Introduction
Hello Moto! After months of speculation and publicity, Motorola has finally released their flagship smartwatch, the Moto 360. Join us as we disassemble it and answer the one question Motorola dares not ask. Touted as the first circular smartwatch, the Moto 360 aims to revolutionize the industry, but will it be repair friendly?
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Please welcome the Motorola Moto 360 to the grandest teardown stage of 'em all: ours.
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Tech specs:
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TI OMAP 3 processor
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4 GB internal storage + 512 MB RAM
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1.56" backlit LCD display with a resolution of 320 x 290 (205 ppi)
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Bluetooth 4.0 LE
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Pedometer + optical heart rate monitor + ambient light sensor
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Vibrator motor + dual microphones
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We at iFixit appreciate fine craftsmanship. The Moto 360 has some of the finest external craftsmanship we've ever seen on a smartwatch, featuring actual stitching and a Horween Leather wristband.
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The backside of the Moto 360 is marked with technical specifications in fun holographic text.
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The Moto 360 is built with corrosion-resistant Grade 316L Stainless Steel and is IP67 water resistant.
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The Moto 360 is the first Android Wear smartwatch to ditch physical charging ports in favor of inductive charging.
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The lack of a physical port means that debugging will have to happen over Bluetooth. Thankfully, Google has provided documentation for such a feature.
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Motorola claims that the Moto 360 should fit any standard 22 mm wristband.
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That said, the included instructions tell us replacing the band, or adjusting a metal band requires "specialized tools" and the skills of a jeweler. We had no trouble with our trusty tweezers.
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Looks like users hoping for a classy metal band will have to wait for the official fall release, or risk spotty connectivity.
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The adhesive in the Moto 360 is proving to be a real challenge, so we heat. We heat again. And finally, we heat some more.
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The Moto 360 is living up to its IP67 standard. Even getting the plastic rear cover off is a huge pain—hopefully meaning you can rest assured that dust and water are staying out.
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Even though we were careful when prying with an opening pick to separate the rear cover, we managed to crack the cover right down the middle. Looks like we just lost our IP67 standard.
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With the rear cover removed, we get our first look at the photoplethysmogram (PPG) heart rate sensor.
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There are several markings as well:
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FCC ID: IHDT6QC1
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Anatel ID: 1510-14-0711
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The Moto 360's innards are sealed in tight. No easy point of entry and a rubber o-ring waterproof this oyster, but make it extra difficult to open.
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Instead of a pearl, we find a round motherboard squeezed into the inner enclosure. A couple of data cables run to the front panel connecting the two halves.
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Disconnecting the LCD and digitizer cables frees the halves for more exploration.
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Any good water resistant watch will have some fancy seals. Our Moto 360 is no different, and it keeps water away from its innards with a colorful rubber o-ring.
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The o-ring is essentially a fancy rubber band. But for technical purposes, we will refer to it as a fancy rubber o-ring. After all, we are professionals.
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A bit of prying frees the motherboard assembly from the rear housing.
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A brassy semicircular ring surrounds the inner housing, providing a ground connection between the motherboard and outer bezel.
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If you take a close look at the motherboard assembly, you'll notice five spring contact pads that line up with openings through the rear housing—perhaps an access point for programming, testing, or hardware hackers.
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Motorola has graciously included a pull tab to ease removing the Moto 360's battery. Considering the work it took to get here, it feels like a bit of a joke—sort of like handicap-accessible bathrooms on the second level of a store that has no elevator.
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Let's compare its battery capacity with its competitors, the Samsung Gear Live and the LG G Watch:
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Motorola Moto 360: 3.8 V, 300 mAh battery rated at 1.1 Wh of energy.
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Samsung Gear Live: 3.8 V, 300 mAh battery rated at 1.14 Wh of energy.
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LG G Watch: 3.8 V, 400 mAh battery rated at 1.5 Wh of energy.
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Update: Ars got a response from Motorola: "For Moto 360 we only had room for one figure and choose to list the minimal capacity of the battery. We see how this can be confusing and we will look into ways to add the typical capacity as well in the future."
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After peeling off a (seemingly nondescript) backing sticker, we find a shiny inductive charging coil.
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The Moto 360 is the first Android Wear smartwatch to feature inductive charging. Previous Android Wear smartwatches like the Samsung Gear Live and the LG G Watch featured metal charging contacts.
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Let's play "Is it Magnetic?". The rules are pretty much self-explanatory.
