When you’ve already learn certainly one of final month’s posts, you understand that my engineering colleague Huan Nguyen wasn’t capable of resurrect my prematurely deceased set of Beats Powerbeats Professional earbuds. As soon as once more following my long-time mantra “When life offers you lemons, make lemonade,” nonetheless, I’ve determined to go forward and do a full teardown of certainly one of them, since Nguyen’s ample nonetheless and video picture set that he took throughout “surgical procedure” and subsequently shared with me (and I subsequently shared with all of you) solely received as far inside them because the battery. I gained’t be retracing his already-documented steps, so be sure you take a look at Nguyen’s already revealed written and photographed play-by-play earlier than continuing.
Right here once more are Apple’s “inventory” photos of the earbuds standalone (identical shade as mine):
and with certainly one of them positioned within the charging case (the white-color variant):
The charging case nonetheless works advantageous, so I’m maintaining it intact as a spare for the substitute Powerbeats Professional set that I’ve purchased (idiot me as soon as, disgrace on you; idiot me twice, disgrace on me?). I’ll be re-incising and additional disassembling the best earbud, which Nguyen had initially reduce into with an ultrasonic blade. To be exact, nonetheless, my reducing gained’t be from scratch, as at my request he left the duvet indifferent on this earbud to make my job simpler:
Right here’s the duvet standalone, entrance facet first, exhibiting the function-activation button:
And now the again facet, revealing the button “spring”:
The change activated by the button, situated atop the battery cowl, is now apparent:
Additionally, appropriate me if I’m improper, readers, however I’m fairly certain that’s the MEMS microphone to the left of the battery cowl, on the prime of the assemblage. Recall that this specific earbuds mannequin, whose introduction dates from early 2019, doesn’t implement ANC, solely PNR, so there’s no want for a number of per-ear mics. That mentioned, there are two vents feeding the mic with sounds from the surface, which I’ll present you shortly.
Let’s get that black plastic piece at left off:
Fact be advised, I don’t know precisely what the aim of this piece is. It’s not metallic, so it might probably’t present any electrical shielding capabilities, nor can it act as a heatsink for the H1 SoC (the successor to Apple’s preliminary W1 chip for wi-fi headphones) beneath. It could merely present added structural integrity and safety from influence, moisture, and so on. harm to the circuitry beneath. Notice too, that I by no means discovered a Bluetooth antenna, both discrete or embedded within the PCB (nor did iFixit, so far as I can inform), so maybe it’s built-in inside this piece, too.
Time to pry the PCB out:
Seems it’s a multi-PCB “sandwich”:
From this vantage level, you may see the “prongs” that mate with the charging contacts on the earbuds’ decrease edge:
And this angle reveals you the switches similar to the two-button management toggle alongside the earbuds’ prime edge:
Now look extra carefully at each external-view pictures and also you’ll see a small gap subsequent to each the charging contacts and the two-button toggle. These are the 2 vents that feed the microphone, which I discussed earlier. And in the event you look actually carefully, you may see the inside mesh related to one of many exterior holes, designed to maintain mud and different particulates from getting inside. I’ll present extra photos of the holes and their mesh mates later.
Let’s get that “sandwich” totally unfolded:
One of many irritating features of tearing down Apple merchandise is that lots of the ICs don’t have top-side marks in any respect, and for those that do, they’re Apple-proprietary stampings that don’t give a clue as to what’s contained in the package deal. The sooner-mentioned H1 SoC (succeeded by the newer H2) is clear despite its tried anonymity. And I’d presume that the IC close by the charging “prongs” manages the earbuds’ energy and battery-refresh capabilities. However aside from that…🤷♂️…
And right here’s what’s left after the PCB “sandwich” was extracted:
You possibly can see that I severed a ribbon cable routing into the earbud throughout this a part of the process. We already know that there’s a speaker down there, in addition to an IR sensor that detects if the earbud is definitely inserted within the ear (pausing playback when the earbuds are eliminated, for instance):
so I believe we’ll discover not solely a transducer, however extra chips. First off although, what’s with that piece of metallic at left, beneath the now-extracted PCB?
It’s truly two items of metallic, the decrease one a quite-strong magnet. It took me a minute to understand its main function; that’s how the earbuds “grip” the charging case when inserted in it (plus it provides structural rigidity, after all):
To get at no matter’s contained in the earbud, I tag-teamed a field cutter and a skinny flat head screwdriver performing as a chisel:
There are literally two extra mini-PCBs, related collectively by one other ribbon cable, with one other ribbon cable heading out of the second mini-PCB (the one glued to the again facet of the speaker) and even deeper into the earbud:
After snipping the primary ribbon cable to get the 2 mini-PCBs aside, I used the flat head screwdriver to dive additional into the earbud construction:
Inside, unsurprisingly, was the dynamic transducer with the IR sensor beneath that:
However one different goodie nonetheless awaited me. See the mesh within the first shot that follows?
Maintain that thought for a minute. Let’s now flip to the different mini-PCB, either side of which you’ve already seen (albeit considerably obscured) in earlier chronologically-ordered photos:
With it eliminated, right here’s what’s left:
What’s that within the second shot…extra mesh? Sure! At first, once I encountered it, I questioned whether or not there is likely to be (earlier no-ANC feedback apart) one other mic deeply embedded within the earbud. However that didn’t make sense, as a result of the one factor it might “hear” can be what was popping out of the speaker. Then I noticed that what I used to be truly taking a look at was a bass reflex port for enhanced low frequency copy, which conveniently does double responsibility in decreasing ear strain for higher long-listening-session consolation. Apple/Beats’ marketeers’ referring to it as a “micro-laser barometric venting gap” is a bit hyperbolic, however nonetheless, slick!
Talking of microphones, I’ll shut with, as beforehand promised, a extra targeted have a look at each vent holes and their (micro-laser?) mesh associates:
And with that, it’s over to you all on your ideas within the feedback!
—Brian Dipert is the Editor-in-Chief of the Edge AI and Imaginative and prescient Alliance, and a Senior Analyst at BDTI and Editor-in-Chief of InsideDSP, the corporate’s on-line e-newsletter.
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