Read: Best Airpods Pro Cases to Give It Extra Protection It Needs
1. When charging with a Lightning Cable
To check if the Airpods are charging while it’s plugged in with the lightning cable, you have to open the case to see the orange LED glowing. Even though the LED is on the outside of the Wireless case, you still have to open the case to see if the AirPods are charging when charging via the lightning cable.
2. When charging wirelessly
It would be pointless to pick up your AirPods from a Wireless charging pad and opening the case just to check if the AirPods are charging or not. That’s why, when you put the AirPods on a wireless charging pad, you can gently tap the AirPods Case and it would light up the LED indicating the Charging status of the Case. Also Read: Anker 10W Qi Wireless Charger Review – Worthy Enough?
3. Ask Siri
If you’re too lazy to reach any of your devices, you can always ask Siri (nicely) to get the battery level for you. Simply ask “Hey Siri, What’s the battery level on my AirPods” and it should respond with the current battery level. It works on both iOS and macOS but my experience on macOS wasn’t great.
Running on macOS Mojave, Siri struggled to get the correct battery percentage of one of my AirPods but Siri on iOS 13 gave an accurate answer every time.
4. On the iPhone
You can stay updated on the battery status of AirPods at all times with the help of the Battery Widget. On iOS 14, you can put the widget on the Home screen to check the status of the battery. It’s that simple. Here’s how to add & customize Widgets on iOS 14. The only caveat with this method is that it would only tell you the Case Battery level if the AirPods are in the case.
Also Read: How to Get Alert When iPhone Battery Reaches 80%
5. On a Mac
Unlike iOS 14, macOS Big Sur doesn’t have a battery widget to tell the battery levels of your devices and you can only do that by going to the Bluetooth Settings. Simply click the Control Center button on the menu bar and expand Bluetooth Settings. It should show you the battery percentage. Just like iOS 14, it only shows the Case battery level if the AirPods are in the case. Read: Airpods Not Working Properly With Mac – Quick Fix
On another note, you can use AirBuddy to get an iOS-style notification on your computer.
6. On an Apple Watch
The Apple Watch goes really well with all the devices in the ecosystem and you can check the AirPods Battery on it as well. It works just like the iPhone. Open the Control Center on the Watch by touching and hold the bottom of the screen, then swipe up, next tap the Battery Percentage icon, and see the battery levels of all the connected devices including Airpods. Read: Best Cases and Tempered Glasses for Apple Watch 6
7. On an Android Smartphone
AirPods are clearly an Apple device meant to run within the Apple ecosystem but also work just as fine with Android smartphones. There are plenty of apps that would show a similar popup when you bring the AirPods near the phone and open the case.
To check the battery level of your AirPods Pro on an Android, install AirBattery and give it all the permission it wants. Simply open the case next to the phone and it should show you the current battery percentage. AirBattery is free on the Play Store and has ads. Install AirBattery
8. Windows
Although Windows 10 natively supports the battery levels of Bluetooth devices connected to the computer, AirPods for some reason don’t transmit the data to Windows. The Bluetooth Battery Monitor is a nifty app that sits in the System Tray and tells you the battery percentage of devices, even Apple’s AirPods. The app comes with a seven-day free trial and if you like the app then you can purchase it for $4.99. Get Bluetooth Battery Monitor (free, $4.99) Read: How to Change Windows Start-up Sound
No Support for Linux yet
These were all the ways you can check the battery and charging status of the AirPods Pro. I tried to cover all the major OSes but couldn’t find an app that works with Linux computers, yet. If I find one in the future, I’d update the list above. While the first two methods don’t tell the exact battery level, those are still good if you just want a quick glance. Apart from Siri on macOS, all the methods work pretty much the same regardless of the platform. Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments below. Read: How to connect AirPods to PS4 (Or Any Bluetooth Headphone)
