For people who've solved issues with freezing, how long did that work?

I've had APM for about 3 years, and today they would not connect (they'd been charging in case overnight).

I'd get green light or white light pressing buttons while charging, but after disconnecting the lightning cable pressing buttons would't trigger any lights.

I thought maybe they were not charing, so I tried a different cable, and also a different power adaptor but it didn't seem to make a difference.

Also tried popping the cups off to clean the connectors but there wasn't anything visible to clean.

Finally I tried the freezer for 30 minutes and... it worked!

So for people who've had the freezer solve their issue, how has that worked out? was it a temporary issue that the freeze resolved, or was it just a band aid and issue returned?

I'm way out of warranty period even if I had apple care (I can't remember if I originally purchased or not) but for anyone who'd had this issue has the battery replacement worked out?

I'm a bit confused with Apple's out of warranty repair costs, but seems like it's $70 in the U.S. for a battery replacement out of warranty.