Want to know more about Fake Airpods? The Apple AirPods are among the foremost popular wireless earbuds on the earth, with their iconic protruding stem design leading to an enormous influx of true wireless earbuds manufacturers paying homage to the buds. 

That acclaim has only been cemented by the discharge of the Apple AirPods Pro, which brought noise cancellation and Spatial Audio support to the favored earbuds. 

While there are many legitimate AirPods-alternatives on the market today, a number of which are literally much better than Apple’s earbuds in terms of design and audio quality, the recognition of the AirPods has given rise to a troubling trend for fakery. 

The high price of both models, alongside the rarity of great AirPods deals, has caused people to pounce once they appear at a reduced sum. Unfortunately, not all of those Apple AirPods deals are quite what they appear, with fake buds shooting up everywhere Amazon and eBay. 

If you’ve bought yourself a pair of AirPods but are unsure if they’re the important deal, there are a couple of telltale signs that you simply should keep an eye fixed out for which will assist you determine whether or not they are what they assert they’re.

Check the serial number

The quickest way for checking the authenticity of your AirPods is to see the serial number, which can be found easily on the underside of the lid of the charging case. It also appears on the rock bottom of the proper earbud. 

Enter that number at check.coverage.apple.com, and if your buds are authentic, you’ll be ready to review your Apple warranty status. If your serial number is fake, this won’t work.

Hook up with an iOS device

When you pair AirPods or AirPods Pro with an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you’ll see a touch AirPods icon next to your device within the Bluetooth settings menu. you ought to even be ready to view the serial and model numbers once connected.

How do Fake airpods look?

Fake AirPods: How do they look?

Checking the serial number is the easiest method to understand if you’ve got fake AirPods, but there are a couple of design anomalies that would give the sport away even sooner. 

First, Apple packaging is usually very neat, and therefore the lid of the AirPods box should fit snugly and tightly, with the whole package wrapped in plastic. Of course, this is often quite easy for fraudsters to duplicate, so you shouldn’t base your conclusion on the packaging alone. 

Even so, typos are a dead giveaway that your AirPods are fake, both on the outer packaging and within the accompanying documents inside the box.

The earbuds themselves are often checked pretty thoroughly against the merchandise images on the Apple website. 

Check the rock bottom of your earbuds for clues, too. The first AirPods have an oval-shaped vent at rock bottom (not circular), while the AirPods Pro haven’t any vent in the least.

Finally, make certain to see the charging case. It should accompany a Lightning port, not USB-C, a standing light on the front, and therefore the lid should snap magnetically into place. 

The way to avoid fake AirPods

The simplest way to avoid buying a fake pair of AirPods is to get them directly from the Apple Store, a trusted retailer, or through Apple’s Amazon store.

Of course, there are many legitimate AirPods and AirPods Pro available to shop for on Amazon and eBay from third-party sellers – and if you’re trying to find a bargain, you’ll want to shop for second-hand. 

If you’re on the lookout for second-hand buds, inspect seller reviews and punctiliously examine photos of the merchandise – but bear in mind that these won’t always be legitimate.

In many cases, it’s going to be better to look for reasonable AirPods alternatives rather than trying to shop for second-hand buds, particularly if you’re worried about being ripped off with fake AirPods.

There are many fantastic true wireless earbuds out there, and lots of are cheaper than Apple’s earbuds. The Lypertek Tevi are one such example, offering fantastic audio and an unbelievably long battery life for a coffee price. For noise-cancelling alternatives to the AirPods Pro, inspect the Sony WF-1000XM3, which we’ve crowned the simplest true wireless earbuds around.

If it’s the planning of the AirPods that you are a fan of, then there are many manufacturers making earbuds with long ear stems. inspect wireless earbuds from Urbanista, JBL, and Huawei for cheaper alternatives. 

Those who really have their heart set on the Apple AirPods or AirPods Pro should keep an eye fixed out for deals – they’ll not always see huge discounts, but you’ll be ready to devour Apple’s earbuds for a touch but the retail price.

inspect the lightning port

Flip the case over and have a glance at the lightning port, the port through which you’d charge the case.

