Apple AirPods Pro 2 Long-Term Review: One Year Later

The Apple AirPods Pro 2 launched in September 2024 with USB-C. We bought a pair the day they became available and have used them almost every day since. After a full year of daily commutes, gym sessions, flights, and video calls, here is our honest assessment.

Battery Life: The Inevitable Decline

Apple rates the AirPods Pro 2 at six hours of listening with ANC enabled. On day one, we measured five hours and forty minutes — close to Apple's claim. After one year, our consistent measurement is four hours and fifteen minutes. That is a roughly 25% decline in battery capacity.

Is this acceptable? For most use cases, yes. Four hours still covers a typical commute, gym session, or workday listening period. But if you regularly need five-plus hours of continuous use, you will notice the degradation.

The charging case has degraded less noticeably. It still provides roughly four full charges (originally 4.5), giving total battery life of about 21 hours — down from the original 30 hours.

ANC Performance: Still Excellent

Active noise cancellation has not degraded in our experience. The microphones and processing that power ANC are digital, so there is no analog component to wear out. The AirPods Pro 2 still silence office chatter, reduce airplane cabin noise by roughly 80%, and handle wind noise better than the first generation.

Adaptive Audio, which blends ANC and Transparency based on your environment, has improved through software updates. It now recognizes more situations — automatically switching to transparency when someone speaks to you works about 85% of the time, up from maybe 70% at launch.

Ear Tip Wear

The silicone ear tips show clear wear after one year. The medium tips we use have lost some of their firmness and elasticity. The seal is slightly less secure during vigorous exercise than it was at six months. Apple charges $8 for a replacement set of four tips. We recommend replacing them annually — the improved seal restores ANC performance and keeps the earbuds from loosening during workouts.

Third-party foam tips from Comply offer a more secure fit if you find the silicone tips insufficient for exercise. They do wear out faster (every two to three months) but the seal and comfort are superior.

What Improved Over the Year (Software Updates)

Apple has delivered meaningful improvements through firmware updates:

• Conversation Awareness now activates faster and more accurately
• Personalized Volume adjusts based on your environment and listening habits
• Adaptive Audio is smarter about transitioning between modes
• USB-C case now works as a speaker for Find My with improved locating precision

These updates are a major advantage of the Apple ecosystem — the product you bought a year ago is objectively better than the product you unboxed.

What Annoyed Us Over the Year

The stem controls. Squeezing the stem to play, pause, and switch ANC modes works, but it is imprecise. We accidentally pause music or skip tracks while adjusting the fit multiple times per week.

Case scratches. The USB-C case shows visible scratches after one year of pocket carry. It is cosmetic only, but the case looks well-worn.

Spatial Audio consistency. Head-tracked Spatial Audio is impressive when it works. It does not always work. Certain apps and content types trigger it inconsistently, and head tracking occasionally drifts, requiring a recalibration.

One-Year Value Assessment

At the current street price of $189-199, the AirPods Pro 2 remain the best earbuds for iPhone users. The integration with iOS, the Find My network, Adaptive Audio, and the seamless device switching across Apple products create an experience that no competitor can match in the Apple ecosystem.

For Android users, the Sony WF-1000XM5 offers better sound quality, better ANC, and better app support. But for the 55% of American smartphone users on iPhone, the AirPods Pro 2 are the obvious choice.

Compare earbuds in our full guide →

One-year rating: 8.8/10 (down from 9.2 at launch, primarily due to battery degradation and ear tip wear).

Would we buy again? Absolutely. No question.

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