Copy + Paste: Lets explore some “Apple” AirPods Max
Its 2023. China is a powerhouse of low-cost manufacturing that can reverse engineer just about anything; while doing so with shocking agility, and ever increasing quality (sometimes). I recently spent 2 months living in Shenzhen sourcing suppliers for our humanoid robot. On the weekends, we would venture out into various industrial and electronics markets, the scale of which I still don’t fully comprehend. Enter: Huaqiang Electronic World.
The first time we arrived here, I wasnt too sure what to expect. I had seen pictures online, and a ‘Strange Parts’ video on Youtube, but this hadn’t prepared me for the colossus that was waiting for us. Our Didi (Chinese Uber, essentially) dropped us off at the pedestrian crossing just north of the main entrance to the main building. We walked over to the pair of escalators that would gently float us up and into this ever-hungry beast of a structure. Once inside, the layout became clear pretty quickly. Each floor was sorted into sections: LED lighting, photography equipment, consumer electronics, kitchen goods, etc.
Thats enough about the location itself, there is a lot of info out there about this market. The main point of this blog entry is to explore a specific offering that I was very interested in.
At this market, you can find just about any knockoff electronic device. The two most popular: Dyson hair dryers, and AirPods. The AirPods Max variants were of particular interest. On first inspection, they ticked all the boxes of a high quality product:
They were heavy. My monkey brain started quickly lifting the AirPods up and down in the air as if to assess their quality further by feeling just how heavy they were. “Wow” I said. My caveman ancestors looking down with a large, toothy grin, as a tear rolled down their cheek. In this moment, I have made them proud.
The fabric and finishes felt very high quality. Had a bit of a George Costanza moment feeling the fabric headband.
They….showed up on my iPhone as official AirPods Max? And now show up in my registered Apple devices on my iCloud? Hmmm… this is where my need to crack these suckers open really started building up.
They sounded pretty damn good.
So, how much would a pair of these set me back? Roughly 350RMB. About 35 quid for my fellow UK citizens. I wrote back to my family in Canada telling them about this amazing feat of technological mimicry. They wanted in. I ended up buying 5 pairs, haggling the price down even further with a “high-volume” discount. The bag was secured.
I dont know if many of you know, but the actual AirPods Max have a lot of secrets inside them. Mainly, a ridiculously cool two pin connector and custom slip ring joint where the stem connects to the right side pod. Check out the iFixit teardown for more detail.
Theres no way thats in these knockoffs….right? Well, lets have a look.
I am going to try and roughly follow the iFixit teardown order. I am sure it will differ but it will serve as the guiding backbone.
On the surface, the similarities are striking. The only thing that seems out of place, is that the adjustment crown is plastic, and is very loose. Something that wouldnt make it past the Apple QC I am sure.
The ear cushions as well are extremely similar. I cant really tell the difference at a surface level. The fabric feels very high quality, and I dont notice any edge fraying or marking. They are magnetically attached to the main Pod bodies and pop off easily.
Cheeky; Apple logo with the typical Apple message. Aaaaaand, what seem to be genuine pentalobe screws. Out they come, lets see whats inside.
Right away the difference is very clear. Sadly, there is no custom slip-ring or two pin connector to disassemble the stems :(. But, there is still a bunch of interesting stuff going on in here.
The speakers look to just be pretty cheap run-of-the-mill headphones speakers. There are some custom boards, a battery, and oh my…some weights. Lets hope they’re not lead (boy, do they sure look like lead). My monkey brain has been tricked again!
First, Im going to get the speakers disconnected from their board connectors.
The left side speaker has a little IR sensor connected to the main board via a ribbon cable. The ribbon cable is marked with “T30L-MKGGFPC-V1.620230306”. Googling has returned no answers as to whether this is an actual Apple part.
Pulling the board out, I am being carful not to disturb the weights, juuuust in case. It seems like the only connection between the left and right side is the power cable for the battery connection. Which is soldered onto the board. I am going to leave that connected for as long as I can.
There is also a tiny microphone connected via ribbon cable to the bottom of the board. Another suspicious weight under the board.
Popping off the right side speaker went similarly. This side houses the battery and the button/wheel controls. Along with the charging connection and microphone connection along the bottom of the PCB.
At first, I thought that the ribbon cable running along the backside of the enclosure just connected the control buttons to the PCB was just that, a ribbon cable. But looking closer, it appears to be a rigid-flex PCB. Lets get it out
The button and crown are just tiny injection molded parts, with edges to keep them captive when assembled from the inside. The rigid flex PCB is glued to the bottom of the housing and connected to the main PCB.
Removing the main PCB is just the same two screws, along with the charging ribbon cable. I wont be able to fully remove it until the power cable transferring power from the battery to the right side is dealt with. Lets deal with those connections now.
Alright, lets dive into their solution for Apple’s slip ring. The design here is pretty simple, but still clever for such a cheap product. It is a few die cast parts, assembled together on a hinge to allow the Pods to rotate about the centre axis of the stem, while also being able to pivot slightly when being pulled over the users head.
The main stem housing is held down on screws that are floated on a spacer inside of a compression spring. This is interesting, my guess is this is to give the joint a bit of resistance to impact, and to prevent the thin screw bosses from cracking from the stretching forces when they are being placed atop the head.
There is also a screw along the top of the housing. Removing it allows the stem to be pulled out from the housing. I snipped the power connection at this point as it seems to be the only way to fully remove that stem.
The main hinge is supported by these two (die cast?) metal parts on either side of the joint. Removing them frees the main stem from its hinge. And then, the three parts can be removed from the Pod housing. Now, we are left with a plastic shell. I would go digging for the charging port, but I am going to wait until my Lead testing swabs arrive before diving any further into those weights….
It looks like the main chips being used are BLUETRUM BT8892E series chips. This is allowing them to emulate actual AirPods in iOS. Im not sure how they are able to clone it exactly. Somewhere, someone is doing something sketchy in order for BLUETRUM chips to be able to emulate them in iOS I am sure.
Looking a bit more at the stems and head band, I am still very impressed with the quality of the overmolding. There is a visible parting line if the light hits it just right, but in most lighting conditions it is invisible. The fabric on the banding is also similarly high quality to that which is on the ear cushions.
All in all, the internal build quality of these fake AirPods was much higher than I expected for the price I paid. I was partly expecting a nest of wires and poor solder joints when cracking open those housings for the first time. Taking a break now. I will return with an update when I have a sharper knife to cut off the overmolding, and some lead testing strips to see if the weights are indeed lead (which would be nice to know before I distribute these to my family) . But the fact that I can very easily cut and mark these weights with a kitchen knife doesn’t bode well.
Cheers,