People tend to listen to their favorite playlists or podcasts whenever they want an escape from reality. And what better way is there than to use AirPods?
Designed with impressive connectivity and high-quality audio, AirPods have taken over the world of sound. Frequent usage of AirPods, however, leads to a buildup of grease, earwax, and dirt in AirPods.
This buildup of gunk not only lowers sound quality, but it puts the listener at risk of ear infections. For these reasons, there is a need to clean AirPods. But how are AirPods cleaned?
What Do You Need?
People have used all sorts of tools and items to clean their AirPods, ranging from cotton balls to toothpicks. And while each item has its advantages, Apple discourages the use of items that can potentially damage AirPods, such as the sharper ones. In order to prevent damage to the AirPods, it is best to stick to using the items listed below:
- Dry cotton swabs (more swabs may be needed for dirtier AirPods)
- Two pieces of microfiber cloth (or any soft, lint-free cloth)
- Rubbing alcohol (over-the-counter Isopropyl alcohol)
- Soft-bristled brush
- Clean water
How NOT to Clean the AirPods
Before you start to dive into how to properly clean AirPods, you should take into mind that there are a handful of things on what NOT to do when cleaning AirPods. These are listed as follows:
- Avoid using sharp objects when cleaning any part of the AirPods.
- Don’t insert objects into the charging ports of the AirPods and charging case.
- Avoid submerging or running any part of the AirPods into any sort of liquid.
- Avoid using soap when cleaning the AirPods.
- Avoid putting the AirPods back into the charging case when they are not yet completely dry.
Cleaning the AirPods
Gently wipe off the gunk sticking to the speaker meshes and microphones of the AirPods using dry cotton swabs, taking extra care not to push too hard to avoid damaging the speaker. If the AirPods have silicone tips, it is recommended that these tips are removed prior to cleaning.
The earwax and dirt inside these tips should also be cleaned off using cotton swabs. The silicone tips may be cleaned with dampened cotton swabs but should be completely dried before being reattached back to the AirPods.
The rest of the AirPods are then wiped with a cloth to remove the attached dirt. Should there be sticky substances attached to the AirPods, such as food and cosmetics, the cloth may be dampened lightly with water before wiping. A dry cloth should then be used to dry the AirPods.
Cleaning the AirPod Case
A dry cloth is used to wipe off the dirt and grease on the outside of the charging case. Similar to the AirPods, a lightly dampened cloth may be used to wipe the dirt off. More force may be used since the case is more rigid than the AirPods themselves.
The cloth may be dampened with rubbing alcohol to sanitize the case. Extra care should be observed so as to not get liquid into the charging port. Instead of using the cloth, the charging port may be cleaned using a soft-bristled brush.
The inside of the charging case may be wiped with dry cotton swabs. Extra care should also be observed here in order to prevent damaging the insides of the case.
Some steps may be skipped over or repeated, depending on how dirty the AirPods are, but otherwise, that is all there is to cleaning AirPods.