Sony WH-1000XM5 FCC Teardown

While we wait for a full teardown by 52Audio, we can have a gander of the inside of the new WH-1000XM5 thanks to the FCC. There some new details that are revealed by the FCC, like the battery capacity, more ribbon cable use, and an unknown ring structure on the left side.

We can start off with the left side.

Looking at the new 30mm driver, we can see the feedback microphone cover and a ribbon cable, previously the WH-1000XM4 used regular wires. We can also see a mysterious ring around the driver unit. I noticed this ring first in the WH-1000XM5 engineer interview (photo below), but did not put much thought into it. This ring is labelled as ‘WPAD’ in the FCC documents. At first I thought this was a wireless charging coil but looking closer at the ring, the metal printed on the ring does not go all the way around and it looks more like some sensor. Recall previously on the WH-1000XM4, the right side had the optical proximity sensor, which is absent in the new model.

Here are the two images of the ‘WPAD’ from the FCC filling.

The underside of the ring has some kind of metal contact with a gap. Perhaps this is some sensor for the proximity? Or could it be related to the noise cancellation (Auto NC optimizer)? If anyone has any clues what this is, please leave it in the comments.

Edit: This is the wear detection sensor, now electrostatic rather than optical like the WH-1000XM4. Thanks to mirai160525 from twitter for the information.

Looking at left PCB next, we can see some ribbon cables, and the microphones around the edge. The ribbon cables going through special outlets in the plastic, similar to the WH-1000XM4. I did notice the hinge is now inside the headphones and not on the outside as before. Perhaps this is meant to minimize noise and sound of the hinge?

Looking inside, we have 4 ribbon cables, 1 at the top, and 3 on the bottom. I think the top cables go to the ‘WPAD’ ring structure, the bottom right white cable connects to the headphone jack/button PCB, the bottom middle cable is from the feedback microphone, and the bottom left is from the left microphone array. This array can be seen below, notice 4 microphones.