LG G Watch Teardown

So long ‘G Watch’

The Teardown

Step 1: I began by removing the watch straps from the body of the LG watch.
To do this I used the dull back end of the exacto knife, pincing the strap prongs inwards until they released from their housings and the straps were free to e removed.

Step 2: Placing the watch on its face (screen side down) I removed each of the 4 screws holding the casing together with a T5 hex screwdriver. From here I pried the back off again using the exacto knife to work my way under the casing.

Step 3: After removing the back casing to reveal the internals of the watch I proceeded to remove the rubber gasket which created a hermetic seal within the watch body.

Step 4: In order to dissasmble the watch further I removed the 1.5mm screws which pinned the battery retaining clip to the back face of the watch and the LCD screen + motherboard to the front of the watch. Its worth noting here that these two little screws in the front keep both the screen and mother board secured within the casing.

Step 5: Upon removing the screws I was able to lift off the battery retaining clip and the L-ion battery from the back. The battery was glued to the back of the watch casing which makes sense as you do not want to pierce the battery with any sharp objects.

Step 6: In order to remove the screen from the front of the watchface I removed the pin connectors which power the screen and convey touch responsiveness. This plus a generous amount of heat and prying with the exacto blade made it possible to lift the screen from the casing as well as the motherboard. The screen was also secured with a glack silicon glue in order to keep the watch sealed from water and debrie.

Internal Components

The Microphone

*taken from:* https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/LG+G+Watch+Teardown/27037

One of the most interesting parts to me of the device is the little rectangle marked in green. This is the InvenSense INMP441 micrphone. I was surprised to see that the mic is sodered directly to the PCB board removing the need for additional wires or fastening. While this is standard procedure — and I assume also reduces rattling for the microphone to pick up clear sound — I was surprised that the microphone would be able to pick up soundwaves from so far within the water sealed casing.

The Battery Retainer Clip

Beyond the electronic mechanisms of the device I was also very interested in the shape and silhouette of retainer clasp that houses the battery. The reason for this interesting shape, beyond the fact that this retainer is used practically to retain the battery within its casing, appears when you put the front and back case side by side, like below.

Here you can see the resemblance between the negative space formed by the retainer clip and the shapology of the components on the PCB on the right — including the cutaways for the housing for the Snapdragon processor and the mysterious 2407 DSH 12EDF (highlighted previously with a blue line on the PCB image) ; which has no documented explanation for its use on the ifixt teardown site or online forums.

Tools Used

Shout out to all the tools used in the teardown of this lovely bygone smartwatch — whether they were used for their intended purpose or not they all helped out on a big way and I am grateful. The backwards mounted exacto blade was just what I needed to get under that finicky little LCD Screen and the Electron Tweezers really made me feel I was a rocket scientist splicing the atom.