Garmin Forerunner 735XT Teardown

ID: 117852

Description: Garmin's latest forerunner revision provide a...

Steps:

1. The strapless 735xt, the straps are secured by two T6 screws on each side.

2. The front is glued
3. Use an iFixit Spuder to prise around the glue. It's not necessary to use a heat gun here.

4. Once the screen moves, carefully remove the ribbon connector and the screen.

5. Two T6 screws hold the mainboard to the body.
6. The main board will move from where the Spuder is inserted.
7. Remove the green protective tape and disconnect the second ribbon cable before proceeding.

8. The unit will now be disassembled
9. Unplug the battery by lifting up the connector from the bottom.
10. Further disassembly and analysis to follow...

11. GNSS receiver looks like MediaTek MT3333 with external amplifier+filter+chip antenna. And ARM7 CPU.
12. The watch has at least 3 Cortex-M4 microcontrollers, not counting Ant+ or GNSS chips! Microchip ATSAMG51, ATSAMG53 and MAX32360
13. nRF51422 contains ANT+ and Bluetooth LE functionality. And Cortex-M0 CPU to run these.

14. Insert wisdom here.