Android & Chill
One of the web’s longest-running tech columns, Android & Chill is your Saturday discussion of Android, Google, and all things tech.
Nobody is surprised that Google announced the new Pixel Watch 4 at its latest Made By Google event. The company, like all others, makes a new model every year. Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait until October to actually have one on your wrist, but there’s some really good news to chew on in the meantime:
It’s designed to be user serviceable.
For a lot of people, this is the best new feature of the Pixel Watch 4. I’m one of them. For others, it doesn’t matter as much. Either way, it’s important for everyone. Easy for you to fix means it’s also easy for someone else to fix.
We are seeing the same thing from companies making phones, though the progress is slow. If you want a phone you can fix on your dining room table without needing to be some sort of super space-age phone mechanic, you can find them. Seeing this on a watch (and the Pixel Buds 2a case battery is serviceable, too!) wasn’t anything I expected to hear about, especially from Google.
It’s simple, really. There are Torx screws on the back of the Pixel Watch 4, and removing them gives you access to both the battery and the display. There is no mountain of glue holding things in place, and once you’ve bought the parts (which Google will sell and you’ll probably be able to order from a place like iFixit), you can swap them. No fuss, no heat guns, no complicated extra steps or lasers needed.
The case for the Pixel Buds 2a is mostly the same. Remove a couple of screws, and you can swap the old, tired battery for a fresh one that will last you a couple more years. It’s a good look and makes the products much more desirable, knowing they’ll last as long as you want them to last.
Why repairability matters
Maybe you’re not the kind of person who feels confident enough to tear open the back of your $350 smartwatch. I get that. I will say you should try because when a product is designed to be serviced by the consumer, it’s actually pretty easy.
That’s not an accident. You can add your own windshield washer fluid to your car because it was designed to make it easy for you to do so. You might be able to change your air filter or oil if you’re handy, as they are also serviceable by the end user. You’re not going to change the timing belt on a 2010 Subaru unless you know what you’re doing (and you hate yourself).
Electronics are the same way. Some things are simple to service by design. You can add and remove a screen protector or a protective case. Other things need some experience and know-how, like swapping most phones’ batteries. Then there are projects you need to let the professionals handle.
It’s not feasible to make the whole thing easy for you to tear apart in your living room. People like me may wish it were, but when you want a device to be water-resistant, thin, and have a slim high-capacity battery, you need to build around that.
The flip side is that some products are just chock full of glue and adhesive gaskets that you can’t buy but must be replaced if any repair work is done. If you’re never going to fix your smartwatch yourself, you might think that doesn’t matter. It does.
Save some money, too
In a perfect world, I would live in Fiji and fix electronics for a living, getting rich doing what I love. If you brought me a smartwatch because the battery won’t hold a charge, I would be able to fix it.
Chances are, it wouldn’t be easy, and I would charge you for the extra time it takes to get inside and the time it takes to track down those pesky parts, in addition to the cost of the new battery. Your $350 smartwatch ended up costing $200 to fix.
If you brought me a Pixel Watch 4 and I could get the part shipped to me, then spend 20 minutes with a screwdriver when they arrived, I’m going to charge you for the parts and an hour’s labor.
When you don’t have to lay out almost the same amount of money for a repair as it takes to buy a new product, you might do it more often. Fewer smartwatches end up in landfills as e-waste, less lithium and cobalt need to be mined, and you get to save money. The only losers are the seagulls and crows who love those huge, smelly landfills.
Google doing this with a flagship product like the Pixel Watch 4 is a really big deal. This may not be the first wearable that tech-inclined people could work on, but it’s the first one designed to be easy for everybody. Selling the parts and making it easy is a big step, and it makes the Pixel Watch 4 one of the best wearables you can buy before anyone even gets a chance to use one.
Fix it yourself
The Pixel Watch 4 is the latest smartwatch from Google, and it’s the first Pixel Watch that users can repair themselves, thanks to some thoughtful design changes.
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