# The Fairbuds 2 make battery swaps easy, but the sound is odd

Source: https://idevice.com/the-fairbuds-2-make-battery-swaps-easy-but-the-sound-is-odd
Published: 2026-11-08

> Lab tests from SoundGuys found strong noise cancelling and a toolless battery drawer, with short battery life and quiet mids. Buy them to keep them running.

Changing the battery in Fairphone's Fairbuds 2 takes no tools at all. You peel back the silicone sleeve, open a small drawer and swap in a standard LIR 1054 button cell. SoundGuys tested a pair Fairphone supplied, over three days, and that drawer is the best thing about them. The sound is a harder sell.

Photo: [SoundGuys](https://www.soundguys.com/we-lab-tested-the-worlds-most-maintainable-earbuds-fairphone-fairbuds-2-review-165283/)

A few rivals also claim replaceable batteries, but you often have to pry the bud open or take out several screws. Fairphone made the job simple enough that a normal owner might really do it. The charging case takes a little more effort: one T4 Torx screw on the bottom gets you to its cell, so you'll need that bit on hand.

There's a right way and a wrong way to push the drawer back in, and the reviewer thought they'd broken the earbud when a small alignment nub jammed. Line the notch up with the casing near the hinge and it goes in fine.

The buds are rated IP54 for dust and moisture, as long as the silicone sleeve is covering the drawer. At 5.8g each they're a little heavy, and the housing is shaped a bit strangely to make room for the battery, though you'd have to look closely to notice.

SoundGuys measured about 81% of outside noise cancelled by perceived loudness and scored the noise cancelling 8.1 out of 10. High-pitched sounds get through more easily, so you may still catch the odd one.

With noise cancelling on, the pair lasted 5 hours and 29 minutes, against Fairphone's claim of 6 hours, and that earned a 5.9 out of 10. Short runs are a fair trade only if you actually plan to use the swappable cell.

The tuning leans hard on bass and treble, and the mids go oddly quiet. Hi-hats and cymbals jump out, and the wires on a snare drum sound louder than they should. SoundGuys' audience model predicts a healthy 4.4 out of 5 from a panel of ordinary listeners, but its own reviewer, who listens to headphones for a living, disagreed with a score that high. The app won't rescue it. It has a 5-band EQ and three presets, none of which the reviewer liked more than the default, and you can't change the tap controls at all. Bluetooth 6.0 and LDAC are both here, and the odd tuning stays the same whichever you use.

The microphones work for calls, but they struggle to reject noise, and wind is the worst of it. If you take a lot of calls while walking outside, look elsewhere.

The left bud also once paired to the phone without the right, and only a factory reset cleared it. The reviewer was pairing an unusual number of devices at the time and thinks production firmware may fix it.

At €119, the choice comes down to how long you want your earbuds to last. Nothing else makes keeping them running this easy, and SoundGuys couldn't name a direct rival. The Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 5 sounds much better and also has replaceable batteries, but those cells are proprietary and far harder to change, and the pair costs about $300. If sound comes first, buy the Sennheiser. If you're tired of throwing away earbuds with dead batteries, buy these and expect to live with the tuning.

## Sources

- [SoundGuys](https://www.soundguys.com/we-lab-tested-the-worlds-most-maintainable-earbuds-fairphone-fairbuds-2-review-165283/) (SoundGuys)