7 underused AirPods tips and tricks to try

AirPods are one of the best products Apple has ever released, hands down. They may not have been the first truly wireless earbuds on the market, but it’s impossible to argue that Apple wasn’t the company that popularized them. I remember working for a telecom carrier when AirPods first hit store shelves and calling my manager to hold a pair for me until the end of my shift while covering at another location. Since the first generation of AirPods was released in 2016, Apple has continuously shipped new and valuable features year after year.

Here are seven awesome AirPods Pro (1st generation and 2nd generation) features, the first five of which also support AirPods (3rd generation), that are very underused.

1 Rename your AirPods

Something to make them easy identifiable

Apple AirPods Pro (2nd Gen)

The Apple AirPods Pro 2nd Gen come with improved noise cancellation, spatial audio, and a USB-C charging case.

Battery Life

6 hours

Charging Case Included?

Yes

Brand

Apple

Bluetooth

Yes

Case battery

30 hours

Weight

1.79 ounces

Colors

White

Charging Port

USB-C

Compatibility

iOS and Android

Noise Cancellation

Yes

Expand

Put in your AirPods and go to Settings > Bluetooth > tap the ‘i’ to the right of your AirPods > Name. Here, you can rename your AirPods to whatever you’d like. Personally, I recommend you rename them to something that makes them easily identifiable and unique for you. Plus, if you purchased (or intend to purchase) an engraved pair of AirPods, rename them to something to match.

2 Pause and play audio without pressing a button

Just take a pod out and put it back in

When someone walks up to have a conversation with you, do you pause your audio before taking out your AirPods? One of the most magical experiences of AirPods is taking a single AirPod out of your ear and having whatever audio you’re listening to pause. Then, when you’re finished with your conversation, put it back in, and your audio immediately resumes playback. This feature is called Automatic Ear Detection, and it’s enabled by default. Still, you can verify the feature is on by navigating to Settings > tap your AirPods > verifying Automatic Ear Detection is toggled to green.

3 Answer phone calls

Also, end them

After podcasts, the single greatest use of my AirPods is taking phone calls with them. If you also don’t use your AirPods for phone calls, you absolutely should. Suppose you’re listening to something on your AirPods when you get a phone call — press once to answer the call and twice to end it. You can also change the end call to a single press by navigating to Settings > tap your AirPods > End Call > select Press Once.

4 Mute yourself during calls

With a single press

When you’re on a call with your AirPods, you can mute yourself with a single press. If you’ve changed the end call to a single press, mute becomes a double. If you’d like to change the single press to a double, as I have, go to Settings > tap your AirPods > Mute & Unmute > select Press Twice.

Fun fact, muting yourself with your AirPods also works with Zoom.

5 Customize your tap gestures

Press and hold

If you haven’t already, you need to hop into Settings > select your AirPods > tap Left and Right under Press and Hold AirPods. Within each of those menus, you can change whether a long press of your AirPods activates Siri or toggles between two noise cancelation modes.

I opt to use ‘Hey Siri’ to activate Siri and switch between Transparency and Noise Cancelation modes. Change these up to fit what’s best for you.

6 Personalized volume

Automatically volume based on your environment

Personalized volume is a neat AirPods Pro feature where volume automatically adjusts based on the noise of your environment. You can toggle this feature on by navigating to Settings > select your AirPods > scroll down and toggle Personalized Volume to on. Now, when near loud environments, your volume will automatically increase and decrease when in quieter ones.

7 Conversation awareness

Lower volume when you speak

Like Personalized Volume, Conversation Awareness is another feature that automatically adjusts audio based on your environment — it’s also exclusive to AirPods Pro. But this time, the volume is adjusted based on hearing voices. When voices are detected, your volume is dramatically reduced and then increases again when the conversation is over. You can turn Conversation Awareness on by navigating to Settings > select your AirPods > scroll down and toggle it on.