Camera glass breaks out of nowhere on Pixel 7 phones

Also a problem with the Pixel 6 series, the glass on the Pixel 7’s camera breaks by itself, with unlucky people having to call in the warranty for the otherwise very expensive defect to fix.

If in the first few months after launch, the Pixel 7’s problems were mostly caused by software bugs, here we are now learning about a first defect on the hardware side, described in more and more posts on Twitter and Reddit.

Some say the problem initially manifests as a microscopic crack that appears after accidentally bumping the phone, which grows over time. Eventually, the tempered glass spontaneously shatters. Also found on the rival Galaxy S20 Ultra, the seemingly uncaused breakage of the mineral glass over the main camera lens tends to occur with sudden temperature changes, such as taking the phone out of your pocket on a cold winter’s day.

At the source of the inconvenience could also be a material weakness induced during the manufacturing process itself, caused by incorrectly applied heat treatment.

Most users say that phones with barely 1-2 months of use have not been dropped or knocked around, with the defect even manifesting itself for used examples with protective cases.

In the absence of confirmation from Google that this is a known manufacturing defect, the out-of-warranty repair, which involves replacing the entire cover affixed to the back of the phone, costs about $200. Pixel 7 phone owners who encounter this issue are encouraged to attempt the out-of-warranty fix for the defect, possibly postponing the repair until an official response from Google.