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welcome back I'm Bill Detweiler host of Senate and Tec Republic's cracking open we're live on the scene at stage at CES 2018 and instead of taking something apart this time today I'm going to be putting something back together with our help of I fix it right here so now if you're the owner of an iPhone you've probably heard about Apple rolling out an iOS update that slows down the processor on older phones with weak batteries right now Apple says they did this to prevent the phones with worn-out batteries from randomly shutting down unfortunately they didn't really tell anyone that they were doing this which made a lot of people angry because they may have bought a new iPhone when all they needed to do was replace the battery now the uproar has been so intense that Apple issued a rare apology and lowered the cost of battery replacements from old or for older phones from 79 to $29 now if you don't want to wait for Apple to do the job you want to just save a few bucks or you're the person that likes to do it yourself and we're gonna show you just how easy it is to do I'm here with Chris bras from iFixit who's going to show us how easy it is to replace your own iPhone battery now Chris thanks for coming down thanks Bill thanks the opportunity all right so tell me a little bit about what you've got here what type of iPhone do we have and what's in this box over here sure well thanks for the great lead-in you hit all the relevant points about why we're here and why we exist well what we've got today is I've got an iPhone 6s here today which is a pretty popular model of the phone as we know and we're going to take this apart into a battery replacement on it and do-it-yourself battery replacement I brought with me today one of our battery replacement kits that's available from ifixit.com that has everything you need in it and tools parts and along with our guides that are free online you'll be able to do your own battery replacement just with this simple kit great and just as a little bit of a preview we actually have something special for everyone here in the audience at the CNET stage at the end of the segment right that's correct little surprise at the end alright great so let's get started sure so we've got an iPhone 6s here and well with all the recent news everyone's interested in knowing whether or not they need to change their battery and of course you can gauge the health of your battery currently if you connect to a Macintosh with the cocoanut application to gauge the the usage of your battery so far to give you an indication of where it is and of course if you're already experiencing recurring recharge times because the battery is not lasting as long you might be able to tell already you need okay right and of course runnings more slowly than it used to and it's a couple years old yeah I'd be time to do this man interestingly before Apple made this announcement it was my 14 year old son who told me how slow my phone was run and I didn't realize why all right he was right cool it is the battery so what we're gonna do today is we're gonna unbox on one of our parts and tool kit for a battery so you can see what's inside containing all the components we need then we're gonna go ahead and carry this phone all right let's we're back together show me what you've got in the box so again this is our our kit that contains everything we need and these kits are available on ifixit.com and of course Apple has reduced the cost of a battery repair from $79 to $29 but I fix it we're selling all of our battery kits lower than that a lot to make it easier for the customer and so we'll open up the box here and we start with something a little you got this little attaboy okay you do it right right and inside we really got two parts to this there's our repair tools which are all the tools we're gonna need and then we've got the repair parts okay all right we'll take a look inside and see what we got here as well this is also a very technical part here as well a tool this is the whole D up e but I'll show you how that works in a few minutes so I'll unbox these couple of elements just so we can see what we've got now while you're doing this I don't wanna stop you keep going but what are some of the safety precautions that people need to take before they do this sure well a couple of things one for sure you want to backup your data if the phone is still functional you want to make sure you connect to itunes and make sure you have a full backup of all the data just in case something goes wrong or just in case you you know having issues during the repair um you also want to make sure that if the phone is functional that the battery is drained as much as possible ideally below 25% or lower as we all know people have a justifiable fear about lithium-ion batteries exploding however the operation we're gonna do today is perfectly safe to do and the last charge in the battery to safer it is okay so we want to take those two main precautions all right great in addition if you happen to be in a space where you have a proper ESD clean workspace that is ideal of course here on the stage we don't have that set up we can't do that but I do have today with me a magnetic mat which allows us to work on and keep all of our parts safe in one location while we're taking it apart all right so we've got our tools already open and then we've got the parts we're gonna need our battery is right here and a couple of other accessories our adhesive strips are also here as well all right now how long do with this job take sure for for a DIY repair the very first time you've attempted this we estimate between 50 15 minutes to 1 hour to complete the battery replacement ok but for a pro like you 15 minutes on well we'll see so in my kid here I've got all the tools I'm gonna need for this repair you can see here we've got a couple of driver bits a driver a pry tool a spudger one of our very important tools here and the tweezers and a suction cup those are all the tools that we need and now what are some of the reasons that people would want to do this themselves besides just being a do DIY er sure well of course there's that aspect that people want to repair their own things currently