How long should your earbuds last? Our battery tests have the answer

So you’ve gotten a new set of earbuds, and you come upon the dreadful realization that they won’t be around for very long. Tiny batteries tend to grind down after a couple of years, and it’s only a matter of time before your earbuds give up the ghost. So how long should your earbuds last? And how long do you have before you have to plan an impromptu funeral for your new earbuds? Let’s look at some data.

How long should earbuds last on average

As we battery test every set of earbuds that comes through our labs, we have a fun corpus of data that we can draw upon for answering odd questions. In 2024, we took a look at our test results and found that, on average, earbuds typically only last about 6.4 hours on a single charge. Today, that number is… 6.44 hours.

On the whole, earbud batteries don’t actually need to be all that great because people store them in charging cases when they’re not using them. Wireless headphones, on the other hand, assume the job of charging on their own. — but have much larger cells that can last longer per charge.

Though battery life for earbuds tends to be within 10% of manufacturer claims, in general, we find them to usually fall a bit short. Headphones, on the other hand, outperform their predictions more often than not — but by less than 10%.

Most people won’t really benefit from ultra-long-lasting batteries in earphones in day-to-day life, and it’s only really important in situations where you’ll be listening to music for hours on end. For example, you’ll be putting your earbuds away after a morning commute on the bus, but if you’re stuck on an airplane, battery life is suddenly much more important. If you routinely use audio products for more than 8 hours a day, earbuds are a terrible fit for your life!

Tiny battery, tiny lifespan

Contrary to the wishes of most, batteries are consumable objects that lose performance capability over time. Though at first they might get you listening to tunes through your entire day, over time, repeated charging cycles, swings in temperature, and storage habits can affect the maximum capacity of these little buds.

Typically, you can expect the batteries in earbuds to last about two to three years with heavy use, or 300-500 charge cycles. However, that’s without any battery management or battery hygiene practices. We’ve covered this before in the context of AirPods, but in the years between our original article and now, things have changed a bit.

Just like you would baby an electric vehicle’s battery, you should be babying your earbud batteries as well. You can extend their lives considerably by doing the following:

• Enabling a “battery care” or “battery health” charging option in your earbuds’ app.
• Only charging to 75 or 80% at maximum.
• Never allowing a complete discharge.
• Don’t leave earbuds charged to 100% for too long at a time.
• Storing the earbuds in a cool, dry place whenever possible.

By reducing the number of full charge cycles, you can reduce wear on the battery. Though it means that you may have to recharge more often, the reward is less battery capacity loss over time. Now that some earbud apps are enforcing better charging habits automatically, it’s not uncommon for some users to have their earbuds last them up to 4 years before dipping under 80% charge capacity.

Things may get better soon

Now that the upcoming EU industry standards are coming into effect in 2027, it’s possible that we may soon see a jump in earbud battery performance. According to new EU regulations, electronic devices such as earbuds will either have to have user-replaceable batteries or satisfy the following conditions:

1. Ensure 80% charge capacity is retained over 1000 cycles, or
2. Offer waterproofing up to IP67.

Though most will assuredly go the waterproofing route, it’s not impossible that some manufacturers will attempt to either meet the first condition listed or make removable batteries in earbuds a thing. We know it can be done!