• umami_wasabi@lemmy.ml
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    3 days ago

    Actually, how hard can it be? My old cheap ass Casio can have its battery replaced and waterproof already.

    Sure, smartwatches have more bells and whistles but not as complicated as a mechanical watch, right?

    • interurbain1er@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      It is. Making anything easier to disassemble requires connectors which are a huge tradeoff in terms of space Vs features. Screws take a whole lot of space especially in something you want as thin as possible such as a watch.

      Nowadays the direction is embedding of passive and even active components directly into the PCB layers and an increase of the number of layers. That means that if any of them fails there’s nothing to be done, or at least not without equipments that cost way too much to be worthwhile to anyone.

      In a few years, microelectronic systems will be mostly just one big custom die with the processing units and all accompanying mosfet, inductors, capacitors and resistors directly etched into a 25 layers PCB with barely any surface mounted components. Even lithium batteries can been embedded and most likely will.

      If you want something totally serviceable you will have to sacrifice on size.