The reason is because even if you delete the whole baseband stack an adversary with full control could still manage to make it connect to a base station. We would really appreciate if someone could help with this. We would also pay for the devices.
How hard is it actually to desolder / remove mics and sensors from a Pixel?
Nuttso I will have a look into this, if I come across a solution I will let you know. I will play around with my ifixit kit with some older pixels that I've laying around at my place.
Hathaway_Noa cutting the antenna sadly isn't enough. There is still some signal left.
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Nuttso Have you tried gently to remove the RF transceiver?
Here circled in red.
Hathaway_Noa let me ask them
User2288 No, it didn't use the speaker as a 3rd microphone. It had a special combined speaker/microphone.
In order for a speaker to be used as a microphone, you need to apply the same bias voltage to it as you do a microphone. It doesn't just magically become a microphone. It has to be wired special for it, and when it is, it can't be used as a speaker.
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csis01
LG very clearly stated in its marketing material that it has two microphones, and it uses the speaker as a 3rd microphone in high volume environments in order to capture a non distorted sound with better base capture. I am 100% sure about reading this on LG website at the time. I also had used it in such environments and the phone is one of the best sound recorders in the whole phone market.
Its possible that they used special components for the speaker. All of the LG V series' audio components were special. That was why people bough them.
I do understand a little bit about the electronics of this myself, but not enough. The last stage of the audio component is the amplifier. Various kinds of signal return dampening is used in the amplification stage (that I don't understand that well either) to control the signal "feedback" that gets pushed back into the amplifier from the speaker. So how it all works exactly I don't know for sure. But I'm sure an ask on audiophile forums might actually clear this up a lot. I am an audiophile type and into expensive audio equipment. So I've done some reading on this stuff. However the exact functioning and signal dampening of the amplification stage to deal with the return signal is not something Ive delved into too much, as I'm sure you'd understand why. But the idea that the return signal has voltage and could technically be captured is one with merit.
Again, whether this is the case on all speakers, or on the pixels, I just wouldn't know and can't make any statement on. I would only say don't "assume" that it "can't" be done.
csis01
Cool. I wouldn't know so I'll take your word for it.
I have also seen DJs in clubs and bars literally hold up their DJ headphones and yell into the headphone speaker and have their voice come out the main speakers and make an announcement. The voice was very bassy and muddy, but intelligible. I suppose they might have temporarily plugged the headphone into the microphone input of the mixing board. But point being that the speaker can pick up environment sounds and feed it back into the cable. But having the amplification/dac component capture incoming sound is a different story.
19 days later
Hathaway_Noa
I'm not sure why the advice around these parts is always not to desolder your phone from a privacy conscious point of view?
What if a 0 day is found which has the power to somehow turn on your mics, gps or other kinds of sensors
or god forbid, what if the admin of grapheneOS gets compromised and forced into providing a dodgy update. I know everything is open source, but let's be real most of us are not technically gifted enough to understand and read the code, so it would probably take some time before the bad update was realized.
2 months later
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Hello, where exactly is the sensor chip on the google pixel 6 pro?
I found a technical link of all the chips on the motherboard of the google pixel 6 pro but I can't find the chip to desolder.
https://www.techinsights.com/blog/teardown/google-pixel-6-pro-teardown
do you have name of chips sensor ?
3 months later
2 months later
Hathaway_Noa hey mate, is there any ways to getting in touch?
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rustam Hi, removing the microphone and cameras is easy, I did it on my 4a, but I couldn't find the motion sensor. Don't forget that if you want to remove the microphones you also have to remove the speaker, anything with a diaphragm can be used to listen. Also, don't forget to buy b7000 glue for sealing.
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rustam It also means getting good wired headphones for making phone calls. Apple's are perfect and cheap.
16 days later
a month later
Impossible. Tried from underground too. Google kept it secret.