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Motorola Moto 360 Teardown

63 points by theoutlander 12y ago

cnbuff410 12y ago
Here's Motorola's statement: The typical battery capacity for Moto 360 is 320 mAh and the minimum is 300 mAh. In the mobile industry, sometimes both the minimum and typical capacity is listed on the battery, with the typical capacity quoted as the official battery size. Both figures are included on the batteries of our Moto X, Moto E and Moto G devices. In the case of smaller devices, we aren’t always able to list both figures. For Moto 360 we only had room for one figure and choose to list the minimal capacity of the battery. We see how this can be confusing and we will look into ways to add the typical capacity as well in the future.
- makomk 12y ago
  For anyone who hasn't paid close attention to the gory details of battery specs, this is pretty normal - most of them have both a typical and a minimum capacity. Which one gets advertised is mostly a marketing decision.
  - tgb 12y ago
    What's the difference? (Or rather: why don't they know the exact value?)
    - Igglyboo 12y ago
      Probably manufacturing differences and legal reasons. If the average battery life is x and someone gets a battery they can prove is x - 50 they might get sued, where as if they put a generous minimum battery life they can cover their asses.
    - rtkwe 12y ago
      A guess: Small variations in the composition and microstructure of the various battery components give a certain range of errors that they have to account for lest they get sued for mislabeling.
  - tesseract 12y ago
    Like any specification there is a tolerance band on battery capacity specifications. One of the unique things about batteries is the tolerance band is often stated as being asymmetrical, since no one would reject a battery for having too high of a capacity (unless it's physically too large or something). So instead of a spec like "200 mAh +/- 10mAh" and the implied symmetrical distribution of real measured values, you get something like "200 mAh +20mAh -10mAh".
dang 12y ago
Url changed from http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/09/ifixit-cracks-open-the-moto-360-finds-smaller-battery-than-advertised/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/09/ifixit-cracks-open-th..., which points to this.
- swang 12y ago
  This bit from ifixit about the battery saying 300mAh vs 320mAh is about a day or two old, but ArsTechnica is the one who got the actual clarification/explanation from Motorola.
  - dang 12y ago
    Should we change the URL back?
    - Navarr 12y ago
      I think so, so the user doesn't have to read the comments to get the full understanding.
      - raphman_ 12y ago
        As ifixit included Ars' update in their teardown, there is no need to switch back.
jwise0 12y ago
Two things that are relatively surprising for me from the teardown. One, I'm surprised that they include a USB PHY on board. Given that the machine has no externally accessible USB interface, that seems like a waste of power, BOM cost, and board area. The only thing I could imagine it being used for is through the mystical 5-pin programming header, for initial device programming; even still, I would imagine they'd prefer to cost-reduce and use JTAG (or another glueless interface) to do initial programming. I could imagine that they'd use it for bringup, but even still, it seems like they'd want to have a non-bringup SKU for mass production that didn't have the USB PHY populated, and would just drop down the part if needed... The other surprise was the MIPI DSI-DSI bridge. Having a DSI-DSI bridge that supports panel self-refresh allows them to keep the display alive even without having the OMAP (and its DRAM) turned on. The bridge seems to have 28Mbit of SRAM on it as a frame buffer, though, and that can't be cheap: I suppose the learning is that on OMAP, even keeping the DRAM powered on for a minimal refresh is more expensive in terms of power than a big external bridge. Additionally, I'm vaguely curious about the external DSP; I wonder what they're doing with it? It's probably some operation to save power while the AP is turned off, but I wonder just how much power it really can save. Neat device. It'll be interesting to hear the explanations of how people designed these first gen devices as they show up over the next decades.
- jmgrosen 12y ago
  They might be using the DSP for the "OK Google" hotword detection -- at least, that's what they used on the Moto X 2013 (not sure about this year's).
  - dankoss 12y ago
    Yes, Anandtech covered it here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7235/moto-x-review/4 http://www.anandtech.com/show/7235/moto-x-review/4 Running the 55x for voice detection/recognition consumes far less power than an OMAP core, since it has to be running all the time.
  - pkulak 12y ago
    Hot word detection is not always on with the 360. Gesture recognition is, though. I'd put my money on that.
TheMagicHorsey 12y ago
Did I hear that right? Did they say OMAP 3? I didn't know anyone was still using OMAP3 outside of charity organizations trying to provide very basic tablets to children living in terrible conditions in the third world. Why they gotta be so cheap on their flagship smartwatch?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- azernik 12y ago
  My guess would be time to market, if they would otherwise have been blocking on bringup work for a better SoC. Possibly indicates a crash program late in everyone else's smartwatch development cycle?
  - snogglethorpe 12y ago
    That would be my guess too.... I hope it means they're working right now on something better for v2 which will improve the battery performance (which seems the biggest issue with most of the current generation of smartwatches)....
  - on_and_off 12y ago
    Sadly, this could make me wait for the v2 ... I will have to check on my I/O attendees colleagues :)
- joezydeco 12y ago
  So what are you designing with these days and what's your typical design cycle like?
- turing 12y ago
  When I first read this I wondered if they might have been trying to get rid of left over processors from the Motoactv [1]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motoactv https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motoactv
- mrpippy 12y ago
guelo 12y ago
How do you program the circular screen on this thing? Is it a radial coordinate system (which would make it hard to draw parallel and perpendicular lines). Or is it a rectangle but you have to keep track of when you're inside the circle? Or maybe you're not even allowed to draw on the thing and you have to use higher level api functions?
- echeese 12y ago
  It's a square with the corners cut off. You can preview it when you're laying it out, or testing it in the emulator/on a device.
- ZoFreX 12y ago
  As the other poster said, it's a square with bits cut off. You can program it per pixel if you want to, but for most typical use-cases developers will be using higher level APIs that handle the details for you. You can try out developing for both the square and round screens for free using the provided emulators: https://developer.android.com/training/wearables/apps/creating.html https://developer.android.com/training/wearables/apps/creati...

