for staying at home, they handled it easily. There was never much time between the times when I needed to pull my ears to make sure I was still fit, making the AirPods Pro its own form of interval training.
I don’t want to lose AirPods Pro, but I don’t want to give up running again, I’ve started investigating custom ear tips. And I finally landed on the Comply AirPods Pro 2.0 eartips.
This accessory costs $ 25 for a package of three. You can buy three pairs of the same size – small, medium or large – but owning only one pair of AirPods Pro, we chose instead the variety package, which sends you a pair of each size to try.
The installation of the tips was surprisingly simple. AirPods Pro has its own gripping mechanism to fit the tips of the ear, in true Apple fashion, but the Comply tips caught and stopped as easily as the originals.
A better fit for running (with some trade-offs)
Carrying the buds again, the sound was just like the AirPods Pro I already knew and loved. Now, however, the foam tips made sure my buds stayed safe in my ear, which means I could now focus on improving running technique and speed, rather than making sure I didn’t lose an AirPod Pro in a leak. nearby.
Changing from standard ear tips comes at a low cost. They are less convenient to penetrate your ears because you have to squeeze the foam between your fingertips to fit them. The color scheme also changes as Comply tips add much more black to the almost pure white AirPods Pro base. . But these are quite easy to forgive.
Apple has some of the best industrial designers in the field, but no designer can make a product that suits everyone. In addition, Apple has a bit of a reputation for pursuing its company’s goals, whether that makes its products more usable or not. Yes, we’re looking at you, Port Lightning.
Fortunately, the huge ecosystem around Apple means that more people are able to enjoy its products to the fullest. Of course, you should be careful when changing parts, so as not to damage something that you cannot repair. However, if it goes well, it can prevent a $ 249 pair of AirPods Pro from becoming an expensive waste.