Divoom Tivoo battery issues

The pixel-powered mini TV from Divoom is failing due a faulty battery. Let’s analyze and check some solutions for this problem.

You may have heard before about Divoom. It is a manufacturer of small gadgets stuffing pixel-powered display boards and Bluetooth speakers into retro-inspired cases. These products were usually well received among the public, however there were some battery problems with one of the products in particular: the Tivoo.

Divoom Tivoo characteristics

Tivoo is a small retro TV mimic with a matrix display of 16x16 full independent RGB LEDs. It cames with a 6W speaker (pretty decent in my opinion) and Divoom app integration to control the pictures displayed on the matrix, setup alarms, weather and more.

Speaking about connectivity, it supports Bluetooth 5.0, microSD cards and is able to physically connect a music device using its 3.5mm audio jack. It has an USB type B port for charging and a battery of 2500 mAh.

Here’s how it looks like:

My Tivoo placed on my desk. A cool little gadget despite its problems
My Tivoo placed on my desk. A cool little gadget despite its problems

Battery issue

The issue with Tivoo is its battery. Some users are complaining that the device has issues turning on after while. It appears that the charging integrated circuit has a flaw that can damage the battery if users charge the device with fast chargers (basically any other than a regular 5V/1A charger). The result is a damaged battery. Divoom even launched a statement regarding the issue on Facebook.

The incident led Divoom to make an official statement at Facebook
The incident led Divoom to make an official statement at Facebook

However, the damage was done. There are a some users on Reddit with damaged units, only being able to use their Tivoo permanently connected to a charger, at best. Others were not that lucky, ending with a fancy paperweight. Fortunately my Tivoo is still able to connect. Right now, I have it plugged to a charger as recommended by Divoom, after fully removing the battery.

Community solutions

Esteban Perez was one of the affected users and wrote a good step-by-step disassembly guide for Tivoo. Using that guide I was able to remove the battery.

For those who know their way with soldering, Royce Repairs also published a video with Tivoo disassembly and battery replacement.

Conclusions

My idea with this article is to raise awareness of this issue and summarize the available fixes. Although those solutions may not be achievable to the average consumer, they can indeed save the life of this funny product. As a big fan of product restoring and salvation, it makes me sad to see this issue which could be prevented with a proper voltage regulator and battery. I guess a lot of units end up on the landfill due this issue, which could be perfectly avoidable from start.