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Would you look at that, it's magnetic. We suspect that the charging coil's sticker backing works like a transformer core, made of up ferrous material that "serves to greatly reduce the magnetizing current and confine the flux to a path which closely couples the windings."
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Tl;DR: we're thinking this sticker improves the inductive charging efficiency.
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"It is most likely a shielding for the main circuit board. When you are focusing a lot of energy through space, you cannot guarantee it will all end up on the receiver coil. Therefore you will need a shield to absorb any stray energy. Just think, if a wire just happens to be the perfect shape to receive energy, it will likely cook the circuit."
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We finally find what's inside the Moto 360's delicious filling—lots of ICs:
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Texas Instruments TMS320C5545 Fixed-Point Digital Signal Processor
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Micron Technology MT46H128M32L2KQ-5 IT (labeled as 2SB28 D9QRM) 4 Gb (512 MB) Mobile LPDDR
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Toshiba THGBMAG5A1JBAIT 4 GB e-MMC NAND Flash
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Texas Instruments 1211A1 USB 2.0 PHY Transceiver
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Atmel MXT112S Capacitive Touchscreen Controller
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Texas Instruments AFE4490 Integrated Analog Front-End for Pulse Oximeters
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The list of ICs continues:
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Wolfson Microelectronics WM7121 Top Port Analogue Silicon Microphone
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Texas Instruments TPS659120 PMU for Processor Power
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Texas Instruments BQ51051B Integrated Wireless Power Li-ion Charger Receiver
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Texas Instruments WiLink WL1831 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Module
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Wolfson Microelectronics WM7132 MEMS Microphones Bottom Port Analogue Silicon Microphone
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Solomon Systech SSD2848K1 MIPI Display Interface Controller
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On the flipside: an InvenSense MPU-6051 Six-Axis (Gyro + Accelerometer) MEMS Motion Tracking Device
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We're back to heating and prying as we work to free the LCD.
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Just like before, it took a significant amount of heat to coax this LCD out of its ring.
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This isn't the special round OLED display little birds were telling us about. We're guessing this difference probably has more to do with price than design. After all, round displays are not exactly dime-a-dozen.
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After being freed from the rest of the watch, the display assembly is laid out in all its glory.
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The Moto 360 is the first Android Wear smartwatch to feature an ambient light sensor (for an auto-dimming screen). To save space, Motorola built the sensor into the display assembly, which explains the black bar found on the bottom of the display.
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What secrets could the Moto 360's charging dock hold? Let's find out!
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With Jimmy in hand, we remove the charging dock's circular, rubber foot with ease.
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With a little help from our Pro Tech Screwdriver Set, we remove four T5 screws that stand between us and inductive charging goodness.
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We were surprised to find that the charging dock has a decent amount of heft to it.
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The dock's internal assembly is secured by a single clip, which is easily dispatched with the flick of a spudger.
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The main event is an insulated inductive charging coil soldered to the charging dock's motherboard.
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Just like the watch's charging coil sticker, this coil's gray backplate is ferrous.
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More ICs await us on the charging dock's motherboard:
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Texas Instruments BQ500212A Qi Compliant 5 V Wireless Power Transmitter Manager
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Texas Instruments CSD97376Q4M Synchronous Buck NexFET Power Stage
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Motorola Moto 360 Repairability Score: 3 out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair).
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Watch band is a standard size and easily replaceable (with small enough tweezers).
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Heat and careful prying is required to remove the rear panel—and then even more prying to pull out the inner housing. It is very difficult to open the device without compromising its waterproof seals.
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The battery is trapped deep within the device, within the inner housing. Nearly complete disassembly is required to replace.
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The display does require complete disassembly to replace, as it is removed from the back of the main bezel.
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34 comments
Man, I was really hoping that the pics included a scale. I'm trying to track down the length of the band and the watch itself to see if i'm going to need a longer one.
If the battery were round, it could be about 1.57 times larger than the square battery in terms of area. Let's assume the 12 hour battery life that's been reported is accurate. That means with a circular battery you could expect just shy of 19 hours of battery life.
if you look at the disassembly the battery fit at all direction beacuse of other soldering and capacitor is in the way, why which they produce their own batteries interfere with battery life?
Thank you for this. Both your disassembly and Moto's engineers' packaging are impressive.
Wish list for developing your incredible piece:
Profile pics of the motherboard and the screen, to get a perspective of the thickness.
Is the ring shaped case aluminum (which it seems to say when checking it out in online store descriptions) or stainless?
A BoM estimate would be fantastic.
gadgety -