Apple HomePod Teardown [Images]

iFixit has posted its teardown of the new Apple HomePod smart speaker.

Apple’s beloved voice assistant is back again, this time in more of a Mac Pro wearing a jacket. Siri can now (attempt to) answer your questions with 360°, high-fidelity sound. How did Apple fit such big sound in such a small space—and what took them so long to do it?

Highlights:
● Apple A8 processor
● 4" high-excursion, upward-firing woofer
● Beamforming seven tweeter array
● Beamforming six microphone array
● 802.11ac Wi-Fi with MIMO + Bluetooth 5.0
● Model number, A1639
● Under the glue-foot is a 14-pin port
● Secondary, internal fabric sleeve
● 16 GB NAND flash
● At some point—the HomePod was able to be unscrewed to separate the control/woofer component and the tweeter/power supply unit.
● Low frequency microphone for woofer calibration


Repairability Score: 1 out of 10
● The HomePod is built like a tank. Durability should not be an issue.
● The outer fabric mesh, despite its lack of seams, can be peeled off undamaged thanks to a wicked cool drawstring.
● All threaded fasteners are of the standard Torx variety—no annoying security screws here.
● Extremely clever use of conductive screw posts minimizes the cabling mess across multiple stacked layers of components.
● Very strong adhesives secure the touch input cover, microphone array, rubber foot, and (most annoyingly) the main point of entry on the top of the device—which otherwise looks designed to twist off without much fuss.
● Even though it looks like there ought to be a nondestructive way inside, we failed to decode it. Without a repair manual, your odds of success are slim.

Take a look at a few images below or hit the link for the full teardown.

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