How To Tell If AirPods Are Fake (2024)

AirPods are one of the most selling products that Apple has ever served in the market. And, seeing its popularity, many other brands have tried out to make its clones as well. Unfortunately, most of such brands are successful in making AirPods clones since the design of the Apple AirPods is fairly minimal and easy to replicate. That said, if you have purchased Apple AirPods recently, but either from an Apple Reseller or from any other third-party source, there are high chances that you might have a fake product in your hands.

Until and unless you buy Apple AirPods from the Apple Store or their official website, you can’t be sure about the genuineness of the product these days. So, in this post, we will be telling you several ways that can help you check the authenticity of your AirPods. So, if you have any doubt over your AirPods being fake ones, read this post until the end.

How To Tell If AirPods Are Fake

There are several different ways by which you can check if your AirPods are fake or not. If you have purchased your AirPods directly from the online store, or any official Apple Store, you might have the legitimate product in your hands. Still, if you want to confirm its authenticity, you can follow up with this article.

Check Serial Number

How to check if your AirPods Serial number is valid

One of the easiest ways to spot a fake pair of AirPods is by checking and matching its serial number with Apple’s database. To confirm that the serial number of your AirPods is valid and is registered with Apple, you can visit checkcoverage.apple.com and check the details that are attached with the serial number.

If the serial number present on your AirPods is valid, the website will show you all the information regarding the AirPods such as the Time of Purchase, Service Coverage, and all other necessary information that will be useful for you.

Fake AirPods with a Genuine serial number

Smart clone makers also know that people can check and validate their AirPods by the above-mentioned methods. Hence, some of the fake AirPods products also come with genuine serial numbers mentioned on the packaging. However, this is a mistake as all the information regarding the AirPods is attached with the serial number. If your serial number gets validated on the site, you can check and confirm if the Date of Purchase is correct or not. Sometimes, clone makers make the mistake of putting a genuine serial number, but a wrong one! So, if you have AirPods 2, and the serial number is AirPods Pro, then you have definitely invested in a fake product.

Error Message “Purchase Date not Validated”

If you have recently purchased your AirPods from an Apple Reseller, there are high chances that you will encounter the message “Purchase Date not Validated” when you check your serial number on the website. It is because the Reseller is responsible to send the data about the sold products to Apple, which most Resellers do either at the end of the day or maybe the next day. So, it’s better to wait for a few days until the information gets updated on Apple’s end. Otherwise, you can do it manually by clicking on the “Update Purchase Date” on the website and registering your serial number manually. Once it’s registered, you can check for the details and see if they match with your AirPods.

No information of AirPods in About Section

Although clone makers can easily replicate the physical design and hardware parts very precisely, cloning the software is quite a difficult task for them. That said, you can simply go to the About section in your iPhone, and see all the details about your AirPods from your phone. To do so, Open the Settings app on your iPhone, then tap on General and go to the About section. If your AirPods are genuine, you will find all the information regarding them on the About page. Otherwise, if they are made by some other brand instead of Apple, you won’t find an About page regarding the AirPods.

Active Noise Cancellation and Transparency mode not available (AirPods Pro)

The Active Noise Cancellation and Transparency Mode features are exclusive to the latest Apple AirPods Pro series only. Well, the tech is absolutely interesting and it’s also one of the reasons why AirPods Pro are priced too high as compared to AirPods 1st or 2nd Gen models. Thus, these two technologies are quite hard to replicate and are generally not found in fake AirPods pro. Even if the options to turn them On might be available in the software, they won’t work at all since fake AirPods Pro doesn’t have that sort of hardware inside of them. The Active Noise Cancellation feature is something that can make a huge difference in the sound quality by cutting away all the ambient noises. So, if your AirPods Pro is not able to do so, they are absolutely fake!

Ear Tip Fit Test not working

Yet another interesting feature that you will find only on AirPods Pro is the Ear Tip Fit Test. With this test, your Apple AirPods Pro can check if they are fitting right in your ears, hence if the fit is good, AirPods indicate a “Good Seal” message on your iPhone.

