Chosen Solution
Hello I was replacing my defective battery however the pressure sensor cable that runs under the battery was torn. I see where it clips in on the right side but how do I attach the rest of the cable to the phone. Is the end a little solder pad? Can’t find anything that addresses this. Thanks
It appears you’re not alone in tearing the grip sensor cable when removing the battery. If you check out the Google Pixel 3 XL Teardown, you’ll see they did the exact same thing when they were pulling the battery. It’s too bad there’s no repair guide for the 3 XL’s grip sensors; maybe if you tackle the job you could document the process and contribute a guide!
The good news here is that replacement grip sensors are available on eBay for about $20 for a pair (left and right). I found two right off the bat using the search string “pixel 3 xl grip sensor”. Finally, to help things along, there does exist a guide on the Pixel 4 for replacing the grip sensor: Google Pixel 4 Left Grip Sensor Replacement. From that guide it appears the grip sensor is simply glued to the side of the housing; no soldering required. The good news is it appears there isn’t much, if any, further disassembly required to get to the grip sensor once the battery is out, unlike the Pixel 4 which seems to require a lot more part removal to get to it. I can’t be sure, of course, but as best I can tell from the teardown photos it looks like the most you might need to do is to remove the speaker, for which there is a guide available. Basically, if you read through the Pixel 4 grip sensor guide and follow along the last few steps, I think you may be in good shape with replacing yours.
