How to Convince a Stranger to Return Lost AirPods
Two hundred dollar wireless headphones are great. Until you lose them.
I have long resisted buying good headphones, even in the heady days of the ubiquitous headphone jack. I know myself, and I know how likely it is that I will lose my headphones, wash them with my laundry, or see them destroyed by a child or dog. But my preferred solution (buy cheap wired headphones and use them until they break) became less palatable when I switched to an iPhone without a jack and also had to keep an eye on the dongle. It also made me feel uncomfortable with all this technological waste – the $ 5 headphones will break in a few weeks, but will be forever in a landfill. So I switched to wireless bluetooth headphones. I started out with various models of cheap AirPod clones for reasons (see above) and did continue to lose, damage, or wear out a few pairs (well, technically, the one that fell on the subway grill isn’t lost ). Feeling guilty again about all this e-junk (which now includes a few useless charging cases as well as the earbuds themselves), I decided to spend a little more on some Beats Studio earbuds because they belong to Apple and therefore work. with Find Me device recovery system. Unfortunately, this method requires the earbuds to be out of the case and within Bluetooth reach , but this is no big deal. (Although it’s worth noting that this feature will get much better in iOS 15 – but only for AirPods Pro or AirPods Max. Alas.) Even with the increased protection of Find My (not to mention the alertness caused by the anxiety that comes with not wanting to lose more expensive earbuds), I could still lose my last l’il buds, so I’ll also use the advice that came up in the comments on a recent Lifehacker post about all the cool things your AirPods Pro can do :
I don’t know if Roncore came up with this idea, but this is news to me and is quite ingenious. It’s extremely easy to rename your AirPods, AirPods Pro, or, in my case, Beats Studio Buds in Bluetooth settings. Instead of calling them something cute (my previous headphone nicknames included “smolpods” and the aforementioned “l’il buddies”), rename them to match your email address. The next time the earbuds are connected to your phone, you will see a new name – and they should also appear in the same way on whatever other device they connect to. ( Edited to add: The ability to write a Bluetooth device name to a device will differ depending on what the device is and how it uses Bluetooth . Some devices cannot be renamed, and as far as I can tell, this trick only works with Apple headphones renamed at Apple. I can personally confirm that the above method works with multiple iPhones, Google Pixel phone, MacBook Air, AirPods and Beats Studio Buds.) you after trying to connect them to their phone, but it at least allows them to do it’s easy. I say try to appeal to their sense of decency and guilt.
How to Rename Bluetooth Devices in iOS
1. Open the Settings app and tap Bluetooth .
2. Plug in your headphones (or any other device / accessory) if you haven’t already.
3. Tap the circle with the lowercase “i” next to the current headphone name.
4. Tap the Name field at the top, enter your email address and tap Done.
This article was edited after publication to remove incorrect information and to clarify that this renaming method has only been tested with Apple AirPods and Beats Studio Buds.