iFixit’s teardown of the new AirPods 5 is now up, revealing an important, albeit tiny, repairability improvement. Watch it below.

Since Apple launched the original AirPods in 2016, iFixit has consistently given them a 0 out of 10 for repairability. From heavily glued-in batteries and soldered connections to housings that are nearly impossible to open and reassemble without damage, AirPods have always been notoriously difficult to repair.

With the new AirPods 5, however, iFixit says Apple has taken a tiny step in the right direction, provided the repair is being done by a skilled professional or particularly adventurous DIY enthusiast.

In their new teardown video, iFixit shows that the batteries inside each earbud can be removed and replaced without necessarily destroying the AirPods in the process, which has led them to give AirPods a repairability score above zero for the first time.

Granted, the new AirPods 5 only scored 2 out of 10, but that’s still two points more than every previous generation combined.

iFixit notes that the left and right batteries are not interchangeable, as they use reversed polarity and slightly different contact placement.

That said, this is basically the long and short of AirPods 5 repairability. As iFixit shows in the video, going any further into the earbuds is still impossible without destroying them, and the same is true of their charging case.

iFixit’s teardown also includes its always-fascinating CT scans, which offer a detailed look at just how densely Apple has packed the batteries, MEMS microphones, H2 chip, and other tiny components inside each earbud.

Watch iFixit’s teardown of the new AirPods 5 below, including a more DIY-friendly attempt to access the battery using a regular hairdryer:

To read iFixit’s full article on the AirPods 5 teardown, follow this link.

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