AirPods Max literally sweat in the summer heat

Summer is finally here, and now that the sun is out, it’s the perfect time to grab your headphones for a walk outside, a run, or a family road trip. But as the weather heats up, some AirPods Max owners notice something unusual inside their earcups, especially those who jump between outdoor humidity and air-conditioned rooms: condensation pools. It may be a shocking discovery, but it is not new. Every summer, I see a Reddit post after a Reddit post that shows dense drops of water along the inner walls under the ear cushions, and it is a problem that, surprisingly, continues with AirPods Max 2 designed in the same way.

Apple has actually already been sued over this issue twice. A class action filed in California in 2021 alleges a built-in defect that allows condensation to collect inside the cups after just an hour of normal use. A second lawsuit, filed in New York federal court in 2025, makes the same claim and ties moisture to dead sound in one or both cups, intermittent noise cancellation, dropped connections, and failing charging — and says Apple knew and sold them anyway. Four-plus years of complaints and two lawsuits later, the design hasn’t changed a bit.

The case is in its design and that’s what gives AirPods Max its aesthetic appeal: shiny, solid slabs of aluminum. Aside from looking cool, aluminum holds up to incredibly cold temperatures. Step out of an air-conditioned office or car, and the metal stays cold while your ears stay warm and moist. The bigger the gap, the more water inside the cup – hence the harsh reports from people who have never sweated, sitting at a desk in AC. Summer doesn’t cause so much as it stacks the deck: you sweat profusely, overdress yourself, and wander between hot streets and cold interiors all day. All of this moves the dial in the wrong direction.

To be fair, summarization alone is not exclusive to Apple. All closed, over-ear headphones will hold some level of heat and humidity. It’s just that aluminum cools down faster than plastic, which is used more by competitors. And honestly, this wouldn’t really be a problem if Apple had added proper moisture protection. As iFixit has written, there is a small, unsealed hole where the headband connects to the earpiece via what appears to be a thick lightning connector. It’s possible for water to slide down the smooth metal, find that opening, and eat away at the connector underneath. That may be the cause of the failure of the owners’ pattern to explain: the crack, then their ears stop being detected by the sensors, and finally the headphones will not hold the connection at all.

Apple could have easily fixed this with the AirPods Max 2, but alas, they couldn’t be bothered to change anything other than adding an H2 chip. So, people are left to develop. Others pull out the pads every hour or two to wipe the cups dry. Some stick silica gel packets to the area at night to draw out the moisture. One owner, after finding that third-party sweatbands caused high-pitched hums from noise-canceling microphones, turned to custom-fit sterile gauze sponges to soak in water before getting to anything important. To me, that seems like a lot of work to protect headphones you just spent $550 on. Sure, you could just buy AppleCare+ as insurance, but that’s spending a lot more money to overwrite a flaw that a simple design tweak could fix.

Should you be worried about your AirPods Max getting too much sun? If you do a lot of listening at home in a climate-controlled room, you could go years and never see a drop. But if you’re buying AirPods Max as your companion for summer trips, commutes, storage, cross-town trips, unfortunately they’re not strong in physics. The iron that makes them feel premium is the same iron that works against you. These are not workout headphones made for a sweaty gym session or hard work in the summer heat. Until Apple seals the insides or gives them a true water resistance rating, be careful where you wear your AirPods Max this summer.