Technology

someone needs to tell the EU to require all devices to be serviceable with screws….

That's a concern for me as well, in Germany every new Product has to come with basically a 2 year warranty. 30 days is nothing.

30 to 90 days is standard for a defects in workmanship and materials warranty, which is only there to cover something not working right because it came faulty from the factory. It's basically one step up from an "as-is" sale just so you can request a replacement if it's dead on arrival.

It is bullshit and straight up illegal in the EU, but as the watches are shipped straight from the Chinese factory and sold by a US based company, it might technically be allowed? The legalese is very confusing when I tried to figure it out - if a company sells something directly to an EU customer, they are supposed to follow EU laws to a point.

Cheaper manufacturing costs with the added "benefit" of making it hard to repair so users buy another one if it breaks

waterproofing and cost savings

Ran out of money, went belly up, and sold the software assets to Fitbit so they could refund all the Kickstarter orders they couldn't fulfill, that guy.

Difference is that this time he is doing the watches with a 5 man team, not a bloated 100+ employee company with investors breathing down their necks, and the software is fully open source. Even released the Pebble 2 Duo hardware designs as a reference for others wanting to make a PebbleOS watch.

Same guy. This time the whole thing is open source though, even the hardware. So that's insurance for what it's worth.

I was a backer of the first version of the Pebble, and by the time mine came in they had released a newer, better, cheaper version which made mine feel a lot less cool. Doubt I would buy one again no matter what they did.

Haha, you remember the past! I guess we all learned our lesson about supporting products from companies that screw us over. Cheers to avoiding the same mistake twice!

Its corner-cutting to save assembly costs. Plastic tabs take sub-seconds to whack into place vs screws which take 20+ seconds each.

Theyre saving ~$100 on your car assembly process and the end result is you have a vastly more annoying car to work on and repair for its entire lifetime. Its beyond annoying.

Doesn't a little solvent and some gentle brushing usually clear this issue up?

The benefits for simple access through simple mechanisms, for me, is worth this bit of work.

But everyone clearly has different requirements. 🤷‍♂️

There are lots of watches with screws on the back, like the Casio F91

I have a Garmin Fenix 7s. This watch also has torx screws on the back. I wear it day and night for 3-4 years now, even when working in the garden etc. and the screw heads are completely clean. So I don't think it's an issue.

I feels like all these is really non-issue for dailly user, you're not gonna open the stuff up every week, most likely you're gonna need to do it once in a year or two to change some part. If you have any skill repairing stuff, cleaning it up is just a matter of having a toothbrush and some toothpick to clean up the gunk before doing the work, and you will already own a set of driver.

And smart watches tend to add glue because it is more reliable than rubber gaskets for water resistance

Debatable. Some car's waterpump rely on rubber o-ring to seal up the cooling system, and those run at around 12/16psi and in high heat constantly while car is in working condition, and it can last for years before it leak. Rubber o ring also played an important role in sealing International Space Station. It's the quality of the rubber o ring that is important, it can easily pass ipx7 or even ipx8 rating if the casing is properly designed, and lasted longer than the battery would if quality o-ring is used. My guess is glue is often used because it's cheaper, as you can apply it in any shape you wanted, instead of having to manufacture a shape that fit the use case.

True, but it shouldn't be a huge deal to clean them up once every few years.

Everyone hates Japanese Philips screws until they learn there's Japanese Philips screw drivers. Decades of stripped motorcycle screws because the angle is different.

I've got a Timex Expedition that I've had since high school. That means I bought it some time during the early Triassic. Its stainless steel backplate is held on with four Phillips screws and I have never in many decades had any problems undoing them when I need to replace the battery every six years or so. It remains resolutely waterproof. I know this because it lives outside rather frequently: at the moment I have it stuck to the gauge cluster on one of my motorcycles with Velcro.

I think it depends on screw design. GShock also have screws and they just don't get dirty enough that you couldn't unscrew them.
bring back screws

This is not the final design, it might gain a connector in the final. It might not. But even if it doesn't, splicing the wires shouldn't be too difficult for most who'd dare open their watch. I'm pretty confident I can do it.

I’ll change 100 of those batteries before I do another Apple Watch battery or lcd

At this size battery connectors add way too much bulk.