Forking over $200 for new AirPods that you’re probably just going to lose anyway seems like a bad investment. A 15-year old boy found a brilliant and cheap work around though that turns Apple’s wired EarPods into AirPods for just $4.
After seeing one of his friends get gifted a set of AirPods, Sam Cashbook decided to make his own. Using a cheap bone conduction headset he found on eBay, Cashbook managed to hot glue together his DIY AirPods.
They’re ugly, but they work:
Cashbook took apart the bone conduction headset, desoldered the wires from the original headset and then connected his EarPod speakers to the headset’s circuit board. The entire project took him about two months with all the research.
“I replaced the battery with something a little bigger and hot glued it all together (definitely not the best approach),” Cashbook told Vice. “This project was really fun and only cost me around four dollars, and helped me improve my soldering skills for smaller components.”
Obviously the DIY AirPods don’t have all the features as the real deal — like wireless charging and a W2 chip — but it’s an impressive feat nonetheless.
