AirPods Pro picking up background noise on call

Apple replaced mine twice. Last night at the store after replacing them, the tech called me to test them out and he said he unfortunately still hears the background noise and there’s nothing they can do. I’ll just have to wait for a firmware update or for Apple to acknowledge it’s a widespread problem and have it replaced by something that works.

Well, after tweeting to Tim Cook, have managed to get technicians at Apple interested and they have added a profile to my phone and taking sample data to analyse to see if the can detect correlation to phone or headphones, or both. Had to time stamp calls where those on the other side we’re having difficulty hearing my voice due to amplified external sounds. Let’s see participating in this bears any fruit for us all.

So. It appears that our issue that we have all been suffering has moved from unknown to a known issue. Engineers are apparently looking for a fix. Also apparently, if anyone has found a work around that actually works long term that would be interested in knowing about it. I will be having a weekly update call with the agent, so let me know if you have something. Please no theories that are not backed up with solid proof of working as I don’t have time to test and disprove.

I just recorded my AirPods Pro vs the wired headphones that come with the phone and put the two sound files in a shared folder:

Take a listen and you can clearly hear the difference. It's astonishing how much louder the background noise is on the AirPods Pro! And yes, I did test both the left and right headphones as well as both together and they sound identical.

The background sounds on the corded headphones is actually pleasant it's so quiet, but the AirPods are incredibly obnoxious.

[Link Edited by Moderator]

Ok… so I contacted them over the chat, they asked me to do an appointment, went to the appointment they didn’t found any issue with my replacement AirPods but they acknowledge that issue is not there while in FaceTime call and activating mic isolation mode.. for normal calls still the issue.

They told me they were not going to repair them as they just were replacing them, so they are on order now as Trafford Center didn’t had any replacements in stock lol..

In 3/4 days I should get the new ones.. (2nd round)

It's very irritating that we've spent so much money on a high quality wireless headphone and then the people we want to talk to on the phone won't until we stop doing ALL activity other than talk to them. I've had my pros for several years now. So I've had many IOS updates, the issue has never gone away with these updates. I've reset them countless times and the issue has never gone away. The only thing that makes the issue go away is not using my Airpods for calls. I have to use my cheap Skull Candy wired headphones.

My business partner has been saying my typing on the keyboard and mouse clicking is insanely loud as well when I'm wearing my AirPod Pro's. What gives? This didn't appear to be an issue when I bought them 6 months ago, only within the past few months.

How is this advice supposed to help? Great, now I know how to change noise cancellation and transparency, but I don't know how/why it affects the amplification of background noise on the other end of the line.

I have the EXACT issue. To the point that if I use my pods to talk- I can’t have any noise around me. It’s ridiculous considering the price of these things. I’ve been to an Apple dealer, contacted tech support and nobody can give me a reason why... go figure 🙄

I have the exact same problem This is absolutely ridiculous. And please do not give the template response of checking ANC settings because it has nothing to do with this. Simple clicks sounds like bangs. You need to acknowledge this issue and fix it.

I don't understand this response. How is my noise cancellation setting related to the caller on the other end of the phone?

Apple needs to understand that AirPods are not only meant for listening music, people use them as microphone for answering their FaceTime, Audio, WhatsApp calls too. I wouldn't be surprised if you are usage status are skewed - because of lot of users like me are forced to not use AirPod Pro for answering the calls.

Regular AirPods were much more better for answering the calls, feels like I've wasted my 250$ on a crappy product.

On top of that we get answers like these from Apple Support. SMH

I don't understand this response. How is my noise cancellation setting related to the caller on the other end of the phone?

Apple needs to understand that AirPods are not only meant for listening music, people use them as microphone for answering their FaceTime, Audio, WhatsApp calls too. I wouldn't be surprised if you are usage status are skewed - because of lot of users like me are forced to not use AirPod Pro for answering the calls.

Regular AirPods were much more better for answering the calls, feels like I've wasted my 250$ on a crappy product.

On top of that we get answers like these from Apple Support. SMH

Following the thread on this blog it seems incredible that people have been experiencing since before 2017 and Apple are still selling these Airpods.

I'm very disappointed that mine have this issue of amplifying noise when making a phone call. Rendering them worse that useless. Would definitely recommend that no one buys them.

I returned mine to Apple, who ran a series of checks and declared them working perfectly. I then upgraded my phone from a 6s to a 12 and still the same issue. Very annoying. I'll now have to buy an adapter so I can use my corded earpods with the new phone, which of course doesn't have a phone-jack.

Same issue here. Apple has replaced my APPs for the third time now. My wife and I have the same issue and both have gone to the store at the same time to test. Support will not do a live test because I’m sure it’s against their policy. They just keep on replacing them. It’s super frustrating. I don’t want new ones that do the same thing. I want a pair that I can use for conversations. Gen1 and Gen2 were amazing for use in noisy environments. I was hoping the latest firmware would fix this issue but I guess not. Worst apple product to date.