Galaxy Ring first teardown suggests almost zero repairability

Samsung launched its first Galaxy Ring this year during its latest Unpacked event. New major product launches from big brands are often followed by teardowns that show off their internal components. The wearable has not yet reached the majority of buyers. However, the Galaxy Ring has made its way into the hands of the iFixit team, and a first teardown is now available.

Taking apart the Galaxy Ring renders it unusable, iFixit confirms

As revealed by iFixit, the process of taking apart the Galaxy Ring is not easy at all. First, you need to know that once you take it apart, there is no way to put it together and keep it working. It will probably get low scores on future repairability tests. This also means that damaging your Galaxy Ring out of warranty would be very bad news, as the only solution might be to buy a new one.

The source had to melt the internal resin and plastic coating that holds all the Galaxy Ring parts together. They even had to scrape off the remaining coating to finally get to the internal components. As you can imagine, at this point you’ve already damaged some key components of the wearable. Anyway, most of the internal parts are what you’d expect from a smart ring. This includes a power management chip (from Analog Devices), an NFC chip (from NXP), a wireless charging controller, etc.

Potential cost-cutting measure spotted

There’s a design decision that surprised the iFixit team as being contradictory to the “unrepairable” nature of the product. The Galaxy Ring teardown revealed that Samsung didn’t solder the battery and the inductive coil (for charging) to the circuit board. Instead, they both use press connectors. Theoretically, this would make replacing the battery easier, but it doesn’t make sense considering that opening the ring means damaging it.

The source suggests that this could be a cost-cutting measure by Samsung. The company would manufacture the battery + inductive coil combo and the circuit board in separate factories. Then, it would take them to an assembly line where using pressure connections is less expensive than using soldering. However, let’s not rule out that Samsung has special equipment that allows it to open the ring without damaging it. In that case, it would make sense to choose a format that makes battery replacement easier.