subterranean tibia: iFixit rips apart Pebble and finds very little inside, even less that's repairable (updated)

Thursday, March 14, 2013

iFixit rips apart Pebble and finds very little inside, even less that's repairable (updated)

Generally when iFixit tears something down we're treated to scrumptious piles of technological gore. Screws, chips, connectors and all sorts of components end up scattered around the table. With the Pebble smartwatch? Well, there's not so much in the way of digital guts to pull out. Upon cracking open the shell, which was apparently impossible to do without shattering the screen, iFixit found a single assembly that housed all the components. Everything from the 120MHz Cortex-M3 MCU to the three-axis accelerometer and the Bluetooth radio was on a single board. It was under that Bluetooth EMI shield where the one surprise crops up. It appears that the Texas Instruments controller chosen for the e-paper watch does ~~not~~ support the wireless protocol's low energy profile, something Pebble lists as one of the specs on its site (we've reached out to the company for clarification on this matter). As you might expect, the compact construction means this is not a particularly repairable device. So, rather than pull your own apart, just check out the electronic autopsy at the source.

Update: Well, we've finally heard back from Pebble and it seems the watch does have support for Bluetooth Low Energy. The confusion comes from the fact that, although the TI controller inside is label as a CC2560 (which lacks support for BLE) it actually carries the same firmware as the CC2564 which does support the protocol through Panasonic's RF module.

Filed under: Wearables