AirPods Pro have a strange smell on its silicone tips, is that safe?

hyungwoo112 wrote:

One more same problem here. Hope for an answer from apple. This smell is quite disturbing and I am getting worried a bit, if it could cause any health issue.

If you want an answer from Apple, you'll need to tell them you have a problem. Start with the Contact Support link at the top right of every page of these forum.

You won't get an answer from Apple here.

I've been in touch with support and their answer was the return them if I didn't like the smell (within the return period). The Store staff was helpful but just kind of shrugged it off. I also used the feedback form and received no reply. I doubt Apple is going to tell us if they are fixing this issue. They will just fix it and newer AirPods Pro won't have the smell.

JoshD wrote:

I also used the feedback form and received no reply.

You won't receive a reply when you submit feedback, except under very rare circumstances. The feedback page states that pretty clearly.

I got the impression, it's the tips not the case. I'm not totally sure, but when I remember correctly, also the new and unused tips had the smell (nail polish with a fruit component). When I use the Airpods Pro, also my ears have this smell afterwards. So it's imaginable that the case gets the smell from the tips and not vice versa.

The way that I determined it to be the case itself (and not the tips) was:

Remove the headphones and tips from the case. Keep the case open to air it out. The smell will go away after leaving it open for a while. Close the case and leave it closed for 15 minutes or so. The smell will be strong again. Finally, if you don't reintroduce the tips to the case they won't have smell. So I think the tips just absorb and remit, rather than being the source.

I Googled this Airpod Pro smell thing and thought I wouldnt find anything. I thought it will just be me, because of my hypersensitivity.

I was pretty sure it was the silicone, but then I read some of the posts here and it does stink in the case also. Is it because of the case or the other way around? It's just that I still have my normal Airpod 2's and the case has never had a smell like this.

Within minutes of wearing my new AirPod Pros I have a pounding headache from the chemical smell. It's so over powering. I've had them in for a little while now. I have to take them off and store them away. I don't know if I can try them again.

Has anyone had a pair for a while? Does the smell go away?

I was so excited about getting them today and they are great in every other way. The last thing I ever expected was an issue with smell.

I had a same problem! It's very annoying! I contacted apply customer support and went to the apple store. The reps there ended up just giving a new pair.. which is slightly better, but still has a smell.. I can totally see it will be getting stronger just like my first pair. Maybe I should just change to the normal airpod.

OK, I decided to give my Airpod Pro's another go today and that smell was overpowering. So I took my Airpod Pro's back and got a refund. Got another pair of Airpods Gen 2's.

The reason I decided on the Pro's was because my old Gen 2's weren't charging properly anymore, seeing they needed replacing, I thought I would upgrade to the Pro's.

Anyway, I opened my new Airpod Gen 2's, there is a bit of a new smell on them, but not that full on, lingering chemical odour, that the Pro's have. Also I suspect the slight new smell on the Gen 2's will dissipate because my old ones didn't have a smell at all.

But even though the Airpod Pro's did have better sound quality for music listening and fitted more securely in the ear, that smell was just too much. I still have a headache, plus my ears still feel a bit inflamed from those soft tips. I dont know if that was a chemical reaction or what.

May I say as a cyclist, whilst riding, I found the overall functionality of the Gen 2's are much simpler to operate in comparison to the Pro's, both as a communication tool, (just the taps are easier than trying to operate those sensors) and not to mention I can hear "real" background noise whilst listening to music, not the backgound noise transmitted via pick up by the microphone in transparency mode, the noise cancellation and transparency are not cycling friendly. I need to hear real surroundings for safety on the road.

All in all, if it wasnt for that awful smell, I would have kept the Pro's just for general use and then purchased another pair of the Gen 2's for cycling when the budget permitted.

Well, it was all a learning curve. Never tried noise cancellation earpods before, they worked really well in that respect, able to block out the world and have a great music experience, very impressed. So I really learned something. I'm glad I tried the Airpod Pro's...so thank goodness for Apple's 14 day open box refund policy otherwise it would have ended in tears.

But unless the smell issue is resolved in future models, I wont be puchasing another pair of Airpod Pro's.

Yeah, as I mentioned earlier I ended up getting the normal pods again. They still have that new smell of the chemical, but not nearly as noticeable. I really had to take a big sniff to notice it. I think it will go away because the normal AirPods don’t have that silicon/plastic tip. I wonder if these tips on the AirPod Pro’s actually absorb the original smell in the case and augment it because of the absorbent structure of the tip. It may hold onto the smell forever therefore the smell in the case never goes away, they just keep cross contaminating each other. If my old normal AirPods had this smell to begin with it just dissipated over time because it didn’t have a substance in the case for the smell to attach itself to. I had my old pods for 16 months and never even noticed a smell to begin with. The Pros were overwhelming, as soon as I opened them the smell hit me. Anyway I didn’t want to take the risk of keeping them just in case the smell didn’t go away.

I have the same problem. I put the tips in coffee powder for one night, at least they smell of coffee. Let's see how long that lasts.

I saw in ebay a shop which sells tips for the air pod pro, but its in china, and it takes a month to get them. Has anyone experience with other tips than from Apple (i guess the smell comes from the tips, the new tips in the box smells the same imho)

Here is what's going on-

The case has some off-gassing that smells like nail polish or acetone. This has to do with the manufacturing process.

The silicone tips have no smell initially, but silicone is highly absorbant to smells/VOC's. The case is off-gassing into the silicone while the Airpods are charging, and we are smelling the off-gassing from the silicone when they are removed. These VOCs do not stay in the silicone, they continue to offgas and will transfer the smell to your ear too.

I'm not convinced it is healthy to use long term in your ears, just like it's not healthy to hang out in a room you freshly painted. Since you are essentially placing these into your head, it wouldn't surprise me if VOCs would cause headaches and other problems to people sensitive to it.

Just a note, I have a pair of Gen1s I still use and they also have the smell inside the case, though a lot less pronounced (perhaps they off-gassed substantially over time). Probably if they used silicone back then, this problem would have been immediately noticed like it is now.

I bought my Airpods Pro from an Apple Store in Central London 10 days ago. The case smelt like nail polish. I left the case open in a well ventilated place, but there's no improvement. The case still has a quite strong smell. I replaced the normal-sized tips with the smaller ones in the box, and they absorbed the strong smell from the case very soon. (and I'm sure my ears also get that smell... ) My friend bought one in Liverpool a month ago and his smells like a ripe mango.

I contacted Apple Support. They said they were not informed of this problem before. They later suggested that I should stop using my Airpods for now. It's a shame as I quite like the new Airpods, but safety comes first. I'll go to the store tomorrow to return them or get a replacement if they already fixed the problem.

now i know it wasn't the tips, ts the case. After the bath in coffee they smell just from coffee, but the case is smelling as before, esp. after loading when it gets warm. I changed it by Apple Support, i will get it in the coming days. Lets see if sth has changed.

I agree. My guess with the tips being the source seems to be wrong. Probably there were already used tips among the unused ones because of changing some tips for finding the best size and I didn't remember this correctly. When the tips are not in the case for a while, they loose the smell completely. After putting them back in the case again, they quickly absorb the smell from the case.