I think my AirPods Pro got ruined by a firmware update. How can I troubleshoot?

Question

I got my AirPods Pro new four months ago. They worked great until last night. I used them yesterday morning. When I finished the case the pods were each about half charged. I left them by my bed all day, not plugged in to charge, but with the pods in the case and the case closed normally.

I went to use them last night and they acted completely dead. The LED won't light in any circumstances. I open the case and my phone doesn't pop up the battery indicator. I put them in my ears and they make no sound. I hold down the pairing button on the back and they won't pair with other Bluetooth devices or respond to other Bluetooth devices they are already paired with. They won't respond to my iPad that they were paired with either. Completely dead.

I spent most of the day yesterday with my phone about ten feet from the AirPods Pro. I got and installed the iOS 15.0.1 update on my iPhone 12 Pro sometime during the day yesterday. It seems to work fine. I noted last night that a new AirPods Pro firmware update was released the day before yesterday. I believe the firmware update, or possibly the iOS update, somehow bricked my AirPods. I can't think of any other possible thing that would make them suddenly stop working without anything physical happening to them.

Last night I plugged them in to charge. I confirmed that the charging wire was working by plugging it into my phone first. After a few minutes, the AirPods felt a bit warm to the touch in the bottom middle. I assume this was the battery charging. This morning they still felt warm to the touch. I think this is a bad sign. It doesn't take eight hours to charge the batteries. They are still totally unresponsive.

I tried How to reset your AirPods and AirPods Pro, but no luck. I noted that my iPhone and iPad still report the firmware version as 3E751, not the new 4A400 before I did Forget This Device.

Is there anything I can try on my own before calling Apple to get these replaced?

Answer 1

These are so small, I would research the steps (you did well) and then open a support case. There’s not much cost benefit to a repair versus a new purchase, but I think Apple might do a better job recycling than I can so I try to get repair parts personally until the new model is substantially better functionality.

Also, Apple support may offer you a swap if they feel firmware was relevant or they want to get those back to determine why the update failed if your premise is correct. No harm in asking them to help and possible repair on upside, possibly a free one.