[joe_mamba]

My low-cost plastic Casio watch based on a very old design is waterproof and battery can be swapped out by undoing 4 philips screws, no glue. Its buttons can also be operated under water while staying waterproof.

What is this whicraft?

[kccqzy]

I normally much prefer screws over glue but Apple has at least been using repair-friendly glue like the electrically debonding adhesive in use for iPhone 16e/17e.

[al_borland]

Making these devices repairable is not just about taking it apart, it's also about getting it back together. If I need to electrically debond the adhesive, then I'd also need to new strips of this special adhesive to hold the new battery in place. All of this is after needing a heat gun to weaken the adhesive just to get into it, which I assume also needs to be reapplied on reassembly to retain the same level of water and dust resistance.

It's not just a matter of buying a battery and using some tools the average person has on hand. A whole kit of specialty tools and parts needs to be ordered to facilitate the repair. Apple's own repair kit is the most extreme form of this, where they ship 70lbs of tools, which would be comical if it wasn't so sad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjsc6UypDOI

[alt227]

Friendly for who? I certainly cant electrically debond chemical compounds, but I sure do know how to undo a screw.

[SauntSolaire]

And you can't follow a guide either? All you have to do is clip a 9v battery on.

Do you also consider yourself incapable of jump starting a car because you might have to look up instructions first?

[alt227]

Yes. Dont assume that everybody is technically minded such as yourself.

I know plenty of people that would never even consider jump starting thei car. However are also quite happy with poppping open a battery cover and doing a simple swap like any other battery powered device.

[SauntSolaire]

You don't have to be "technically minded" to figure this out. It's not spinning up a Kubernetes cluster, it's a picture with an arrow that says "Clip red wire here". Simply driving a car is a thousand times more complicated, and we expect most everybody to be capable of that.

There's also a difference between not wanting to do something, and not being capable of it.

[alt227]

You seem to judge the world by your own accument and ability, which is very dangerous.

Many milions of people are scared by things such as red and black wires and wont touch them with a barge pole.

[blackguardx]

It is probably a good idea to review some instructions before jump starting a car because even though it is simple, if you do it wrong (connect the battery terminal last) you can blow up your battery from the ignition of hydrogen gas.

[SauntSolaire]

Agreed. But having to reference instructions is very different from being incapable of something, which was my point.

[kccqzy]

Well yeah any glue is worse than screws: this I agree with you. But attaching a 9V battery to the glue is about the same difficulty as aligning the screwdriver with the screw and applying torque with a screwdriver.

[kmeisthax]

There's little metal tabs you can alligator-clip a 9-volt battery onto, which will release the adhesive. Way better than the stupid pull tabs you had to pull and roll in a very particular way in order to not tear them and render the battery unsafe to remove.

[exe34]

technically you're meant to replace the rubber ring around it, but yes, not hard to do.

[joe_mamba]

I actually never did. I think you're only supposed to replace it on those scuba-style watches with screw-on casebacks that shred the gasket when fully tightened to ensure a tight seal.

But on those watches with 4 screws on the case, the gasket seemed fine to me to keep reusing.

[mikepurvis]

I think a lot of sealing rings / gaskets are meant to be single use. I had to swap the heater on my hot tub a while back and the store told me to change the o-rings on the inlet and outlet as it was unlikely the prior ones would re-seal after being loosened.

[marcosdumay]

That's common on high-pressure systems. It's not very common on diving-depth water-proof equipment.

[exe34]

Worse than I thought: https://support.casio.com/en/support/answer.php?cid=00900101...

"• To maintain water resistance, have the gaskets of your watch replaced periodically (about once every two or three years)."

[al_borland]

It seems like the same can be true for the glue used on the iPhone.

> Splash, water, and dust resistance are not permanent conditions and resistance might decrease as a result of normal wear. Liquid damage is not covered under warranty, but you might have rights under consumer law.[0]

If a gasket has a predictable life, there could be a warning after that period that the water resistance may be compromised and to replace the gasket if this is a concern for how the user use's the phone. With glue, it seems less certain and Apple goes so far as to say even dropping your phone can compromise the seal enough to risk liquid damage.

Meanwhile, a G-Shock was designed to have a battery life of 10 years, have a water resistance of 10 bar, and survive a fall of 10 meters. Dropping the watch doesn't nullify the water resistance claims, the goal was to be able to do all of those things at once.

[0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/108039

[exe34]

I have had blackview "rugged" phones before - the only reason I had to give up on them was that they never update the OS and I couldn't get Lineage OS on them.

These things _do_not_break_. Once I rashly dropped mine on a concrete floor to show off to a friend. I regretted it immediately, thinking oh no, I didn't have to take it that far... it turned out it was completely fine. I washed it with soap when I got mud over it. It also weighed a ton in my pocket.

[i_am_jl]

An Apple product manager just fainted at the thought of a user taking a screwdriver to an iPhone.

[luqtas]

not if they manage to find a screw head that can only be opened by a clean, minimalist, proprietary, expensive Apple screwdriver

[bonestamp2]

You joke but...

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Lukyamzn-P2-P5-P6-Pentalobe-Scre...

