How to Spot Counterfeit AirPods: A Buyer's Guide

Counterfeit AirPods Pro 2 are the most polished fakes in consumer electronics. The packaging copies the shrink-wrap, the serial numbers follow Apple's format, and the buds look identical with the case shut. Eyeballing them gets you nowhere.

The tests below have caught every counterfeit we have run into, no matter how convincing it looked. The whole set takes about 90 seconds. Run them before you pay.

Test 1: pair with an iPhone and check the Settings page

A genuine pair shows a dedicated "AirPods Pro" card in iPhone Settings, with separate battery percentages for the left bud, the right bud, and the case. The card uses Apple's official AirPods Pro graphic.

A fake does one of three things when you try to pair it:

• Never triggers the Apple pairing animation, the full-screen card that pops up when AirPods come near an iPhone
• Shows up as a generic Bluetooth device with no battery percentages
• Shows a card that looks close but lands slightly off: wrong icon style, missing animation, or fewer battery readouts

Any deviation from the genuine card means a fake.

Test 2: check the serial at checkcoverage.apple.com

Genuine AirPods carry the serial inside the case lid. Open the case, read the number off the inside top of the lid, then enter it at checkcoverage.apple.com.

A genuine unit returns a valid warranty result, either "within warranty" or "out of warranty" with the original purchase date. A counterfeit serial returns one of three things:

• "Serial number not found"
• "Please check your serial number"
• A valid warranty result for a completely different product (an iPad, say)

Test 3: stress-test the noise cancellation

Genuine AirPods Pro reshape the room around you. Take them somewhere loud, street traffic, a busy cafe, a running tap, then turn ANC on with a stem squeeze or through Settings. The ambient noise should drop away sharply and at once.

A fake has no ANC, with no audible change, or a feeble version: a slight muffling nowhere near what a genuine pair delivers. In any noisy spot the difference is impossible to miss.

Test 4: check the firmware version

Settings, then Bluetooth, tap the (i) next to AirPods Pro, and scroll to "Version". A genuine pair shows a current firmware version, something like 7E93 or higher as of 2026. A fake shows no version, an implausibly old one, or an invented string.

Apple pushes firmware across the life of the product. A genuine pair of AirPods Pro 2 keeps receiving it for years. A counterfeit never gets a single update.

Why genuine AirPods cost what they do

A genuine pair of AirPods Pro 2 with USB-C runs around $199 on Amazon US, £199 on Amazon UK, and around AED 850 in the UAE. Anything well below those numbers is almost certainly fake. The H2 chip alone costs more in silicon than counterfeit listings charge for the whole product.

Where to buy with confidence

Counterfeit risk drops lowest at authorized Apple resellers (Slot in Nigeria, Sharaf DG in the UAE, John Lewis in the UK), the Apple Store directly, and Amazon listings sold by Amazon itself rather than a third-party seller. Steer clear of Computer Village stalls, unverified third-party sellers on Konga or Jumia, and any deal that looks too good to be true.