Introduction
Welcome, Fairphone, to the world of wireless earbuds. We’re about to tear down the company’s first offering in this expanding category to see if it bears any familial resemblance to their line of smartphones—which consistently rank at the tippy-top of our repairability scale. (No pressure or anything.)
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What you need
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We only just tore down the stellar Fairphone 4, but we're not through yet. Let’s hear what the
Fairpodsahem, True Wireless Earbuds have to offer: -
In-ear detection and touch control
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Active noise cancellation with transparency mode
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Bluetooth 5.3, A2DP, HFP, AVRCP
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10 mm / 32 Ohm drivers
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IPX4 splash resistance
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These earbuds are not tied to an app—you can use them with any Bluetooth connection.
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For comparison (left to right): one each of the Fairphone Earbuds, AirPods Pro, Nothing ear(1), Samsung Galaxy
BeansBuds Live, and Galaxy Buds+.
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We kick off disassembly with the most removable, and cleanable, bit: the flexible tips—much like you find on competing models, including AirPods Pro. With three different size options, you've got a good chance of finding a set that fits.
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Next: hoping to keep it nondestructive, we aim for a likely seam and get slicing with an opening wheel—luckily no heat required!
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Inside, we can already spot the glued-in motherboard. Forcing it out seems unwise, so we'll backtrack a bit—and try what has become our standard opening procedure for the generally not-so-repairable earbud category.
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Here we are putting the squeeze on the speaker portion of these buds, with help from our trusty bench vise. It deforms the buds' outer shell just enough to open up a seam—a chink in the armor, if you will.
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Pressure and heat makes diamonds, and also progress on our teardown.
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After some picking and prying, we peep a tiny battery pouch deep inside—but it's mostly tiny cables and solder in there.
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Now what?
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We opt for battery removal—both because it gives more room to maneuver, and because this cell will someday need replacing anyway. (Fairphone says they're engineered to last "twice as long" as the competition, but that's not really saying much.)
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The teeny tiny battery pouch measures only 10×9.8×5.6 mm, and delivers 0.1 Wh (50 mAh @ 3.7 V).
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On our way to the driver (which is glued down in a super tight recess), we see the ribbon cable held captive by brackets—which in turn are secured by plastic rivets. With heavy hearts, we break out the flush cutter—it's about to get destructive in here.
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Since at first we're not succeeding, we pry, pry again with some heat and a deft spudger. The buds finally give up their (decidedly non-modular) internals: motherboard, driver, and battery.
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On this side of the motherboard we find:
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Indicator LED
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Spring contacts for touch controls
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Spring contacts for charging the buds in their case
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The silicon is a little more fun on the reverse side:
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Airoha AB 1562 Bluetooth audio SoC (single chip solution)
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Main microphone
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Active noise cancellation microphones
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Proximity sensor for in-ear detection
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A spudger is all we need to move the insides outside—no glue, and no screws! We feel the optimism building.
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Our pocket-sized Minnow driver kit is perfect for the Phillips screws in this compact case—the first screws we've seen so far.
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Alas, separating the bits reveals a whole bunch of soldered cables. This case seems to be allergic to connectors—unless that battery pack is hiding some surprise?
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No adhesive for its protective sleeve, but this battery is certainly securely soldered.
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The rest of the cables are similarly soldered, we also spot a simple hall effect sensor up top to track the lid state (open/closed).
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Admittedly, we may have had inflated hopes for Fairphone's first earbud offerings—earbuds are tough! But we're still a little bummed these aren't easier-than-average to service.
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Fairphone is doing some things right with their earbuds' materials (Fairtrade Gold, and some recycled plastics)—and we're all for it! It just won't lengthen device life like repair does.
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But don't despair, their phones are still topping our wishlists—check out their latest Fairphone 4.
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Read on to check out the repairability score, but we'll say right now, it's gonna be tough to beat Galaxy Buds.
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- The charging case is held together only by clips and standard Phillips screws.
- While the earbuds can be opened with gentle prying, nothing inside is easily repairable.
- The critical charging case and earbud components—including batteries and port—are soldered together.
- Reliance on solder, plastic rivets, and clips make repair harder than the use of screws and connectors.
Final Thoughts
Repairability Score
(10 is easiest to repair)
7 Comments
Quel dommage pour Fairphone d’avoir vendu un produit non réparable qui de plus est vendu sans pièce détachée… il fait tache une série d’appareils à la réparabilité quasi parfaite.
C’est d’autant plus dommage que les possibilités de rendre mieux réparables les écouteurs sans fils sont nombreuses, voici quelques propositions :
- La batterie des écouteurs peut être rendue réparable, Sony l’a démontré avec certains de ses écouteurs sans fils (voir les WF-1000XM3) depuis 2 séries maintenant (mais Sony ne vend pas de pièces détachées, c’est dommage…).
- Les écouteurs pourraient être achetés individuellement avec la possibilité de les appairer entre eux à nouveau afin de conserver le boitier d’origine.
- La batterie du boitier peut être rendue réparable très facilement par l’utilisation de pile bouton rechargeable au lithium de 500mAh qui pourrait être facilement remplaçable en ouvrant une sorte de tiroir sur le boitier.
- Le boitier peut être rendu facilement démontable en utilisant des vis à la place des clips.
No headphone jack on the FP4, forcing you to grab wireless headphones, which even FairPhone can’t make repairable….
Please, just pretty please, put a headphone jack in the phone, and I can keep using my headphones that don’t have a battery in them, and sound better, and cost less.
I’m genuinelly unsure as to what the reason is for removing the headphone jack from FP4. Either, they needed a more profitable avenue to make some money somewhere, or no OEM who would partner with them still had a headphone jack ? Both options scare me. Maybe it’s something else though..