At first it looks like a normal torx head, but then you realize it has 5 lobes instead of 6. Apple used these on early iPhone models when you actually could open them with this proprietary screwdriver.

[i_am_jl]

I honestly had no idea that Apple had moved on from the Pentalobe.

[ryandrake]

I get it for watches, but I've never understood the mass-market need for a waterproof phone, outside of a few niche hobbies. Are people showering and swimming with their phones or something? Or dropping them in their toilets? The wettest my phone has ever been in 8 years is in my pocket while it's raining.

[chongli]

People in humid climates and cold climates were regularly having their phones get denied warranty service because the water ingress stickers turned red due to condensation, without ever exposing their phone to water immersion. This was understandably upsetting for a lot of people who just wanted their phone to be fixed under warranty.

Thus, companies put in a big effort to seal their phones against dust and water, which ought to have dramatically reduced these service issues and led to a better customer experience overall!

[catlikesshrimp]

There is waterproof specification levels. I haven't met one consumer product which doesn't let moisture in. I live in a hot country (not over 40ºC mind you)

If I not being precise, keeping your phone in your jeans deep tight pocket when you are sweating or raining will cause you problems. It might seem too many coincidences for you, but it is common enough that some of us avoid keeping the phone in the pocket.

[chongli]

In a cold climate it’s the opposite problem. You need to keep the phone warm when you’re outside, otherwise it becomes extremely cold, and then becomes a condensation magnet when you come back inside!

[seanmcdirmid]

Life happens, people want the assurance that their phone isn’t necessarily e-garbage after an accidental dunk.

[throwaway894345]

Kayaking, fishing, river floating, surfing, diving, snorkeling, etc. "No one I know takes their phone snorkeling" <- that's because they're not presently waterproof, but I imagine a lot of people would like to take a high quality camera under water.

[elzbardico]

I like to wash my phone under the tap, not getting paranoid of having it in a table close to the pool while drinking a few beers with my wife and friends, it is a really nice to have feature if you live in a warmer climate.

[Angostura]

> Or dropping them in their toilets?

That.

It’s also nice to be able to wash them under the tap

[inanutshellus]

Notably a bigger problem for women who must put their phones in their back pockets due to having no/small pockets in front.

[Angostura]

Or me - top shirt pocket

[shmeeed]

The latter often goes hand in hand with the former.

[sophacles]

Tens of millions of people have outdoor hobbies that puts them in direct or incidental contact with water. Hundreds of millions live in places where rain happens. Billions live in situations where a spill of drinking water (or water based liquids) are a real risk for thier phones.

I don't want to take extra care and caution just to have a life and a fone. Theoretically this thing makes my life easier and I want it to act like it damnit.

[LaGrange]

Swimming. Lakes generally don't come with a securely closed box, and even if I come with company, they usually want to swim at the same time.

Of course I don't have to actually _use_ the phone while swimming, so it goes into a waterproof pouch - but having a 2nd layer of defense is nice.

[vardump]

I like to wash my phones every now and then. Even submerging them in water.

[__MatrixMan__]

I'd rather have an 3.5mm audio jack

[umanwizard]

> Are people showering and swimming with their phones or something?

Believe it or not, yes!

[fragmede]

What, you stop refreshing HN while you're showing?

[iberator]

kayaks or hiking or fishing is like 40%% of entire population sole hobby in europe

[jacobgorm]

It is not that long ago that smartphones would die from moisture exposure if you left them in the bathroom while taking a shower. I had a girlfriend around 2001 who spent all her savings on a shiny new Nokia 8250, got drunk and barfed on her jacket. The phone was in the pocket, and the moisture from the wet jacket completely killed it, she cried about it for weeks. I also remember my mother dropping her iPhone 6 in the harbor while getting off a boat, it got picked up but was dead. Last year I was out hiking in the rain, and my aging (5+ years old) iPhone 11 got water inside it and started dying soon after (I'd been sailing/swimming with the phone and had exposed it to salt water, apparently that will wear down the seals if you do it enough.)

In other words, I absolutely see the need for waterproof phones, even for ordinary people doing ordinary things, and am never going to buy one that isn't.

[estimator7292]

I think it's mostly marketing. When all phones are identical glass rectangles, the only meaningful way to distinguish your product is by being the biggest, thinnest, highest IP-rating.

Most of these metrics are entirely orthogonal to what any real person wants from a phone, but that's an irrelevant detail to marketing types

[creaturemachine]

Yes, people are so addicted to scrolling their idiotic looping videos that they take their phones in public pools. Saw it myself.

[zahlman]

How do they waterproof around the screws?

[Zak]

They don't. The screws are outside of the gasket: https://rmdd.net/writing/2023/sensor-watch/2.jpeg

[kergonath]

Usually there is a gasket, which ages just like glue (it gets stiff and brittle) and should be replaced every decade or so.

[ok123456]

A gasket.

[kaiwn]

The buttons can’t be operated underwater. You’ve been lucky thus far. Casio asks you not to use the buttons underwater.

https://www.casio-intl.com/asia/en/wat/water_resistance/

> Even if a watch is water-resistant, do not operate its buttons or crown while it is submersed in water or wet.