The repairs-and-teardowns specialists at iFixit have taken an extremely close look at – by which we mean completely dismantled – this year’s new Apple TV, along with its highly anticipated new Siri Remote.
Happily, the Apple TV is still fairly easy to open up and repair on its own – iFixit describes it as a “super-easy disassembly experience” – which earns it a repairability rating of 8 out of 10.
But the Siri Remote is a different matter. It’s difficult to open up, and for the average user it will be almost impossible to replace the tiny 1.52Wh battery.
“Getting inside turns out to be a little more challenging than you might think,” says iFixit, with some understatement.
After unscrewing (with some difficulty) the panel at the end of the remote, the tester hits a brick wall, and is forced to start popping off buttons (again, with difficulty) in search of a way in. The removal of the buttons reveals three more screws. Eventually it’s possible to slide the internals of the remote out as a single unit, and thus access the battery.
Even now it emerges that the battery is glued in place, although this yields to a small amount of force. It could have been worse, iFixit admits.
The site doesn’t give a separate score for the remote, but makes it very clear that this accessory does not offer the same admirable ease of repair as the main device. And while it’s worth stressing that the battery is user-rechargeable via a Lightning cable, and therefore replacing the battery is not an immediate concern, it will need to be replaced at some point.
You can see what this process looks like in the video below:
In general we’re big fans of the new Siri Remote here at Macworld, although it has its critics outside of the DIY repair community: it’s been pointed out, for example, that the new remote is a lot worse for games.
This article originally appeared on Macworld Sweden. Translation by David Price.