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Bang & Olufsen's new earbuds with ‘replaceable batteries’ don’t seem to be very repairable

iFixit did a teardown of the $500 Beoplay Eleven earbuds and found the batteries are a lot more difficult to replace than the company implied.

Bang & Olufsen announced its new $499 premium earbuds, the Beoplay Eleven, back in November, touting among other things their replaceable batteries “for sustainability” and alignment with the EU’s impending device repairability requirements. Bang & Olufsen said the earbuds’ design “allows for battery replacement by service,” which, as iFixit notes, suggests that this isn’t meant to be a repair you can do yourself at home. It did ultimately turn out to be possible to take one of the earbuds apart without damaging any of the electronics inside, but the laborious teardown calls into question how feasible — and sustainable — battery replacement would be even when carried out at a B&O service center.

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