A CT scan of the Samsung Galaxy Ring. Photo: iFixit
Samsung officially released the Galaxy Ring early last month at its Unpacked event in Paris.
If you want to learn more about it, check out our initial coverage here and our hands-on here. But in a nutshell, it’s Samsung’s entry into the wearable ring market and it’s designed to keep track of your health, sleep, energy levels, and more.
iFixit, a site that specialises in self-repairs and teardowns, recently took apart a Galaxy Ring. In the process, they discovered that there was no way to get inside without destroying the entire device.
And because the ring is powered by lithium-ion batteries which have a shelf life. It means the ring is essentially a disposable device.
iFixit writes:
So what happens to all those smart rings when the battery goes kaput? Simple, you throw the entire device away. It’s impossible to fix a smart ring because once it dies, you can’t get to the battery without destroying the device in the process.
The upside is that Samsung claims a full charge will last about seven days. And if you assume the batteries are good for about 300 cycles (a conservative estimate), this means the Galaxy Ring’s batteries should be good for around five years. Still, this doesn’t get around the fact that the Galaxy Ring is a device that contributes to other growing e-waste problems.
But it’s certainly less damaging than other devices like earbuds. Most earbuds see more intensive use than smart rings, but they are not repairable either. Furthermore, a typical earbud only lasts about five hours on a single charge. If you assume the batteries within are also good for about 300 cycles, that equates to a lifespan of around 1,500 hours. So if you listen to them for four hours a day, it means they’ll only last about a year.
Considering the popularity of earbuds and the burgeoning smart ring market, companies should certainly pay more attention to the design of their devices and look at ways that they can help to alleviate our e-waste problem.
At any rate, iFixit’s teardown also features an incredibly neat interactive 3D scan courtesy of Lumafield, a company that specialises in creating 3D computed tomography (CT) scans.
To see the scans and the detailed teardown report, hit the link below.
Source: iFixit
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