63 points by theoutlander 12y ago

Here's Motorola's statement: The typical battery capacity for Moto 360 is 320 mAh and the minimum is 300 mAh. In the mobile industry, sometimes both the minimum and typical capacity is listed on the battery, with the typical capacity quoted as the official battery size. Both figures are included on the batteries of our Moto X, Moto E and Moto G devices. In the case of smaller devices, we aren’t always able to list both figures. For Moto 360 we only had room for one figure and choose to list the minimal capacity of the battery. We see how this can be confusing and we will look into ways to add the typical capacity as well in the future.

makomk 12y ago
For anyone who hasn't paid close attention to the gory details of battery specs, this is pretty normal - most of them have both a typical and a minimum capacity. Which one gets advertised is mostly a marketing decision.
- tgb 12y ago
  What's the difference? (Or rather: why don't they know the exact value?)
  - Igglyboo 12y ago
    Probably manufacturing differences and legal reasons. If the average battery life is x and someone gets a battery they can prove is x - 50 they might get sued, where as if they put a generous minimum battery life they can cover their asses.
  - rtkwe 12y ago
    A guess: Small variations in the composition and microstructure of the various battery components give a certain range of errors that they have to account for lest they get sued for mislabeling.
- tesseract 12y ago
  Like any specification there is a tolerance band on battery capacity specifications. One of the unique things about batteries is the tolerance band is often stated as being asymmetrical, since no one would reject a battery for having too high of a capacity (unless it's physically too large or something). So instead of a spec like "200 mAh +/- 10mAh" and the implied symmetrical distribution of real measured values, you get something like "200 mAh +20mAh -10mAh".

dang 12y ago

Url changed from http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/09/ifixit-cracks-open-the-moto-360-finds-smaller-battery-than-advertised/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/09/ifixit-cracks-open-th..., which points to this.

