For the last year, we’ve called the Galaxy Buds the most repairable wireless earbuds
on the market, giving them a 6 out of 10 on our repairability scale.
Since then, the market has ballooned with competitors—including the equally-repairable
(though more expensive) Sony WF-1000XM3 noise-cancelling buds.
Now Samsung has come forward with the Galaxy Buds’ successor: the Buds+.
Will they inherit the original Buds’ simple construction?
There’s only one way to find out: it’s time for a teardown.
Pressure from our vice cracks the light adhesive seal and then we can separate the two halves
of the bud.
The Galaxy Buds+ are only rated IPX2 for ingress protection, which means hopefully we won’t
find too much glue in here!
On the downside, they probably won’t survive a swim.
A press connector with a nice long cable connects the two halves of the bud.
The internal structure is similar to the first-gen buds here, but there are a couple differences.
The circuit board is still sandwiched around the battery, but the internals now fill the
entire space inside the bud—where last year everything came out in a nice little package,
this time it doesn’t all come free at once.
Luckily, though, the top half does come free with some prying, and with it comes the battery!
It’s a .315 Wh rechargeable li-ion button-cell battery from EVE.
That’s a whole .1 Wh more power than the .2 Wh cell in the Galaxy Buds.
With the battery out of the way we unscrew the single phillips triple zero screw holding
the circuit board in place.
On the board we can see the two outward-facing mics, the battery contact pins, and a few
other ICs—notably, we find a new chip from Broadcom: BCM43015.
This chip is likely an incremental update to last year’s BCM43014, but it could possibly
be the reason that the Buds+ aren’t capable of pairing to multiple devices like samsung
initially promised.
The other half of the bud houses the charging contacts, the inward-facing microphone, a
proximity sensor, and the upgraded drivers.
The new drivers are built into the neck of the bud’s casing, and won’t come out without
a fight.
Let us know in the comments if you want us to take a closer look at those!
The charging case of the Galaxy Buds+ looks similar to the original Buds case on the outside,
but we don’t judge books by their covers around here.
An opening tool gets the first layer of the case out of the way, then a few screws hold
the hinge assembly in place.
A couple more screws, and we’re finally to the good stuff.
Like the original buds case, the battery of the charging case is sandwiched between the
main board and the wireless charging coil.
Peel away the coil, and you can see the 1.03 Wh battery—exactly the same as last year’s.
At the end of this teardown, we’re happy to report that the Galaxy Buds+ can keep their
title as the most repairable wireless earbuds, scoring a 7 out of 10 on our repairability
scale.
Sticking your earbuds into a vice isn’t an ideal opening procedure, but once you crack
the Buds+ open they are even easier to work with than the original Buds, with fewer tiny
plastic pieces to keep track of, quick-and-easy battery access, and less adhesive holding
everything together.
Let’s just hope that we can actually find replacements for these rechargeable button
cell batteries a few years down the road …
Be sure to give this video a thumbs up if you liked it, and let us know in the comments
if you’d like to see more wireless earbud teardowns, or if you have any questions about
the Galaxy Buds+.