AirPods Max Smart Case Issue

I seem to have resolved the issue at the moment. I did a hard reset on the headphones and my iPhone, then re-paired the headphones.

I charged them last night to 100%. I took them off charge at 10am.

This morning I used them for 45 mins and then put them in the case for 4 hours. I then used them again for 50 mins and then back into the case for 7 hours. I have just taken them out to use them now at 9pm and they are showing 96%. So 4% after nearly 2 hours use and 12 hours standby seems about right.

So far, this is the only support page you gonna get for that >>> If your AirPods won’t charge - Apple Support

Other than that, nothing on the web. I can't find anything on your issue. Topic is wayyy tooo fresh.

As always, contact them - Get Support

You are not the only one with that problem. I have it too.... the funny thing is that sometimes they hold the charge but sometimes they won’t which is quite frustrating, and the other thing is they connect with devices on their own. I was using my phone and the headphones were connected even tho I haven’t used them and they were on the desk. But yeah they are loosing charge in the smart case I think maybe it’s a software issue... I called Apple support and they told me that they will either repair them or send me a new one...

Yes, same exact problem here. Discovered it at 1% yesterday morning, charged to 100%, listened for a few minutes on my phone, put them away in Smart Case, and less than 24 hours later, I'm at 9%.

I'm trying to figure out what is causing it: something interfering with the "low power" mode? Is it maintaining a connecting to my devices? (Currently paired with iPhone, iPad, and AppleTV.)

On another forum the speculation is that it is not disconnecting from one of your other devices. People report that if connection switching is turned off that the battery drain goes away. Hopefully Apple will fix this in a firmware patch (I am pretty confident they will). I suggest everyone having this problem report it using the feedback page to highlight the issue.

I wonder if it is related to how the headphones are located in the case. I have the headphone arms extended when I put them back in the case which means they are slightly twisted / misaligned. Could this make the magnets that control the power of the headphones intermittently not engage properly? Do you have your headphone arms extended? I have had the issue with battery drain and I have the arms extended. I am now trying them with the arms closed when I put them in the case to see if it makes a difference.

When my headphones drained down to 1% overnight, indeed I suspected it due to AppleTV...I could never get them to automatically appear through iCloud, so I had to manually pair them with Bluetooth. And yes, if I never manually disconnected them, I could see how some kind of connection could be causing a drain.

I've since reset the headphones and NOT connected to AppleTV. I haven't experienced the drain to zero again, but I think I'm still getting abnormal drain. For instance, I freshly charged them yesterday afternoon, used them for a bit, and returned them to the case as they still reported 100%. This morning they are at 93%. Possible the 100% was a false reading? Perhaps. But I'm really not understanding why they should be draining while in the case.

As for the post about the arms extended, I should hope not. The way I'm testing this is attempting to hold the headphones near an iOS device, and pressing the noise control button. If the headphones were awake, it would display the battery screen on the iOS device. But when they're in the case, the button isn't responsive at all. This makes me believe the headphones are truly in a different state at least...but again puzzling why drain is occurring.

I've hard reset a couple of times too last week. After a fresh charge to 100% recently, I used the headphones for about an hour, and then returned them to the case still reading 100%. Glorious!

However, they seem to be discharging in the Smart Case, completely left alone, at a rate of approximately 10% per day. I wonder if you can recreate this? (Correlated with my wife's pair too...both of ours lost 10% in the last 24 hours, unused.)

When I stopped using them last night (about 2 hours) they had 87% remaining. I stopped using them at 11pm, when I checked them at 10am this morning (11 hours later) they were at 81%. I have just checked them again at 3pm, another 5 hours later and they are at 79%. So in the last 16 hours of no use with them in the case they have gone down from 87% to 79%, a reduction of 8%, approx 0.5% per hour. That ties in with your approx 10% per day (24 x 0.5% = 12%). At least I can put them down now and know they will still be usable when I pick them up again.

Cool, thanks for confirming. I would love to figure out why 10%/day drain is happening, as that seems excessive to me for a "ultra low power mode" especially when there is no way to explicitly turn them off either.

My next step is re-pairing with my AppleTV (hopefully through iCloud automatically, which didn't work for me before). But if I have to manually Bluetooth pair, eager to see if the overnight drain to 0% returns.

That is one thing I have not done, re-pair to my Apple TV.

As I don't need to use them with the Apple TV really, I have not bothered to try them again in case it is the cause of the problem. It will be interesting to hear if it affects yours.