AirPods 5 arrives with the H2
AirPods 5 ship on 18 September with the H2, the same headphone chip as the AirPods 4 they replace.
Apple claims up to 1.5x more Active Noise Cancellation than the previous generation and credits a new acoustic architecture for it: a custom high-excursion driver and a high dynamic range amplifier. Neither is silicon. Bluetooth stays at 5.3, which is what the H2 has supported since it launched with AirPods Pro 2 in September 2022.
AirPods 5 does not carry the U2 ultra-wideband chip. Among AirPods, only AirPods Pro 3 does, for precision Find My tracking of the case.
Both AirPods 4 and AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation are discontinued. That leaves the H2 in three products still on sale — AirPods 5, AirPods Pro 3 and AirPods Max 2 — plus Apple Vision Pro. No H1 device has been on sale since the AirPods Max 2 replaced the last of them in March.