Since the main point of failure for wired earphones was the wires, then wireless earphones should be more durable, right? Not quite.

The parts most prone to failure in wireless earphones are the internal batteries. Like all rechargeable batteries, their capacity will drop significantly as they age.

We can buy earphones where battery replacements are easy (or possible), like Samsung's Galaxy Buds. This is opposed to Apple's AirPods, where the batteries are practically impossible to replace.

Here, we can rely on iFixit's repairability ratings, or search YouTube for "<earphone name> teardown/ disassembly", for example "AirPods 2 disassembly".

I've linked an example of that above. We can also simply Google "<earphone name> battery replacement" and see if guides come up.

As a general rule of thumb, when it comes to repairable wireless earphones, bigger is better.

Larger earphones such as on-ear or over-ear headphones have more space within, allowing them to host repair-friendly features like screws and battery connectors.

The battery replacement process for a pair of Sennheiser Momentum On-Ear headphones takes just 5 minutes from start to finish thanks to those features. I've linked a video detailing the process.

But as we've seen from the Galaxy Buds example, wireless in-ear earphones can be repairable too.

If you like the convenience of wireless in-ear earphones but want to reuse your existing wired earphones, check out this page.