Image: iFixit
iFixit on Wednesday shared its teardown of Google’s first smartwatch — the Pixel Watch. Google unveiled the $449.99 Pixel Watch earlier this month, alongside its flagship Pixel 7 series smartphones.
The teardown experts at iFixit found it easy enough to crack the Pixel Watch open with some heat and a pry tool.
Image: iFixit
However, what they found underneath didn’t instill too much confidence in the Pixel Watch’s repairability. “The internal design leaves something to be desired, and that something is accessibility,” said iFixit.
Image: iFixit
iFixit found that the Pixel Watch’s screen and battery, which are the two likeliest components to need a repair or replacement down the road, are harder to remove and replace than they should be.
The connector for the display is located under the battery, which needs to be pried out to get at the connector. What’s more, a slew of tiny brackets, small contacts, teeny T2 Torx screws, and layers of tertiary components stand between a technician and these parts.
iFixit also found that the speaker cutout in the Pixel Watch’s chassis doesn’t have a grill on it, relying instead on the built-in mesh of the speaker unit inside alone. The teardown experts found the tactile crown to be “cheap-looking,”, especially for the Pixel Watch’s starting price of $449.99.
It wasn’t all bad, however, especially for a first crack at the smartwatch space. “It has enough promise that if Google sticks with it, and takes some repairability notes, in a couple generations the Pixel watch may yet top our smartwatch list,” iFixit noted.
You can watch iFixit’s full teardown of the Pixel Watch below:
If Google manages to streamline the Pixel Watch’s design and work out some of the kinks over the next generation or two, it could become a real challenger to the Apple Watch’s smartwatch dominance.
We reviewed the Pixel Watch last week and found it to be a good option for Android users and those who are or want to be looped into Google’s Pixel ecosystem.
