Setting up was easy, and the product’s aesthetic and charm did not disappoint in real life. But I quickly ran into my biggest gripe: for what would mostly be used as a music playing assistant, there is no way to directly connect external “dumb” or even Bluetooth speakers, or support of audio over USB-C, as in the Pixel 2. Instead the solution to connect to external speakers here is to buy a $35 Chromecast audio to connect to them over Wifi.

Fun hack: If the Mini had Bluetooth speaker support, one would have been able to use the Echo Dot as a $49 ‘Bluetooth-to-audio jack adapter’, while also having the redundancy of two voice assistants through the same speakers. I’m not sure either company would have wanted this though, nor realistically would I…

Not playing as nice as I hoped…

Anyway, no time to waste, lets get to the teardown… 🔨

Disassembling

Ah, the pretty, soft-touch, and expressively-colored base-plate.

It seemed obvious there were some screws hiding beneath this, but seeming really difficult to pry off, I attempted to find some snaps holding together the fabric shell and plastic base, that I could pry apart instead.

Nope, none here. I’d have to work on softening the adhesive glue on the base to reveal the screws. One could use a specialized custom heat-pack for this. I needed a quick hack to apply a controlled temperature to the surface, so as not to melt the cover or damage the components, while still allowing enough time for the glue to soften. The solution — a pot within a water bath, similiar to how one would prepare a poached egg or sauces, would limit the pot’s temperature to the boiling point of water. Gastronomy has it’s applications…

Donut try this at home 🍩

About 5 minutes later, the base had softened and could be peeled right off, revealing the once stubborn double-sided adhesive that was similarily used in the original Google Home to attach the touchscreen.

Here is one I prepared earlier 👨‍🍳

Removing the adhesive and the torx screws now allows the two halves of the product to easily come apart, revealing a ribbon cable that needs to be unplugged before completely seperating. This reveals what looks like a custom speaker enclosure attached with another 4 torx screws to the fabric shell.