Your AirPods Are About to Get a Neat New Charging Feature

Apple already announced that when it rolls out the next-gen operating systems to its various devices this fall, it’s going to improve the AirPods you already own, as well as give them a few new features.

The standouts included a “Camera Control” feature that will allow your AirPods to act as a remote shutter button for iPhone, as well as a “Sleep Auto-Pause” feature that will automatically pause your music when your AirPods detect that you fall asleep.

But, as is tradition, those who have had early access to the new software — specifically, the developer beta of iOS 26 — have uncovered a few neat things that Apple hasn’t yet talked about.

One of those is a convenient feature that promises to help you never forget to charge your AirPods. It’s called Charging Notifications for AirPods.

Photo by Tucker Bowe for Gear Patrol

AirPods Charging Notifications

As reported by 9to5Mac, when iOS 26 is officially released, it’s going to introduce Charging Notifications for your AirPods. This is cool in two ways.

• First, when your AirPods’ charging case is running low on battery, you’ll get an iPhone alert telling you that “it’s time to charge” it.

• Second, once your AirPods charging case is back to full health, you’ll get an iPhone alert telling you that its charging is complete.

To date, you’ve only really been able to check the battery levels of your AirPods (and their charging case) when you first place them in your ears. Or, afterwards, by going to your iPhone’s Settings app.

iOS 26’s new Charging Notifications setting aims to help prevent your AirPods charging case from ever dying on you.

These “Charging Notifications” will be on by default with iOS 26. However, if you’re somebody who doesn’t want any extra notifications (even if these seem very helpful), you’ll be able to disable them in Settings.

Photo by Tucker Bowe for Gear Patrol

Which AirPods will support it?

At the time of writing, it’s unclear which AirPods will support these new Charging Notifications. It’s likely that older AirPods models that Apple no longer sells — such as AirPods (2nd-Gen) and AirPods 3 — will support them.

However, there’s a chance that it requires Apple’s H2 chip, in which case it’ll be a feature exclusive to the AirPods Pro (2nd-Gen) and both AirPods 4 models.

We’ll know more once the public beta of iOS 26 rolls out this month.

Apple will release iOS 16 in September, following the announcement of its iPhone 17 lineup.

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