The churn and burn nature of some modern tech has been highlighted by a CT scan of the new Samsung Galaxy Ring.
The crew at ifixit.com decided to investigate the internals of the ring by teaming up with Lumafield, which used its Neptune CT scanner to dissect the ring and create 3D images.
“The Galaxy Ring – and all smart rings like it – comes with a huge string attached: It’s 100% disposable, just like the AirPod-style Buds3 that Samsung just released. The culprit? The lithium ion batteries,” said ifixit.com.
“Lithium ion batteries have a shelf life. It’s hard to quantify exactly how long a battery will last but generally speaking, the chemistry used in consumer grade batteries should give us at least 400 cycles of use. One cycle is a fully charged battery being depleted to zero. Do that 400 times and, more often than not, you’ll have worn the battery out.”
And then what do you do with your $600 ring? Well, you throw it out.
“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 … It’s not by accident that the Oura Ring specifically excludes batteries from their one year warranty.”
Surveying the scan, ifixit said: “On the right hand side of the ring is the faint outline of a lithium polymer battery pouch. There’s an inductive coil sitting right on top of the battery (the lines that look like a rectangular track) and another very similar inductive coil that’s parallel and slightly separated from the first.
“That second inductive coil is inside the charging case and works together with the inductive coil in the ring to recharge the battery inside the Galaxy Ring.”
Ifixit was taken aback to find a press connector joining the battery to the rest of the board.
“This is a surprising use of space, why isn’t this directly soldered? Nobody is getting back in there to disconnect this thing! But this one is sealed into the device and serves no purpose in replacement or repair.
“Our best guess … The battery and wireless charging coil were made in one place, the circuit board somewhere else, and it all comes to a production line somewhere where the two need to be connected together quickly and cheaply.”
Ultimately, ifixit said although the ring – “a pretty simple device” – looked “neat”, it couldn’t recommend buying “disposable tech like this”.
“There’s nothing wrong with simple but there is something wrong with unrepairable … the Galaxy Ring is a disposable tech accessory that isn’t designed to last more than two years … each one of these rings will end up being added to our ever growing e-waste problem.”