you have the option of going to an Apple store and Apple Authorized service provider to have this work done but the interweb seems to be telling us that there are very long wait times in some cases and some supply problems in fact I think it was mentioned just today that Apple has a shortage of 6s plus batteries so that's a kind of an issue if you don't want to wait weeks or months to have the repair you can do this in an hour yourself just after receiving it from us great alright well let's get started sure so let's take a look and see what we need here well with the 6s you know Apple has done a few things to make it hard for us to get inside and they started with creating their own proprietary pentalobe screws we remember those from a couple of years ago and well we know that they put those screws in to prevent us from getting in because once we get inside they're all standard Phillips screws now iFixit created us tool the Pentonville driver specifically to be able to get at these and so we're gonna go ahead here and pick out one of our bits that we need which is our pentalobe bit and got it right here and this bit will allow me to take out the two screws on the bottom of the phone that are really securing the display in and these are right on either side of the lightning connector that's directly in this magnetic map that I showed you is really nice because you can place each particular component in the same orientation that you pulled it from without the screws rolling onto the floor and these are screw line to find them now replaceable where participants are available however you don't want to lose anything during the repair so I pulled the two screws from the bottom now what I need to do is acknowledge that there's an adhesive strip that Apple has placed around the perimeter to this screen in the frame that holds that display in as well as some clips that are along the sides so what we need to do is release the display slightly and get under the display and release those clips so we can get at it and what are those seals for so those seals are primarily for waterproofing and in fact I believe that seal was not in the six and started in the cigs and asks if I recall and so what we're going to do is we're gonna use a suction cup here and on this particular phone we're gonna want to place the suction cup about in that location just a not over the home button but just at the bottom of the screen and a clean screen okay will help us adhere better and if your screen is shattered which is a common problem these days clear packing tape over the top of the screen will create a surface that this can adhere to and that's one of the safety precautions when you're doing this you want to make sure that you don't crack the screen so don't press you don't have to press really hard to get this to stick yeah that's correct in fact this is all about finesse and using the correct amount of pressure and for a first-timer this can be a little intimidating that's for sure but let me show you how the process works so we want to make sure we have good suction on there and we do and my goal now is with those two screws removed is simply to lift until I can see a small gap I know this won't show well on camera I can see a small gap forming now just above well I've asked my suction just above the headphone jack on the bottom of the phone there's actually a little notch right there that's what I'm after as my entry point my suction keeps losing suction there but let's see we can get that up okay so I've got my spudger tool and I now have it just underneath the display and what I want to do is move it and keep it horizontal and begin to pry at the screen along the edge first and then move back to the bottom and do the same process on the opposite side now obviously when you do this you want to make sure that your phone is off right that's correct thank you for me missile in the first steps after time out draining your battery I should have obvious turned that phone how are the complete when the phone is powered on thanks for that so you can see now that there's actually a gap created that I've been able to do right there so that's the first step and now we can actually start to lift the display off of the phone but when we do that the adhesive strip that's around there can make it a little bit challenging so in this particular case I'm going to go very slowly to begin to lift the display excellent and I can take my suction cup off right now and now I should be able to with a little finesse and equal force lift that display right off indeed that's pretty simple there we go another display inside the phone yeah and there's a perimeter adhesive that's hard to see here but it's right inside the frame that keeps that locked in as we were referring to earlier now ideally we have a special tool here that I was referring to earlier called the hold yuppie tool and in this particular case what we're using is a rubber band around a water bottle and what I'm gonna do is simply support the display like this let's turn this around this way a little bit so we could show everybody in the audience a little bit sideways I know it's a little bit yeah I don't want to flex these cables too much right but yeah we can work on it like this if that works yeah alright I think that looks good great ok great so we're holding the display up here just to make sure that it stays out of our way but we have some very important cables here we don't want to flex obviously or cause any additional damage to right so now we're now one of those cables go to those cables go through the display the digitizer and the front face and the camera right there and so we can acknowledge the battery we see the battery here now we know there's also adhesives in the battery in and it's very strong and that's what we're gonna have to release and so one thing that we don't have with us on stage here which is a big help in these processes is heat so this adhesive breaks down quite easily with heat and we sell it to we'll call the eye opener which is a gelatin based device you throw in your microwave for 30 minutes that heats up enough to between 140 and 180 degrees that you can place under the phone to heat that surface and release some of that adhesive it's