The AirPods 5 blew me away, but Android users should beware

I am among those people who just can’t stand the weird feeling of rubber tips blocking their ear canals and creating a pressurized seal. Apple is one of the few remaining brands that didn’t entirely ditch open-ear earbuds, and its latest AirPods 5 caught my eye particularly for one little detail — up to 50% better ANC performance than its predecessor. I wanted to test that claim while also assessing if they are even worth pairing with Android.

The results came out quite shocking, both in good and bad ways. I won’t tease you more than this and get right to what you’re here for.

AirPods 5 are surprisingly good

I so despise the in-ear feel of modern earphones that I default to my over-ear Bose QC45 most of the time and only resort to my in-ear buds when the headphones aren’t feasible, like when traveling light.

My only problem with open-ear buds has so far been the lack of proper noise cancellation, due to the very design limitation that makes them appealing to me. I had given up hope entirely, but hearing that Apple improved active noise cancellation on the AirPods 5 made me curious. The first time I put them in my ears, I was quite blown away — those around me could see the amazement on my face.

For a moment, I couldn’t fathom that an open earbud that doesn’t completely seal the ear canal was able to mute out 80% to 85% of the noise for me. The good folks at SoundGuys ran a much more thorough ANC test and concluded that it outperforms both its predecessor and the Galaxy Buds 4, which also come with an open design.

Without passive isolation, the perceived noise reduction is different for everyone, and for me, they exceeded my expectations. They strike the right balance I have been looking for so long, where I don’t have to choose between comfort and bearing ambient noise. The AirPods 5 have become my go-to pair for almost everything — the only caveat remaining is their compatibility with Android.

They play nice with Android — until they don’t

I liked the new AirPods enough to want them to work well with Android, even though I had my reservations. To my surprise, a lot of the AirPods 5’s exclusive features, including its noise cancellation, the option to alternate between transparency and ANC modes using the stem, and the new volume control slider, all worked perfectly fine. Even Conversation Awareness, which lowers the music volume and turns off ANC momentarily while you are talking, also worked as expected.

However, my skepticism proved right beyond that point, because there were a handful of ergonomic features that simply refused to work on Android. One of the most basic trinkets I missed was automatic ear detection, which works promptly on the iPhone but not on Android. So, your music continues to play even if you pluck an earbud out to talk to someone. Besides that, since AirPods are perhaps the tiniest custodians of Apple’s closed-off ecosystem, you can’t check the battery percentage while on Android. Nor can you update the AirPods firmware or use Android’s Find Hub network to locate a lost AirPod. All of it requires an Apple device.

Even multipoint breaks when you step outside the Apple ecosystem. When I tried to switch between my Pixel and my Mac, it required me to manually dig into the Bluetooth settings to switch between the devices. This feels deliberately prohibitive to the point of becoming frustrating, especially when you need to frequently switch devices.

For the features that I seamlessly worked without a hiccup, I suspect it has to do with the fact that I set up the AirPods with an iPhone before pairing them with my Pixel. That means you can make them work with Android if you have a fallback Apple device, like a Mac, handy for things like firmware updates and Find My.

Having said that, it would be imprudent to underestimate Android — someone has already made a solution to all these AirPods woes.

Third-party app fix

There are apps available that can give the AirPods the interface they lack on Android. I tried a handful of them but finally settled on LibrePods. The biggest thing working in its favor is the clean interface versus every other mainstream app that looks like it was designed in 2016, no less. It feels like a very Pixel-y app — if not for the font, one could easily mistake it for a system app from Google. But what particularly pleased me was that it instantly enabled in-ear detection and showed the earbuds’ battery percentage, both of which I was sorely missing. The experience suddenly became far less irritating.

The app promises to enable additional smart features associated with the AirPods 5, including head gestures to accept or decline calls and customizing the long-press gesture to wake up the digital assistant, for a small fee. It said ₹650 on the Play Store for me here in India, which I assume should be no more than $10 in the US. However, if you pull the app from GitHub, it’s completely free. Either way, it’s well worth it, especially considering how much more useful it makes the AirPods on Android.

AirPods 5 or something else?

Apple sure doesn’t intend that you use the AirPods 5 outside its walled ecosystem. That’s the reason the experience isn’t as elegant on Android as it is with an iPhone. LibrePods improves it quite a lot, though it’s still not perfect — like the inability to update firmware.

Even though I find the AirPods 5 tailor-made for me, considering the ideal ear fit and ANC performance, I would only recommend them if you live in a mixed ecosystem, with at least one Apple device. Be it an iPad or a Mac, having an Apple device helps you control its smart features and ensure timely software updates — and then, you can make it work with an Android phone and LibrePods.

Otherwise, if you live exclusively in the Android and Windows world and are just tempted by the AirPods 5’s ANC capabilities, I advise against it. While its noise cancellation in an open design is perhaps among the best, it alone isn’t worth the other hoops it will make you jump through to even get the basic setup running. It will leave you more frustrated than its ANC could ever make you happy.

It’s better to settle for slightly lower noise cancellation, but with far better Android compatibility. There are quite a few open-ear buds available, from the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 to the Anker Soundcore AeroFit 2 Pro, to choose from.