What I love about the airpods is that the enclosure is so small and well-shaped that I can have it in my front pocket at all times without even noticing it's there. That also means I always put the pods back in the enclosure after use and have not yet lost a pod. Haven't noticed any battery degradation after a year of use.
You can buy individual pod and case replacements. It's still quite expensive, around $50-60 I believe, but it's not like you're just out $160 if you lose one piece.
The AirPods are the one thing I actually lose (and I've lost a number of times). But I always manage to find them eventually.
The fact that I can't send a sound to them (somehow) when the case is closed is moderately insane. All it can tell me is that they were somewhere near my house when I last used them. That doesn't help me understand where they went to after I put them back in the case and misplaced the case.
This is also my only major complaint (I otherwise love them enough to have upgraded to the new ones when they were released). I would love for the case to be able to beep when pinged by Find My iPhone. Presumably there's cost involved in adding Bluetooth to the case, or adding some kind of communication from the pods to the case, but if it's in the < $50 range I'd probably be ok with it.
That's why I went with the Bose SoundSports. The two ears are tethered to each other, can be clipped to the shirt collar, and securely fit against the concha. I don't see being sweaty and bouncing around on rocky trails leading to anything good with those fancy airpods.
you sound like the type of person who would never lose an AirPod haha. I lose all sorts of things, but I have found it pretty easy to keep track of my AirPods.
I own multiple pairs of wireless headphones but the fear of losing 1 headphone in the Airpod pair terrifies me.