As you’ll see here, this metal outline that wraps this port is thicker on the fakes, thus having a special shape.

Besides that, albeit the sunshine angle within the fake vs real AirPods comparison is different, it means there’s a difference in colour.

Fake AirPods case

Fake AirPods: AirPods case

Having a glance at the rear side of the case, we’ve found three main flaws.

For starters, the circle button is placed above it’s meant to get on the fake AirPods case.

Next up, the “Designed by Apple in California / Assembled in China” text isn’t only thicker on the fake AirPods case, but also printed in a different shade of grey.

As a consequence, the spacing between the hinges and therefore the text is different. We’ve highlighted the difference within the grey boxes.

Last but not least, we’ll address the difference found within the hinge area. Here’s a better picture comparison:

As you’ll see, the way the hinge is segmented is significantly sharper on the fake AirPods case. That, once more , shows a scarcity of expertise and quality, since fake manufacturers are compromising for the sake of a less expensive price.

On top of that, the replica case used this mirror-like material on the hinge — which reflects everything quite the fabric found on the authentic case.

Quickly scan the light-up indicator

Last but not least, one vital detail for a way to identify a fake AirPods case are often noticed by opening it up and inspecting the light-up indicator.

As we’ve highlighted within the picture above, it’s just like the light-up indicator on the AirPods case is misplaced.

This flaw isn’t always found on the replica AirPods, since it’s obviously a blatant mistake, but we felt like adding it to our guide with great care that you simply are going to be reminded to possess a fast check of this detail also.

I understand people are concerned with the fake vs real AirPod headphone comparison, yet we’ve placed the box higher on this list since the issues are easier to spot here.

For obvious reasons, the standard lacks on the box that comes with the headphones since fake manufacturers don’t care that much about the tiny details.

For starters, we’ll have a glance at the rock bottom side of the enclosed box.

Over here we will notice three things:

The space between the duvet and therefore the box is super tight on the authentic box. On the fake AirPods box, you’ll see there’s more room where the gap is fluctuating in breadth.

The font on the fake box is thicker than its authentic counterpart.

Last but not least, the lightning cable illustration on the fake box is truncated on the rock bottom part.

As for the sides, you will see that the AirPods text is significantly different. For one, the classic San Francisco font isn’t used on the fake AirPods box.

Besides that, you will also note that the fake text contains reflective properties, while the authentic box has this textbox that is simply printed in grey.

On another facet of the box cover, you’ll notice an enormous giveaway for the replica. As you’ll notice, multiple separate stickers are attached to the authentic box.

Besides that, it looks like the fake AirPods accompany Chinese text within the upper left corner. Whether there’s or isn’t Chinese text anywhere on the box can vary supporting the region where the Apple AirPods were purchased from.

However, it’s like no matter the region, the text found on the fakes is slightly thicker.

Moving on to the side with the Apple logo, it seems that when again the fakes have this area printed with a reflective material, instead of simply printing it in grey.

Last but not least, upon opening the box you’ll notice the covering cardboard with instruction papers.

AirPods technical details

We will finish this authentication guide by mentioning there are technical differences on counterfeit AirPods.

It almost goes without saying that this happens since replica manufacturers don’t plan on perfectly replicating the Apple chips that are found inside the first AirPods — and presumably , nor do they need access to what Apple has developed.

We will note here:

Authentic AirPods were never released in any colourway aside from white (for the time being)

The authentic AirPods connect faster to your phone. It’s estimated that it shouldn’t take longer than 10 seconds to attach the headphones to your device

The battery life is shorter on fake AirPods

Some fake AirPods have a female voice audio file playing when connecting to your device — authentic AirPods only play a sound that’s specific to Apple

Some fake AirPods accompany the USB-C port rather than the classic Apple Lightning port

Naturally, find my AirPods under find my iPhone won’t work with the counterfeit version

We hope you find this article helpful. Let us know if you have any further query or comment regarding this topic. Looking forward to your reviews. Checkout our articles on; how to clean AirPods, how to charge AirPods pro, how to use AirPods, how to reset AirPods.