Bang & Olufsen announced its last November, touting, among other things, their replaceable batteries “for their durability” and their alignment with the EU’s looming device repairability requirements. But one The teardown tells a more complicated story about actually replacing these batteries, describing the process of opening the case as “a very expensive and laborious task…even for a trained technician.” And inside, the battery is attached to other components in a way that requires heat to remove it, which in itself would not comply with upcoming EU rules. Considering all the work involved, the headphones scored an abysmal 1/10 on iFixit’s repairability dashboard.
Bang & Olufsen said the design of the earbuds “allows for battery replacement per service,” which, as iFixit notes, suggests it’s not a repair you can do yourself at the house. It ultimately proved possible to disassemble one of the earbuds without damaging the electronics inside, but the laborious disassembly calls into question the feasibility – and durability – of replacing the battery even if done in a B&O service center. After opening the case and finding “a plastic solder mark preventing access to the battery,” notes iFixit’s Shahram Mokhtari in the video that “at a minimum, any battery replacement service should completely eliminate the plastic casing.”
“I would like to see B&O’s process for changing these batteries,” Mokhtari wrote in the blog post. “I’m willing to bet it’s neither cheap nor waste-free, but I’d like to be wrong.” The teardown also revealed that the Beoplay Eleven was a “carbon copy” of the Beoplay EX 2022 internally. “Even the detachable film on the back of each earbud says ‘Beoplay EX’ – not ‘Beoplay Eleven’,” Mokhtari wrote. Yeah.
