If you’ve invested in a pair of AirPods, you want to make sure you keep them in tip-top shape—and yes, that means cleaning them periodically. One clue that your AirPods need to be cleaned is that they seem to be getting quieter. Turns out, it might be your own natural earwax clogging up the pods.
To get rid of the wax, let’s turn to a 2017 article from Quartz which referred to a tip from a 2014 post from Apple’s Communities forum. In the post, a user noticed that their left earpod was quieter than the right, wondering, “am I deaf in my left ear, or is my earpod generally broken?” User Frankie 1413 suggested:
To fix your sound issue, take a softly bristled clean toothbrush. You can then carefully brush the larger opening of the Earpod. Then, (bear with me) suck on the larger opening until you can feel that you are causing air to come through. Then, brush again. This should solve your issue. The main reason why this has happened is ears with an exesesive [sic] amount of wax that melts into the earbud.
I’m trying to bear with you, Frankie. I’m trying. Luckily, I don’t have any clogged up AirPods requiring a game of suck-and-blow. Quartz’s Kira Bindrim did, though, and tried Frankie’s approach. Her response? “Perfect sound restored. The bass is bass-y anew. (Did I essentially make out with my AirPods? Sure. But I will not apologize for it.)”
So before you replace your AirPods, you may want to give this seemingly effective (though super gross) method a shot. If that doesn’t work, take the AirPods into an Apple store and request a replacement if they are still under their one-year warranty.
This story was originally published in 20187 and updated with new information on 3/4/2020.