like one of the neck pads right or the there's iPads that you heat up into Mikey and you can also use a hairdryer or a heat gun if you calibrate it properly to one for you don't want to melt anything right 180 would be a max and you don't need it that hot ok we did a battery replacement two nights ago here at the show on a cocktail table in the bar area using a candle underneath the phone to heat it I do not recommend this to people at home but it worked ok great so so what's the next step next step in the phone right here is we're gonna want to disconnect the battery this is important because obviously making sure there's no charge going to the phone while we're working on it is key there's a small shield that I already removed kind of to facilitate this for the camera that goes over the battery here and it has two screws holding in place regular Phillips very easy to remove but then then I can't hold this up for the camera right now we're gonna want to remove the battery connector the battery connector is right here and you can use a spudger tool here and the other anti-static tool or a fingernail by anti-static we mean plastic basically here or well yes mother okay so esd-safe plan okay pacifically and that again referring to ESD these tools are all ESD safe you can also use your fingernail if you're necessary and by ESD we're talking about electrostatic discharge yeah oh thank you we don't want any kind of static electricity like don't walk across the carpet and zap your phone because that can damage the electronics correct so now I've just removed the battery cable so I've disconnected the battery now from the phone ideally I want to try and move this battery cable out of the way a little bit so that it won't accidentally reconnect while we're working on it so now battery has been disabled although this battery is well glued in there and because I know that it's glued in there I'm gonna have to use a little bit of force to get it out because I don't have my heat so I'm gonna go ahead and remove the rest of the display right now so that I don't screw that up in the process so in order to remove the display there's a small shield bracket that goes over this component right here with four small Phillips head screws I've already removed that and we have three different cables that we need to now remove the camera the digitizer in the actual display cable and they're layered down so that you can pull them out in the sequence in which they were set up and again a spudger or a fingernail can usually get under here let's see getting a little closer I've got two of the cables up and you want to be really careful that you're removing the cable and not the socket itself these are fairly fragile but now all three cables are loose believe it or not that's all that's holding the display in place so we can take our very high tech pull the uppy tool remove it and the display is now free that's it really right so I know it's easy but the display is now free and now we have basically the chassis in the battery in the motherboard so now we need to get the battery out this is where applying heat from iOpener would work great but we don't have that here so what we're gonna do first is kind of gauge how well this battery is in here by just kind of feeling around a little bit and seeing if it's loose at all and it is not loose at all so we king of that adhesive you know our devices in general getting more difficult to repair that's a great question so iPhone 10 that just came out actually earned a repairability score of six from us which is pretty good the reason it didn't get better is because the back glass display this phone receives a seven score out of ten for repairability which is actually quite good I think most people would believe they're less repairable than that but in fact though this try this phone is a repair ability of seven so the two adhesive strips that are holding the phone in place we need to remove those and it's a little hard to see here but I'll show you they're stuck right here and what we want to do is try our best to release this tape I'm using a tweezers here in this particular case or a fingernail and if you need a walkthrough of these the instructions for all of these replacements they're on the website correct on iFix its website that's correct in fact a prerequisite to doing this should be that you have a computer open with our guide in front of you we wouldn't want you to try this without a guide unless you're a repair technician who has done it many times so right there I've pulled up the adhesive cabs that are actually holding the glue to the bottom now this is a little tricky and this is where a little finesse comes into play but we need to now try and remove these adhesive tabs by getting a good grip on it and beginning to pull and ideally continue to pull and pulling these horizontal right I'm talking about us so if about a sixty degree angle or so works best and trying to keep getting to the root of it as you stretch it you can see this thing stretch to a couple feet in length and it's only three inches long and these are basically like those strips the adhesive strips that you used to hang things on your walls you work under the same principle that's correct and so okay we may have got there's the first one completely now I'm not sure if I got all of it but I got most of it and that's really good if we don't get this out we need heat to get that uh-huh perfect I failed so so what do you do now well this is where that finesse come okay a little bit of force if I had heat to apply I'd be applying heat right now I don't have that so what I'm going to try and do and in this case I actually got the strip farthest away from me out I wish I had gotten this trip out because this is the side we need to remove the battery from so now I'm going to try and get under this battery with either a spudger or a pry tool to see if I can begin to to lift it or free it in any way I don't want to break the battery no no keep going and I don't want to flex the battery too much and I surely don't want to puncture because it is a fire risk absolutely right so what I'm gonna do is I'm going to use my spudger in this case just to get under it a little bit and then I'm gonna use another