So a while back I wanted to paint my Pokemon Go Plus a darker colour. Maybe it’s because I just like darker colours, or maybe it’s because it’s less noticeable when I have it with me and it’s slightly embarrassing if I’m a man in my thirties. Either way, I decided to give it a simple black paint job with the bonus of hiding some scratches on the original red and white scheme.

I did have a smaller Phillips screwdriver that I had previously used on other electronics, but by replacing the battery previously, I noticed I would also require a .6mm Tri-Wing Y screwdriver to completely separate the front panel that I wanted to paint. I got this yellow one for fairly cheap off Amazon.

The first step is fairly simple, unscrew the Phillips screw on the back and pop out the battery. Here you can see the three Y screws located on the inside, one on the bottom of the panel and two were under the battery.

With those three taken out, I took out the electronic piece and everything else came out along with it. Here you can see all the parts completely separated. There’s the front and back panels, electronic component with vibration mechanism, the screws, a small square nut the Phillips screw sits in, a seal that goes around the edges, the button, and a button seal. There was also small grey rubber piece that simply sat near the bottom and holds the square nut in place. I actually expected a little less for removable parts, but still it’s not too many to lose track of.

I had some automotive grade black spray paint kicking around, so I decided to go with that and save a couple of dollars. I wasn’t expecting a perfect finish, though I did wipe down the front panel rather thoroughly before I applied it. Then I covered it with a small plastic container to let it dry overnight. The purpose of the container was that since I let this dry in my basement, I did not want any dust to fall on it while it was drying. To allow a little airflow in though, I did cut a hole on the side of the container. As you can see from the cardboard, the paint would bubble up if applied too think. So this took a little bit of trial and error to get a decent finish. I ended up using some fine sandpaper to smooth out the initial bubbles a couple of times. From there I started again but with only applying a thin coat and waiting for it to dry before adding another.

And here’s the final product once reassembled. I’ve seen some pretty nifty Pokemon GO Plus custom paint jobs, but I just wanted to go to a darker colour. It’s nothing fancy but I’m quite happy with it.