Apple’s new Powerbeats Pro are quite possibly the best wireless earbuds you’ll find in the Apple Store. But they’re not cheap, and if yours break, there’s no hope of a DIY repair.
Watch the gory Powerbeats Pro teardown in the newest video from iFixit.
Just like AirPods, the Powerbeats Pro pack lots of technology into a tiny form factor. They’ve got Apple’s latest H1 chip that enables “Hey Siri” and faster connectivity, and a bigger battery that lasts nine hours in between charges.
Powerbeats Pro are also sweat- and water-resistant, and they’re designed to stay in your ears during even the most intense workouts. They’re bigger than AirPods, but certainly no more repairable.
Getting into Powerbeats Pro is near
The first thing you’ll discover when you attempt to get into the Powerbeats Pro is that … you can’t. Not easily, at least. Like most Apple products these days, there’s copious amounts of glue holding everything together.
It’s not totally impossible, then, but you’ll need a lot of luck on your side if you want to get your Powerbeats Pro open without breaking them.
There’s no real reason to open them up anyway. Every internal component is permanently attached to another, “so a full disassembly can only be accomplished destructively,” iFixit explains. You can’t just replace a single part.
It gets worse
Opening up the Powerbeats Pro charging case is even tougher. “The charging case is a nightmarish bucket of glue, making potential battery replacements unnecessarily difficult and destructive,” iFixit adds.
Watch the entire teardown in gory detail in the video below.