Apple AirPods are one of the priciest earbuds out there, the last situation you want to be in is one where your earbud is producing a muffled sound while you’re trying to speak.
Even though Apple puts a lot of dedication in the design of their products, making something powerful with a stylish appearance, sometimes issues like this still get to happen.
In this article, we will be discussing the factor that can cause your Airpod mic to be producing a muffled sound. We will also go through some solutions you can try on yours if you happen to be experiencing the same issues with yours.
Airpod Mic Sounds Muffled: Possible Causes
Despite Apple AirPods being made with some cutting-edge technology, many things can go wrong with it, and some of these can result in your mic producing a muffled sound.
-
Low Battery
In most cases, your AirPods do not necessarily need to be damaged, it might just need a little charge. If your battery is low, and you’re on a call, the person you’re communicating with may experience a muffled sound, or it might even cut out entirely.
You want to make sure that your Airpod is fully charged, or at least has reasonable charge before making any conclusion as to what’s making it cause the muffling sound.
-
Out of Sync Microphone
Your AirPods are designed to automatically choose which of the microphones will be used. While this is a convenient feature for when you’re switching Airpods to the another being charged in the case, it becomes a problem if your Airpod case is having a minor fault or you were not looking to switch the Airpod completely; the older one isn’t returned to its case.
In most cases, your mic will go completely out of sync and you’ll notice the device being disconnected to reconnect again, or the mic will begin to work in one of the ears which is not the one closer to your mouth.
-
You Have Noise Cancelation Turned On
When you have an aggressive noise cancellation feature on regular mics, you may not get to hear the actual voice properly unless the speaker gets to talk louder, or sometimes even shout – it’s more or less the same situation with airpod mics. If you happen to be speaking on a low tone while your noise cancelation feature is on it may not get to properly pick your voices, hence, causing a muffled sound.
-
Dirt Covering Microphone Area
This is often the case if you’ve been using your AirPods for a long time, have been careless with it, and giving it little maintenance. Over time, there can be an accumulation of dirt (majorly dust) on the opening of the mic, and this will cause a stepped-down sound reception on the mic.
-
Outdated Firmware
It’s a common theme among Apple devices; when they’re outdated, they tend to malfunction until the user gets them updated again. While we must be quick to point out that this is not necessarily a fault of the manufacturer, it’s something you want to have done. Check to see if there’s a new firmware update for your Airpod and proceed to update if needed.
Airpod Mic Sounds Muffled: How to Fix
The good thing about Apple’s Airpod mic issues is that most of them are software-based, as such, can easily be fixed. However, the bad side is that most of the hardware issues are unratifiable as the device is very portable and is sealed, instead of being coupled with knots.
While that’s the case, it’s quite easy to infer the solution to some of the possible causes outlined above, as such we’ll only pay attention to those needing some extra tutorial.
-
Specify the Microphone to Use
One way to fix the muffling sound issue on your Airpods is to be in complete control of how it selects the microphone to use. To do this, simply follow the steps below.
- On your iPhone or iPad, navigate through Settings >> Bluetooth, then tap the “i” in a circle next to your AirPods
- Now tap the Microphone option at the bottom and choose either “Always Left” or “Always Right”
- This will restrict mic access to only one ear at a time. It helps you know if it’s only the mic of one ear that’s defective, or on both ears.
-
Turn On Transparency Mode on Calls
We’ve already discussed how noise cancelation modes can affect your mic quality. While simply turning off noise cancelation can work, another effective step to getting your mic back is to switch to transparency mode. The whole idea of the transparency mode feature is to allow more sounds through your mic.
Most users acknowledge that this was the solution to their muffled mic problem in the past, so it’s worth a shot for you as well. The only blemish is that you may now need to always use your Airpod in a quiet environment as it’ll be picking up all sounds from the surroundings.
-
Clean the Mic and Speakers
It’s somewhat of a no-brainer if you notice dirt covering the openings for the speakers and mics, you’d need to get them cleaned before exploring any other solution to get them fixed. You can use a dry cotton swab or a tiny pin to pick dirt from the airways. While cleaning, make sure you don’t press too hard on the speaker mesh to avoid the risk of damaging it.
-
Update your iPhone or iPad
Surprising as it may sound, the problem can come from your phone as well. While we’ve talked about how an outdated Airpod firmware can stop the mic from working properly, you want to make sure your device is running on the current iOS as well. Apple usually releases an update for all its devices once every year, you want to make sure that yours are up to date to get the best performance from them.
-
Reset your Airpods
Resetting Airpods when they start misbehaving has always been a reliable solution especially if the problem just started happening with no logical explanation. Although you’ll lose your custom settings and paring to your device, it’s worth a shot if it gets the work done.
- Open the case lid for about 30 seconds
- On your phone, navigate through to Settings >> Bluetooth >> and tap the “I” in a circle next to your AirPods, and forget the device.
- Long-press the multi-function button on the back of the charging case until the indicator lights start to flash amber, and then white.
- Proceed to pair your Airpod again.
In this article, we’re not covering solutions to physical damages as you’re not likely to be able to have it solved on your own. Cases like water damage, damaged casing, or dead battery may pretty much mean the end of the Airpod.
