Meanwhile my AirPods Max have decided bluetooth is overrated and they only work with a wired connection. Noise cancelling works fine. The white pairing light blinks but no device can see it.

Some folks on Reddit have noted the device sometimes comes back to live after depleting the battery, so we'll see. Others got desperate enough to put it in the freezer, but I'd rather not risk also breaking the wired mode.

They've been showing other signs of aging over the last half a year or so. I had constantly reset them. That got a little better once I learned you can clean the headband contacts with isopropanol.

I guess it's the long term of effect of rain seeping in, but with all their talk about fancy under water watches you'd think headphones would be easy to waterproof?

Unfortunately Apple is not the kind of company that says: we care about durability because we stand for quality and we're against waste, so return a broken product to us anytime with or without warranty and we'll fix it!

2.5 years product lifetime is insultingly bad.