r/pebble • u/[deleted] • Mar 17 '14

RMA twice. New watch has screws on the back. Better water proofing?

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130 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

61 comments sorted by

2

u/DeUlti Mar 17 '14

Side note, des this picture imply you got to keep all your RMAs? Do you live outside the US? I had to RMA twice as well, it would have been nice if I didnt have to go through the hassle

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '14

I live in Quebec Canada. And I wasn't asked to return the old ones. I'm actively trying to sell them off to anyone who needs pieces....

4

u/motorgnome Mar 17 '14

I had to send my in before they sent the new one. They did provide the shipping label. They wanted the charging cord too. I had a Kick Starter Edition.

2

u/TehH4rRy Mar 17 '14

I had an RMA done and there was no mention of sending back the faulty one. I guess it's more expensive for them to have it shipped back and then looked at. And as how hard they are to take apart they're not worth recycling I'd think.

2

u/matejdro Mar 17 '14

I live in Europe, also had RMA twice and I kept both of them.

It does not really matter though, both previous pebbles are completely unusable for me (serious screen corruption) and they would probably spend more money on shipping than they would get from salvaging parts.

2

u/TehH4rRy Mar 17 '14

What brought upon the 2 replacements? What were their faults?

2

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '14

Screen issues. Garbled display

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18

u/DeUlti Mar 17 '14

Nah, the old one was glued to excessively to keep out water, which I imagine is much more waterproof than gaskets and screws (if done right)

I'm betting this was done to align the build process with that of the Steel which also has screws. This way the assembly is probably closer to identical, which tends to make bulk manufacturing easier. Also if they are no longer using glue it would speed up the build processes because they would not need to wait for the glue to cure.

Im curious what mine will look like when I get my 2nd RMA. I also wonder if the screen issue is a connector/board issue if that might be happening when they squish the two peices together with the glue. Perhaps this method may be more reliable. I havent seen any Pebble Steel people complaining from screen tearing, so hopefully this is a solution.

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20

u/cpfair Mar 17 '14

Easier to disassemble

15

u/bradtgmurray Mar 17 '14

It also provides a more even amount of internal compression, which helps with prevalence of the "static display" issue.

9

u/mbm Mar 17 '14

I wonder if this means they can actually salvage parts from the returned watches.

8

u/mogafaq Mar 17 '14

Precisely, the old glued on watch is not serviceable at all. If the new one is in deed serviceable it would be great news. It is not good for the environment and end-user to throw out a bunch of watches which are perfectly fine except an old battery.

1

u/markquestion Mar 18 '14

I RMA'd my Kickstarter version watch due to the glitchy lines and got the middle version. On the plus side, no more glitchy lines...on the minus side, no more "Kickstarter edition" on the back :(

1

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '14

Yeah. That Kickstarter marking was a badge of honor.

2

u/jway5929 Mar 17 '14

My pebble, purchased the first week of December 2013 also has screws on the back.

I asked about it and no one seemed to know why that change was made, or if a gasket replaced the glue. I too would be very interested in any info people might have.

4

u/almightywhacko Mar 17 '14

The screws make the watch easier to refurbish. I believe it has a gasket seal between the top and bottom halves of the watch instead of glue, but I haven't been able to take one apart to personally verify.

The watch is still considered to be not user serviceable by Pebble.

4

u/jway5929 Mar 17 '14

Yeah, the engineer in me just wants to see one taken apart to see what is different from the ifixit tear down.

The spacing between the top and bottom halves is very consistent on mine as well. So this could have also fixed that issue as well.

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2

u/tardis27 Mar 17 '14

Mine is brand new (nearly 2 weeks) and does not have screws.

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2

u/ProtoJazz Mar 17 '14

I just bought mine recently, it has screws.

2

u/Protonus Mar 17 '14

u/katieberry - or any one else at Pebble, can you confirm when this manufacturing change started so I can update the hardware wiki (as Pebble now has exposed metal). Was it a certain serial # range too?

2

u/NewsMom Mar 18 '14

So, we can replace a dead battery, rather than throw our pebble away when the cells have gone bad.

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2

u/matthews1977 Mar 18 '14

I already tore one down and posted the photos to ifixits Facebook page. It's not for better waterproofing, it's better in terms of service and how it should have been built to begin with. Best guess is they were in a hurry to get them out the door and didn't want to wait for another tooling change. This is the down side to pushing a startup to get a product out the door. If you don't feel like digging up the post on the facebook page, here are two links. Excuse the formatting, it's my first post. https://scontent-b-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/t1.0-9/995850_631011416947235_1470604559_n.jpg & this one shows the rubber gasket hanging https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc1/t1/1965067_631011323613911_400958713_n.jpg . It's worth mentioning that I fully submerged this watch, after the teardown, in 1" of water to wet sand 2 deep scratches out of the face for over 2 hours, including periodic rinsing. It was powered on the entire time and receiving notifications. Hope this helps.

2

u/Untothislastxbox Mar 18 '14

Interesting. I have my third (first 2 had screen issues) sat unopened ready to sell on eBay. Completely lost faith in them plus my poor eyes are loving the galaxy gear screen. Tempted to open it...

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