How to Spot Fake AirPods and AirPods Pro Devices

5 minute read

Imitation, as they say, is the sincerest form of flattery and while that may indeed be true, no company out there would appreciate a smaller, less-reputable company ripping off their products, mimicking them, using their branding, and trying to pass them off as legit. 

Since they were announced a few years back, Apple AirPods and AirPods Pro have proved to be enormously successful and have revolutionized the way in which we listen to music. 

Apple’s AirPods may indeed be considered the Rolls Royce of the audio world, the downside to this is the fact that they do come at a price and they are considered expensive. Fraudsters have taken advantage of this by creating fake AirPods, trying to pass them off as genuine Apple products, and selling them for less than real AirPods. To make matters worse, it's getting harder and harder to spot these fakes. 

If you’re concerned about fake AirPods and AirPods pro, here are several tips to help you spot fake products. 

Pay close attention to the packaging

There are plenty of cheaper, and arguably inferior wireless AirPods/earbuds out there which don’t pretend to be anything that they aren’t, and that is all well and good as long as they don’t pretend to be something that they aren’t. The biggest concern here is when companies try to pass off fake AirPods as genuine. 

One of the most effective ways in which you can spot fake AirPods is to inspect the packaging. The packaging will be designed to look as close to identical as Apple products as possible, which means they will mimic the packaging. 

Usually, fake Apple AirPods and AirPod Pro products are made abroad and so the packaging may contain spelling mistakes or grammatical errors as it wasn’t produced by native English speakers. Also, the images may be blurred or pixelated, or just poor quality. 

If the box does have mistakes or just looks cheap, it could be a fake. 

Inspect the user manual

Another tip for spotting fake AirPods is to inspect the user manual. 

Again, read inside and look for spelling mistakes, and pay attention to the pictures. If the images are blurred, washed out, or are just bad quality, this again is an indication that your AirPods may not actually be genuine. 

Feel and check their weight

One of the most appealing aspects of AirPods is the fact that they’re so light in weight so pay close attention to how much your AirPods weigh if you’re worried they may be fake. 

Fake AirPods weigh considerably less than real ones, so if you can, weigh the AirPods and the charging case and then check this weight against the specs listed on the official Apple website. 

Test out the features

Finally, another tip for spotting fake AirPods, and one which is considered very effective, is simply testing out the various features of the AirPods themselves. 

If you’re using 2^nd Gen or above AirPods, you can simply say ‘Hey Siri’ like you would with your iPhone, which will then bring up Siri. If this feature doesn’t work, yet it is supposed to with the devices you have purchased, they may be fake. 

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If you have any doubts be sure to buy directly from Apple