If you had read the beginning of this article properly you’d have seen that the “lock” had been added as a smile inducer… Or in other words it doesn’t exist! D’OH!!!

The patent describes Liquidmetal a.k.a bulk metallic glass, which will allow the radio signals through.

Amorphous_metal is not radio transparent! The problem you face is the the melting point of the material and what you are casting it in needs to be higher. Here ceramic or glass would be questionable! From what I understand the amorphous metal would alter back to a crystalize state altering its characteristics.

Liquid metal is something very different.

hi Dan,

trying to figure out the same question too. any luck if finding the antennas, and especially the UWB antenna? even a single one?

for ranging - which is UWB for initially - placing the antennas tight on the wrist might interfere with the accuracy of measurement done by other devices (such as the iPhone 11), polarisation may have additional influence -both on range and accuracy. so it is interesting to see what they did with the antenna.

If the case was a molded plastic I could see it. Ceramic or Glass would require a sandwich of some sort as you couldn’t have it too close the the base case, it also couldn’t be casted in-place (ceramic is what I believe the sensor base is made of).

So that only leaves the display crystal or the sensor base. I could only find two possible antenna connections both within the sensor plate (coax connection and a small gold tab). If you know radio waves, you know your body doesn’t let signals pass through it very well at the frequencies being used here. so that limits the edge area of the plate.

I don’t see all of the radios sharing the same antenna so we are still short ;-{

Contact Apple for a warranty exchange (defective on arrival) ASAP!

this is a teardown, not a repair guide. ifixit teardowns always have this type of humor.

You have a Catch22 problem! You would need to open the watch up to inspect for damage, but the act of opening it would void the waterproofness!

Best to return the watch and get another!

Thanks for your answer. There is no apparent reason for me to return the watch as the microphone is working; what could I say to the store? It is not their problem if an incompetent staff of another store did something wrong, or at least I think so

They are responsible for their staffs training! They are on the hook for sure. As I didn’t see what they did I can only tell you what would be required to check things. The only thing left is to get the Apple extended warranty coverage. I would get them to pay for half of it. Did you make a fuss? So they know their employee messed up? If not then you’ll need to fork over the full amount to ease your mind of future issues.

I agree but this was an employee of a tlc store, not Apple. I am in Vietnam, no official stores, just authorized resellers. I did complain about their carelessness but here it is just useless because it is the norm. I would say that as the Mike works, I would not risk to invalidate the warranty to have it opened. Maybe I can purchase a AppleCare+, in any case.

Thanks Dan. Do you think I have broken / pierced something in there? The mic definitely works perfectly. I’m more concerned about letting water into the watch when swimming. (P.s I thought it has a sim because I’m unfamiliar with it and it looks just like the sim slot on my iPhone. )

Yes, but its’ a big job as you need to take most of the watch apart.

Within the SIP module is where the thermal sensor resides for the logic and the battery it’s self has a sensor.