Note the debris on the floor after Daisy smashed the iPhone to get to its components. Daisy consists of four sections, all of which are located within one structure. (Photo: TechCrunch, Brian Heather)
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Apple has shown off its Daisy robot to recycle iPhones before, but now it's much faster using brute force.
Daisy has been dismantling old iPhones for parts for years and is part of Apple's plan to end mining. this itself was an upgrade from a previous robot named Liam, which originally took 12 minutes to disassemble an iPhone.
In Liam's later versions, this time was reduced to 11 seconds, and according to TechCrunch, Daisy now disassembles an iPhone in 4 seconds. Just as important as the time savings, Liam was only able to disassemble an iPhone 6, while Daisy can work with 29 different models.
“One metric ton of material extracted from Daisy prevents 2,000 metric tons of mining,” said Sarah Chandler, vice president of environment and supply chain innovation.
Despite the benefits and radically improved speed, Daisy's impressive 33-foot robotics can remove up to 1.2 million iPhones per year — while in 2023, an estimated 150 million smartphones were discarded. Apple has offered to license its Daisy patents for free to anyone who wants it, but so far no company has taken up the offer.
“I think we need to continue to get more and more involved in the customer experience,” Chandler says. |That's why this won't be Daisy's most productive day…she's running a little slower to catch the [facility tour]. But it's worth it. That’s how we get the message out.”
Rough recycling
Formerly Apple recycling robots that used to grab the iPhone and rather painstakingly unscrew and removed each component, now these components are knocked right out of the device, tearing the iPhone apart
This process is carried out in four stages. , starting with Daisy throwing buckets full of iPhones into a trash chute, placing each one on a conveyor belt and using machine learning to determine which model it is.
The display is then peeled off and each device is exposed to temperatures of -80 degrees Celsius (-112F), which breaks down the adhesive in the batteries. Daisy then knocks out that battery and the iPhone moves on to the next steps.
It ends with the components landing on a rotating surface where a person sorts them. The boxed component kits are then sent to e-waste recycling companies.
Daisy is made up of four sections, all housed in this single structure. (Photo: TechCrunch, Brian Heater)
Recycling in Austin, Texas
Although these e-waste recycling companies are external, Apple says it strives to do as much recycling in-house as possible.
“It is very important to do this internally,” says Patrick Wheeler, Process Innovation Engineer. “Each evolution has taught us what we can do with automation and gives us a big step forward.”
“It’s a constant dialogue,” he continues. “We learn a lot from the automation team working on new products because they always face their own unique set of challenges.”
“We can build on their knowledge there and then vice versa with their teams,” he says. “When we share how we program Daisy, it allows them to think about new approaches to automating new products.”
Apple has two Daisy recycling robots, one in the Netherlands and the other in Austin. Chandler says working in Austin has been especially beneficial for her team.
“We have strong, long-standing ties here,” she says. “Obviously we have a lot of large campuses here, so we can do a lot of processing here.”
“And it's also been great for academic partnerships,” Chandler continues. “We can get quite a few trainees…we get a lot of people who want to learn robotics and materials recycling and recovery.”
Separately, Apple is expanding its Austin campus even as it closes others, including its San Diego office. About 121 people from this office have received job offers in Austin.
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