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

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.

I would guess this is a product quality issue rather than a design issue. The plastic in the case or the electronics in the case are emitting a strong odor and that odor is then absorbed and reemitted by the ear tips. This isn't inevitable and I'm sure they can work with the manufacturer to mitigate this.

Hey @JoshD. I’m so glad that charging with the lid open is helping you. As I wrote in my original post that is what I have been doing but the smell isn’t going away. Also, when I got my replacement case the case was just fine with no smell. I still believe that the smell is coming from the earpieces and possibly from the silicone eartips because I received some new tips from the Apple store which were packaged separately from the case in a separate box and they also have a strange smell. I also found a website that tears down the airpods pro which shows a lot of glue inside of the earpieces which makes me wonder if the glue is offgassing and makes the already smelly silicone even worse.

I also saw a post on reddit about the “nail polish smell” and they also suspect it is coming from either the glue or the silicone eartips:

https://www.reddit.com/r/https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/AirPods+Pro+Teardown/127551

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/AirPods+Pro+Teardown/127551

I've been airing mine out for about 3 weeks now. Only a very slight improvement. I'm likely going to try and swap for another pair to see if they've fixed the issue.

I also notice this, and I dont think it's the tips. To me it smells like acetone. Suspect it is something from the manufacturing process. Perhaps Apple could make a comment on this, and as to the safety of this?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Thanks for confirming that the smell is the transfer from the case. This has been the theory for a while. The smell seems to be present with ALL cases. We are only here because we notice it/mind it. FYI, you can charge with the case open so this is what I've been doing.

Sorry to hear that didn't work. If you're within the 14 day return period maybe consider returning them? I'm going to try repurchasing in a few weeks and hopefully they've debugged this.