extremely high-tech tool that I brought with me today which is my hotel key you can see we use very high-tech tools and we use really high-tech tools this is great a very stiff card that you can use we also sell a card specifically for this purpose but again I want to make sure to try and get under there as horizontally as possible and begin to work that strip and I'm I'm slowly feeling it out as I'm going so while while we're removing the battery does anybody in the audience have a question just raise your hand I've got a mic right here if you've got a question for me if you've got a question for Chris from I fix it nothing like how much is the kid or how difficult is it sure yeah what happens to the adhesive once you kind of pry everything open oh that's great quite water proofing sure that adhesive is wasted at that point and needs to be replaced so we have adhesive in the kit for you both for the perimeter seal and for the battery it's single-use so looks like I've been successful here or I'm half stuck but pull out my tool and in fact I can see the battery is going to come free here I want to make sure that it comes free of all other parts and components and it did okay you can see the adhesive strips on the bottom now these strips are really good at not coming off but in this case we would be taking this battery out completely and recycling it and a new battery doesn't come with the strips on it so the battery is now free this is ready to recycle all right so let's get the new battery or we gonna are we ready to put the new battery sure are we sure so there we've got our case so now let's look at our that came with it here's our battery so let's go ahead and open the package here the anti step back I want to make sure we get this in the time that we have left here's that new battery and we've got our adhesive for the battery as well those strips that need to go on there so let's go ahead and work the battery just for a moment and get these strips on now there's a placement kind of trick with this we want to orient the battery just like we know it's going to go in okay so you're gonna stick these here and and fold them around yeah that's correct flip the battery over and whoops we got this back so while you're doing this I just want to tell everybody you know I've worked with Kyle Luke and everyone I fix it for many years and I often use their tools for my own cracking open videos and not only does I fix it sell the tools and the components to help you repair your own devices they're big advocates for making the electronic devices that we use everyday easier to repair so Chris I don't want to stop you keep doing this but can we can you tell everybody why it's so important that the devices that we have are easier are easy to repair or we can repair them ourselves well absolutely the reality you don't keep going like yeah the reality is we don't need to replace our phones every 18 months we need to keep these out of landfills and keep them functional for longer so that's what we're really trying to do is you know save the digital world one device at a time so we've got the battery in place I want to make sure it's fitted into the space correctly so I'll actually kind of wedge it in up front make sure everything looks good this is a single opportunity to stick this correctly and we've got it in so it's down the new battery is in the battery is in we're gonna now we just need to put everything back together right correct it involves putting the seals back on around the glass we're gonna reconnect the display and then we're going to reconnect the battery and seal everything back up yeah that's exactly correct and we can go ahead and do that quickly I'm not going to reinsert the perimeter different interest of time let's go ahead and just reassemble this if we can here and I'm not connecting the battery yet we're still doesn't that last yeah and we got the connector off to the side so let's get the display back in place first this should go quickly for me and these are really small the little ribbon cables that hold the display through the to the circuit board so you have to be real careful when you push them down not to tear them not to rip them because you don't want to replace this screen as well as just replacing the battery right that's correct and while you're doing this where can people actually get the kits so you can get the kits out ifixit.com and all of our kits are currently available including the ones that Apple is apparently having a hard time supplying right now and like any good demo it becomes more challenging on camera so I'm trying to reconnect the digitizer display right digitizer cable right now so if once you get these reconnected so what's the next thing the next step is we're gonna basically button this phone up and put her back together let's see if we can get to that stage yeah if we can get there that's great if not we can just show everybody how we sort of reattach okay so now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go ahead and reconnect my battery cable in this particular case come on baby get in there they are hard they're little bitty they're little connector you know it doesn't take very much to push them back down your fingerprints are in we have everything connected and we're gonna slide the glass back down it's exactly correct now the glass will go into place and that new perimeter adhesive seal would be in place right and as we set this down again single use you want to get it aligned correctly the very first time so now we'll put pressure from the back so we've got a couple of clips we want to clip in place and squeeze it shut and work all the way to the front to screw I'm gonna give it a big visual okay it looks like we're in and we're all done right that's it we got two screws to put back in now these batteries come roughly at about 50% charge or so typically but you're gonna want to really go through a full battery cycle once you do a force restart the very first power on to drain it all the way down and then charge it all the way up now for a little conditioning and we've got our other pen a little screw and we'll be done alright well Chris thanks for joining us here now see how easy that was now get out there and fix your own iPhones