iPhone X/Xs/Xs Max Face ID Repair with a Torn Ear Speaker Flex

So, you replaced screen on your iPhone X/Xs/XS Max and accidentally tore the ear speaker flex and now your face id doesn’t work.

The bad news is that there is no easy way to repair it without microsoldering.  The good news is that we can help.  So long as you have original ear speaker flex, then we should be able to transfer the old flood illuminator over to a new ear speaker flex and that should restore face id.

With face id, there are many moving parts to the system, which include the ear speaker flex and the front camera flex/dot projector.  If any of these components are dirty or torn or broken, then face id will not work.  Sometimes you’ll get the “move higher” or “move lower” (your face) error and sometimes you’ll just get the standard “unable to activate face id” error upon startup.  It all depends on what was damaged.

The most common issue is what I described above, which is the torn ear speaker flex.

See our video on how to repair face ID: