Ever since purchasing a pair of AirPods about a month ago, I’ve been using them every single day. Usually when I’m commuting to work, or when I’m at work. The case is usually stored in my bag, or on my desk. But occasionally I’ve kept it in my pocket, and I’ve noticed that it’s caused issues with my train ticket.
A few days last week I noticed my train ticket stops working completely after the first barrier I walked through, I presumed it was an issue with the barriers, but it kept happening. Then for some reason (I can’t remember why), I thought about the magnets in the AirPods case, and that the little paper ticket is based on a magnetic strip on the back. So the next day I kept the case well away from my train ticket, and it didn’t have any issue. I’ve done this every day since and it seems to have cured my problem.
I saw someone have a similar issue with a Hotel key card on Reddit, and it reminds me when BlackBerry cases used to cause the same problem, due to the magnet in the case.
So just a little warning, make sure you keep your AirPods away from anything that uses magnets to store data! In my case it’s not really an issue, as I can just show my ticket and get through the barrier. But when it’s a work pass, or something even more valuable like a bank card, it’s a whole different problem/