Apple’s AirPods Max switch to low-power mode using a pair of refrigerator magnets

When a company announces a new product, it can often be a while before all of its features are revealed. Now that Apple’s new Max AirPods finally available, users discover its deepest secrets, including a smart feature where you can manually put a pair of $ 550 wireless headphones into one low power mode using a simple pair of fridge magnets.

Another of the many innovative features of the AirPods Max is that the headphones can never be turned off. For ease of use, they always turn on, so users don’t have to waste a second or two waiting to be paired with their iPhones, but that also means they should be charged every day with only 20 hours of battery life. . As a solution (a misuse of this term), Apple includes what appears to be a matching bra or one breast-inspired bag, that the headphones can slide in, which automatically puts them in a low-power mode to conserve battery life.

For some unknown reason, there are AirPods Max users who are not fans of the included case, including people on the YouTube channel Emerging technology. So, they looked for an alternative way to activate the low power mode of the headphones.

Theirs The research began with a magnetic field display film sheet that is piece of translucent plastic coated with microcapsules stuffed with nickel flakes floating in oil. In the presence of a magnetic field, nickel particles change alignment creating dark, light patterns that reveal the presence of the magnetic fields, but the small magnetic sensors used to put the AirPods Max into low-power mode were too weak to be detected by the film.

The locations of the sensors had to be found using a brute force trial and error approach that finally revealed that their locations were on the front edges of each headset. They are sensitive enough that even a pair of relatively weak decorative fridge magnets can be detected, which automatically put the headphones into low-power mode that disconnects them from an iPhone.

But the low power mode only stays on in the presence of magnets, once removed the headphones are reconnected automatically. As a result, activating this mode manually without the case seems like a huge pain, but it means it should be relatively easy for third parties to create better cases for AirPods Max, which, in case you forgot, will cost $ 550.