
HomePod Teardown - rbanffy
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/HomePod++Teardown/103133
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pathartl
Holy crap this is a mess. I'm assuming this is a 1/10 because their scale
doesn't go down to 0.

$350 for a device you effectively cannot repair without ruining some part of
it is absolutely astonishing. To anybody that says "so what?", if any part of
this dies for whatever reason, not only are you almost completely out of your
money, there's no way this thing is actually getting repaired by Apple. At
best most of the components end up going through a recycler. At worst, that's
5lbs of added landfill.

Speakers are something that NEED to be repaired. It's one of the non-solid
state technologies that we haven't found a better alternative for, and are
some of the most fragile parts in systems today. These drivers/cones WILL wear
out over time and the only thing you're going to be able to do is buy a new
unit.

~~~
bentruyman
> Speakers are something that NEED to be repaired

Is that true? If there's one component that's stood the test of time in my
home theater setup, it's been the speakers. I've purchased a ton of speakers
in my time and I'm still rocking some 15 year old Kenwood speakers in the
living room.

~~~
pathartl
And that's fine, I have some Dick Sequerra MET-11's that have been around for
many years before I was born and I only had to repair the tweeters two years
ago. However these were high quality expensive speakers when they came out.
Cheap drivers were not used. Looking at the HomePod and the processing
hardware and their margins, there's no way the drivers they are putting in
this thing are any better than what you'd find in a cheapo HTIB system.

The way I see it, these speakers are great for somebody that wants to remain
in the Apple ecosystem and has $350 to drop on something that's going to be
obsolete and incompatible in a few years. So yeah maybe these drivers won't
need to be replaced, but that's only because the software driving them has a
shorter life expectancy.

~~~
danieldk
Indeed, as pointed out by the Accidental Tech podcast and others, even if the
speakers hold up, what is going to kill it for longevity is the lack of a
line-in. It is very unlikely that HomePod's version of AirPlay is going to be
supported for more that 10 years. If the device had a line-in, it would still
serve as a fine speaker beyond that. But now it is practically useless, even
when you are in the Apple ecosystem, once Apple deprecates AirPlay 2.

In the meanwhile, I enjoyed the Altec Lansing speakers that my parents bought
in the 70ies for quite some years.

(We were interested in the HomePod, but the lack of a line-in, and low-
reparability has made the choice difficult. Added to that, I don't really like
that it has so many Mics. 2025's Apple could be 2015's Lenovo, there is no
guarantee that they will keep focusing on security & privacy, nor that they
will resist government surveillance.)

~~~
pram
Why do you assume that? AirPlay has been around for more than 10 years. You
can still use a 15 year old AirPort Express with AirTunes the same exact way
as when you bought it.

~~~
danieldk
Except that you cannot configure it anymore unless you have an (insecure)
Leopard or Snow Leopard machine on the same network [1]. Snow Leopard was
released in 2009, the first generation Airport Express was sold 2004-2008 [2].
So Apple is not unwilling to axe support for a product rather quickly.

If they plan to support the latest AirPlay on the HomePod for 10 or 15 years,
why not just state this? If you are not doing that, you want to keep the
possibility to end support earlier.

[1] [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201519](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT201519) [2] I know that you could install the old Airport Utility
unofficially for a while.

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icpmacdo
Here's a little doc Vice did behind the scenes of iFixit

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx-9LkVIdz0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx-9LkVIdz0)

~~~
coherentpony
That was a really fun watch. Thanks for sharing!

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atonse
For all the talk from Apple about recycling, they sure love to design
disposable products. I say this as a HomePod owner.

~~~
otterley
Recycling generally refers to the component materials, not reuse of the
finished product. That's why the green mantra is "reduce, reuse, recycle" (in
preferential order).

~~~
atonse
Right, it refers to recycling the component materials AFTER I part with my
laptop. But maybe I wouldn't have had to part with my laptop for another 4
years if the RAM wasn't soldered on. Thus overall reducing all the processing
needed.

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jacksmith21006
Far more interesting

"Apple is operating at a 38 percent margin – which is significantly smaller
than the margins on iPhone and Apple Watch.

For comparison’s sake, Google sells its Google Home smart speaker at a 66
percent margin, while the Amazon Echo is sold at a 56 percent margin"

~~~
theDoug
This is also the first generation of the device. These things tend to scale
up.

~~~
jacksmith21006
Maybe. But I am surprised it came from Apple. It feels very unfinshed for an
Apple product.

Just obvious things like a physical mic mute button for example.

The most surprising is doing features without the security yet available
needed with the feature.

So no voice ID yet you can get text messages read back.

Been a long time Apple fan but honestly of late it is really hard to
understand what is going on at Apple.

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Sir_Cmpwn
The quality of this product aside, I want to comment on how great iFixIt is.
With their guides, I've been doing my own phone repairs recently, which helps
me keep my phone in working order for longer rather than buying a new one all
the time. They're a great resource.

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function_seven
It's pretty telling that one of the "Tools Featured in this Teardown" is a
hacksaw.

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stevecalifornia
They give a Surface a 0/10 in repairability. They give the HomePod a 1/10.

They had to to use a hacksaw and knives on the HomePod.

What?

~~~
emsy
To be fair, when you send in a Surface for repair, they just send you a new
unit because apparently even Microsoft can't repair the device!

~~~
sebazzz
Likely this applies to this device too, and I expect they reuse the internals
for new devices or use a new casing.

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bitmapbrother
I'm wondering how it even got a 1. Any device that requires a Dremel tool to
saw through it just to get at the insides should get a 0.