swang 12y ago
This bit from ifixit about the battery saying 300mAh vs 320mAh is about a day or two old, but ArsTechnica is the one who got the actual clarification/explanation from Motorola.
- dang 12y ago
  Should we change the URL back?
  - Navarr 12y ago
    I think so, so the user doesn't have to read the comments to get the full understanding.
    - raphman_ 12y ago
      As ifixit included Ars' update in their teardown, there is no need to switch back.

jwise0 12y ago

Two things that are relatively surprising for me from the teardown. One, I'm surprised that they include a USB PHY on board. Given that the machine has no externally accessible USB interface, that seems like a waste of power, BOM cost, and board area. The only thing I could imagine it being used for is through the mystical 5-pin programming header, for initial device programming; even still, I would imagine they'd prefer to cost-reduce and use JTAG (or another glueless interface) to do initial programming. I could imagine that they'd use it for bringup, but even still, it seems like they'd want to have a non-bringup SKU for mass production that didn't have the USB PHY populated, and would just drop down the part if needed... The other surprise was the MIPI DSI-DSI bridge. Having a DSI-DSI bridge that supports panel self-refresh allows them to keep the display alive even without having the OMAP (and its DRAM) turned on. The bridge seems to have 28Mbit of SRAM on it as a frame buffer, though, and that can't be cheap: I suppose the learning is that on OMAP, even keeping the DRAM powered on for a minimal refresh is more expensive in terms of power than a big external bridge. Additionally, I'm vaguely curious about the external DSP; I wonder what they're doing with it? It's probably some operation to save power while the AP is turned off, but I wonder just how much power it really can save. Neat device. It'll be interesting to hear the explanations of how people designed these first gen devices as they show up over the next decades.

jmgrosen 12y ago
They might be using the DSP for the "OK Google" hotword detection -- at least, that's what they used on the Moto X 2013 (not sure about this year's).
- dankoss 12y ago
  Yes, Anandtech covered it here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7235/moto-x-review/4 http://www.anandtech.com/show/7235/moto-x-review/4 Running the 55x for voice detection/recognition consumes far less power than an OMAP core, since it has to be running all the time.
- pkulak 12y ago
  Hot word detection is not always on with the 360. Gesture recognition is, though. I'd put my money on that.

TheMagicHorsey 12y ago

Did I hear that right? Did they say OMAP 3? I didn't know anyone was still using OMAP3 outside of charity organizations trying to provide very basic tablets to children living in terrible conditions in the third world. Why they gotta be so cheap on their flagship smartwatch?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
azernik 12y ago
My guess would be time to market, if they would otherwise have been blocking on bringup work for a better SoC. Possibly indicates a crash program late in everyone else's smartwatch development cycle?
- snogglethorpe 12y ago
  That would be my guess too.... I hope it means they're working right now on something better for v2 which will improve the battery performance (which seems the biggest issue with most of the current generation of smartwatches)....
- on_and_off 12y ago
  Sadly, this could make me wait for the v2 ... I will have to check on my I/O attendees colleagues :)
joezydeco 12y ago
So what are you designing with these days and what's your typical design cycle like?
turing 12y ago
When I first read this I wondered if they might have been trying to get rid of left over processors from the Motoactv [1]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motoactv https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motoactv
mrpippy 12y ago

guelo 12y ago

How do you program the circular screen on this thing? Is it a radial coordinate system (which would make it hard to draw parallel and perpendicular lines). Or is it a rectangle but you have to keep track of when you're inside the circle? Or maybe you're not even allowed to draw on the thing and you have to use higher level api functions?

echeese 12y ago
It's a square with the corners cut off. You can preview it when you're laying it out, or testing it in the emulator/on a device.
ZoFreX 12y ago
As the other poster said, it's a square with bits cut off. You can program it per pixel if you want to, but for most typical use-cases developers will be using higher level APIs that handle the details for you. You can try out developing for both the square and round screens for free using the provided emulators: https://developer.android.com/training/wearables/apps/creating.html https://developer.android.com/training/wearables/apps/creati...