Google's Pixel Buds 2a Have One Thing Apple Would Never Give Us on AirPods

Wireless earbuds are better now than they’ve ever been. Trust me, I’ve tried a lot of them. They sound better; they look better; they have impressive noise cancelling, and in the grand scheme of things, they’re pretty affordable. That being said, there is one thing they’re sorely lacking, and that’s modularity and repairability.

As solid as Apple’s AirPods are, when the battery goes, so too does the whole pair of wireless earbuds. That sucks, to say the least. This sad fact about most wireless earbuds out there in the world is exactly why, when Google unveiled the Pixel Buds 2a at its annual hardware event this week, my eyes lit up. The Pixel Buds 2a aren’t the most groundbreaking pair of wireless earbuds on paper—you know it’s an incremental upgrade when active noise cancellation is the headlining feature—but there is one thing they definitely have that other earbuds don’t, and that’s a replaceable battery.

According to Google, the Pixel Buds 2a, or more specifically, the charging case, has a battery that can be swapped out, and you don’t need to bring the case in to replace it. On the bottom of the Pixel Buds 2a are two small screws that, once removed, allow one to just pull the bottom of the case off and easily access the battery inside. That means if something should happen to the battery, all you would need to do is order a new one from Google and get to swapping. As noted by Lifehacker, the screws have to be removed with a Torx screwdriver (not a Phillips-head), and there’s no official word on how much a battery will cost, but the fact that you can do this at home at all is a big win.

As I noted in my Pixel Buds 2a announcement this week, the battery is often the first thing to go on lots of gadgets, wireless earbuds included, so being able to swap that piece out is huge for longevity. This type of modularity is good for consumers since replacing the battery should be much cheaper than having to buy a whole new pair of wireless earbuds, but also for the environment. More often than not, gadgets with non-replaceable batteries will end up in a landfill despite the fact that all they need is one new part.

Google’s decision to let people swap out the battery on the Pixel Buds 2a case is great, but I still consider it a small start. The battery inside the actual earbuds themselves is still not replaceable, for example, which means if those go kaput, you’ll have to buy new buds or hope that they can be replaced under warranty. Small or not, though, it’s something, and I can only hope Google sets a trend for more modularity in personal audio. Lord knows consumers (and the environment) could use it.