No matter if you own a pair of AirPods Max or not chances are you are already aware of the controversy surrounding the AirPods Max Smart Case.
For those of who are not aware, turns out almost everyone dislikes Smart case’s design and the fact that Apple forces users to carry it around, since right now the only way to put AirPods Max to sleep is by putting them in this case. The annoyance of being forced to carry it around rattled early users so much that people have started to share workarounds for putting AirPods Max to sleep without having to put them inside the Smart case.
Following the criticism Apple has updated its support document for the headphones and clarified that users don’t necessarily need to put their AirPods Max in the Smart Case in order to preserve battery. According to the company whether users put the headphones in the case or not makes little difference to the battery life.
Apple notes AirPods Max have three power modes that includes In Use, Low Power and Lower Power Mode. The In Use power mode is used when the headphones are actively being used by the user.
The Low Power mode kicks in to preserve battery right when the user puts the headphones inside the case. However the Low Power mode is also activated 5 minutes after user has stopped using the headphones even if the headphones are not placed in the Smart Case.
There’s also a Lower Power mode, in which AirPods Max disables its Bluetooth and Find My features to maximize battery life. This mode is activated 18 hours after the headphones have been placed in the Smart Case. In case user does not place the headphones in the Smart Case, then the Lower Power mode is activated 72 hours later.
With this new information we can say that if you remove your headphones for a few hours, then the activation of Low Power mode instantly or 5 minutes later is not going to make a big difference on the overall battery life of the headphones.
However using the Smart case becomes useful for battery saving purposes if you want to put away headphones for a longer period of time so that the Lower Power mode activates 18 hours later instead of 72 hours later.
