Google Home gets the iFixit treatment, reveals Chromecast innards

iFixit’s product teardowns are now a rite of passage for any new device that hits the market. In its latest teardown, iFixit took its plethora of skills and tools to the Google Home speaker and came away with some rather interesting revelations . First up , the mics. Google has apparently gone with just two microphones in the Home, as opposed to the 7 on the Amazon Echo. With regards to speakers, there’s only one, but two passive radiators serve to enhance the audio quality. For you audiophiles and audio engineers out there, the driver itself is a Peerless PLS-50N25AL07-04 unit, reveals iFixit. A capacitive grid is taped to the underside of the upper surface of the Home speaker. iFixit adds that this was very hard to remove. The microphones and LEDs are attached to this grid. The real revelation for iFixit, and many in the tech world, is that Google Home’s PCB is essentially the same as that on the Chromecast Audio from last year. In conclusion, iFixit is impressed with the Google Home’s repairability and design. They only things they didn’t like were the facts that the capacitive grid was hard to remove (owing to the tape) and that the DC-in port was soldered on.