BT Headphone Killer - Warning!

DX2JX2

I just learned the hard way that it's very easy to overcharge bluetooth headphones since they do not contain the circuitry to avoid this circumstance like our phones & tablets do. Overcharging will kill your headphones very quickly.

I bought a pair of Jaybird X3 headphones two months ago and treated them like I do my phone. When they got low on charge I left them on the charger overnight so they'd be ready for my morning run. I probably did this about 3 or 4 times total.

The headphones no longer hold a charge. They will go from 100% to 0% in two hours even if not being used. According to some internet research, I likely fried the battery via overcharging. This doesn't seem to be that uncommon a thing.

Apparently, you are only supposed to leave headphones on the charger until they are fully charged and no longer. For most headphones, this is about 2 hours or thereabouts for a completely empty battery. Any longer and you'll be overcharging the battery and literally sucking life out of it.

Anyway, BT headphone users be warned and something for those of us that tend to go through BT headphones rather quickly to consider. Are you inadvertently killing your headphones via overcharging? Note that it happens pretty quickly...my headphones went from fine to dead within only a couple of 'overcharging' events.

Also, it's recommended to stick with computer-based USB ports for charging since they're relatively low power and won't overload the headphone battery (though you still need to take the headphones off the charger once they're fully charged). Outlet-based USB plugs may be OK (check the specs of the plug vs. the max your headphones can handle) but car chargers are generally a no-no for headphones.

I'm not sure why manufacturers don't make a bigger deal about the severity of overcharging in their manuals but hopefully the board can learn from my $129 lesson.

lorrpb

The instructions that came with mine very clearly stated not to over charge them, only about 30 min.