Airpod mic sound quality stuck in low quality mode when used with Macbook Pro

Yep, it seems to be a hardware failure. I bought another pair and that pair works fine (so far). I'm really disappointed with the quality/durability of these Air pods. The pair that stopped working is less than 2 years old with very light use. Also it's just as expensive to have Apple repair them as it is to completely replace them. It looks like i can't add Applecare+ to my replacement Airpods, the webform tells me they are not eligible. Doesn't inspire confidence in these products.

Thank you for your response. The bug you referenced is definitely happening as well, but not sure if that is the only problem. The most egregious issue is the mic sound quality. When speaking, the initial sound is cut out like an overly aggressive noise gate and then the audio in general is a bit metallic and static sounding and continues to drop out. I've closed of all other audio apps and then used quicktime to record audio from the airpods and it does in fact sound bad. I tried them on voice memo on my iphone and same cutting out problem. I can't seem to reliably force them to work consistently. In the sound preference panel of my mac, when airpods are selected as the input, and the mic input level is set to the mid point, the monitor meter completely fills in when I talk, it goes from empty to full immediately when I talk. These are just a little over a year old, and rather expensive, i would expect them to work seamlessly with my mac. The article you linked to indicates a sizable flaw in the product, this is Apple's closed ecosystem I hope there is a fix on the horizon.