However, when it comes to fake AirPods Pro, you might have this feature on them too, but that doesn’t work properly. To test that out, you can start the Ear Tip Fit Test on your AirPods Pro, and take the AirPods off. If the AirPods are legit, the Ear Tip Fit Test will fail. On the other hand, the fake AirPods will continue with the test and still show you the “Good Seal” message on your iPhone.

It means that your AirPods are not able to detect whether you are wearing them or not, which is a clear sign that you are using a fake pair of AirPods.

The Case Has a Micro USB Charging Port

As you might already know, Apple offers a Lightning port for charging on almost all of its devices, except the latest iPad and Mac devices. Hence, if your AirPods case comes with a Micro USB charging port instead of a Lightning port, they are definitely not legit. This is generally found in the extremely cheap clone products which are pretty easy to distinguish from the genuine ones.

Not Your AirPods Pro message on initial pairing

In some cases, people have also reported that they have received a different message from the AirPods during the initial pairing. Normally, when you pair new AirPods with an iPhone, they generally don’t belong to anyone before, and hence, you only get an “AirPods Pro” popup on your iPhone’s screen. However, the fake ones usually show up with the message “Not your AirPods Pro” which indicates that they have been used before, and can be a fake one!

What Else you Can Check?

• When you have connected your AirPods with your iPhone or iPad, you can rename your AirPods by going into the Settings > Bluetooth > AirPods section. However, if the AirPods that you are using are fake, you won’t see the feature to rename them. That clearly indicates that your AirPods are not legitimate.
• Another good feature that is hard to clone is the Spatial Audio. Using original AirPods, you can turn on this feature by going into the phone Settings, then clicking on Bluetooth, and tapping on AirPods. Once you turn it on, you will get an option that says, “See & Hear How It Works”. Click on it, and if you notice no change in the audio, most probably your AirPods are fake as this feature brings a significant noticeable change in the sound quality of the AirPods.
• You can also take help from Siri to find out if your AirPods are fake or not. For this test, the Siri & Search option should be turned on in the settings first. Then, all you have to do is connect your AirPods with the iPhone and move away from the iPhone. The AirPods 2 and AirPods Pro are programmed to work with Siri, so they should listen to your Voice Commands. If Siri fails to work with your AirPods 2 or AirPods Pro, yours might be a fake one.
• The Live Listen feature is another useful one that the latest AirPods come with. With this feature, the AirPods listen to the surroundings and boost the audio for you, which can be quite a useful feature for those with hearing deficiencies. However, fake AirPods don’t allow you to turn on this feature while you are using them. However, on original AirPods, you can switch this feature On and Off anytime you want.
• Since AirPods are so compact, there’s always a risk that you might drop them unknowingly or misplace them. That said, using the Find My app can be a highly useful one if you want to locate your Apple products. Generally, the fake AirPods do not come with certain hardware and can’t be located using the app. So, if this feature doesn’t seem to work with your AirPods, they are surely fake.
• With the release of the iOS 13 update, Apple introduced the Audio Share feature that lets you listen to the same song that your friend is listening to on his/her AirPods. That said, this feature helps to play the same song on two different AirPods so that two people can enjoy the same playlists at one time, on their own AirPods. However, this feature is usually missing on the fake ones and doesn’t work properly.

Conclusion

So far, we have discussed all the ways by which you can check the authenticity of your AirPods Pro. There are so many clones available in the market that it’s quite a hard task to distinguish them from the original ones right away. However, if you want to avoid such fraud, you should always buy your Apple products from the official stores only. In case there’s no Apple Store nearby, you can order online via their Official Website as well. Buying from anywhere else apart from these two options is quite risky and there are high chances that you might be bringing home a fake product. If you think any of your colleagues or family members need to know about this post, don’t forget to share this article with them. Moreover, if you have any queries or doubts left uncleared, let us know about it in the comments section below.