Broke Bangle2 right at strap connection

Probably not much that can be done about this, but just in case someone has an idea. Through some bad luck I managed to hit my Bangle2 against a hard surface just enough so a small piece of the casing broke away from the one of the little extensions where the strap connects. Just enough of the plastic came off that while I can attach the strap it disconnects with almost any pressure applied (it flew off my arm twice before I took a close look and realized something was broken). Attached a photo, where you can see the metal on the one section is where the plastic broke off.

Any ideas? or am I just out of luck with a watch that I can no longer attach to my wrist safely.

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Argh, sorry to hear that.

I guess you never found the bit that came off?

I'm not sure how hands-on you are, but the case is made of ABS plastic, which is pretty common and could be repaired in a few ways:

• In the unlikely event you have one, it seems some models of '3D printer pen' (eg https://reprapworld.co.uk/3d-pen-filamen­t/3d-pens/3d-pen-black-with-lcd-display-­pro-version) go hot enough they melt ABS, so you could just use some ABS filament and 'draw' a replacement bit right onto the case.
  
• If you got another piece of ABS plastic (printer filament, or there are a bunch of normal plastic things that are ABS) then you could mix a little with some Acetone to make a bit of a 'mush', then you could put that all over the area, file it down and drill the hole again and it should be almost as strong as new.
  
• You could also just add a drop of 2 part epoxy (eg. Araldite) over it, and that supposedly has quite a good bond. It's a lot easier, but I'm not sure it'll be as good as using ABS plastic.
  
  

Hope that's some help!

If you got another piece of ABS plastic

AFAIK legos are made of abs 😉

Hmm... might it be the same type of plastic fantasy/sci-fi wargame miniatures are made of?

Expoxy might be something for me to try. I don't think I can find the piece it is very tiny and there are tons of places it could have flown where I broke it.

At worst I guess, I do something subpar, my watch flies off my arm while I'm outside and I lose it. In which cause I'd need to get a new one anyway.

Maybe I can find a kid somewhere and steal one of their legos.

:) I think epoxy is a good try - if it does come off you can always clean up the area and try something else...

FYI I had the exact same bit break off, although I was using a metallic (so maybe less flexible) strap which could have increased the stress on the connection.

I seem to have tightened my nylon fabric band too much and one of the pegs (?) broke for me today. I still have the small piece that came off so I'll try to glue it back and see if it can handle any load again.

EDIT: It also seems like the sprint in my band didn't extend fully into the hole of the peg, instead sitting a bit shallow which meant higher pressure/stress on the area that had to handle the force. If I had used a longer sprint I don't think it would have been broken.

EDIT2: I glued (super glue) the small small piece back a couple months ago. It's been sitting sturdily since then. I didn't manage to fit it perfectly in place, but the result was satisfactory.

EDIT3: It just broke off at the glue joint. Will glue again. Next time I'll try adding some melted lego plastic instead.

EDIT4: I accidentally hit the watch when trying to pull start a motor scythe and the glue joint broke again. I've now melted plastic from a black lego piece and used a dremel to shape the end result. I left a little more material than the original finish had, without making it too bulky.

For now it seems to be pretty durable - I'll report back if it breaks. I don't know, but it feels like the added plastic might be more brittle from having been melted. The soldering iron I used didn't have very good regulation of temperature.

See attached pictures.

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Today it happened to my watch as well. I just came here for inspiration, not sure if I use some super-duper glue as I have that small bit or just go with melting a black lego stuff :)
If there will be bangle.js 3 then this needs to be addressed, maybe inspiration from Pinetime? It seems like good design.

Hi, sorry to hear that yours broke as well.

The best method I've ended up at for now is to melt the lego plastic and swirl it around where the small bit came of. Then fashion the appearance with a dremel. I've ended up leaving more material than was there originally.

Beware of attaching the melted lego plastic to other parts of the watch body - see attached picture.

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Do you have the bit that came off? Because it's ABS plastic it should stick back on with acetone pretty easily.

One of those '3D pens' might work as well to melt plastic back on.

It's tricky - in Pinetime I think they have more space to mount the strap inboard because they don't have a GPS aerial to worry about. If we extended the Bangle.js 2 case downwards I bet most people would complain it was too big.

It does seem you've been unlucky though - there aren't very many of these watches it's happened to given how many we've shipped out.

I had the exact same thing happen to me. Looks like this is a pretty common occurrence, definitely something to improve upon for the next iteration.
I'll try some of the suggestions listed here and report back.

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Well, now it's 5 reports over the course of about 1.5 years and some thousands of bangles. So 'pretty common occurance' is overstating it by pretty much 😇

Doesn't mean it couldn't have been a little more generous with the plastic.

it's 5 reports over the course of about 1.5 years and some thousands of bangles

Yes, it's pretty much 10,000 Bangle.js 2 sold now, and 5 with this problem (and I think one or two more via email). For something that spends every day on your wrist being knocked around it's not that high a failure rate - but as you say it's worth looking at strengthening for a v3.

It's worth noting that most people report their issues publicly on this forum (often in multiple posts), and I make a point of not deleting posts because I think it's important to be honest with everyone.

Unfortunately that means that people come here and see posts on a broken bit of watch body, or bluetooth, or the button, and get the idea that they're unreliable, despite there being a pretty low failure rate. I honestly believe these watches are no less reliable than the competition though, it's just that we don't hide any of the complaints.

Agreed and appreciated! :)

I have had a similar break on one of my Bangle2 watches. It happened when I accidentally dropped the watch onto tile floor from about 1m height while no strap was on the watch. That caused the tab to take the whole force of the impact and break off. Given the unlucky impact angle I would not blame the watch for the failure, pretty much any plastic object would have been damaged by this.
I was able to glue it back on with some super glue and built the area around it up with epoxy resin. This repair has lasted for about a year or so now.
Given its inexpensive nature I am surprised how well the Bangle has held up in over two years of almost daily use.