In case it helps anyone, here are the steps I took to replace my Kobo Aura H2O Screen
- Pry off front bezel carefully.
- Remove the four screws located in each corner to remove the screen (and main board) from the H2O case.
- Flip over the main board and unscrew 6 screws as well as unhook the flex cables (by lifting their respective latches and sliding the cables out) and pulling the battery cable off (I pulled straight up, not very sure if that's the right way to do it).
- Remove the main board and black plastic film and set aside.
- Remove defective screen from metal plate. (In the picture, I tried prying the screen off without removing the board first. Do not do this. Remove the main board first.) I did it the hard way and pried the screen off with my bare hands, causing the screen to break into tiny pieces. I only got smart about 97% of the way through and thought of sliding a knife in between the screen and metal plate and cutting the adhesive
- Stick the replacement screen onto the metal plate, being very careful to line the corners up exactly to avoid breaking the screen when you replace the front bezel (I learned this from reading an Aliexpress review). Very important to make sure that the flex and battery cables are sticking out of the proper holes/cutouts before pressing the screen onto the existing adhesive on the metal plate.
- Follow steps 4 to 1 in reverse
The replacement screen looks a little washed out to me, even more so when compared to the original Kobo screen. I'm not sure if all replacement screens sold by the seller I got it from are like this or if I just got a dud. It appears especially washed out at the top, a little darker in the middle, and again lighter at the bottom (although not as light as the top). I also get the "water on your screen?" message a lot although ReaLx3m has very helpfully pointed out that this can be disabled in settings. Touch screen functionality is a little spotty in the H2O with the replacement screen, maybe because of the double-sided tape I've added onto the existing adhesive (which already wasn't very sticky due to 4 years of accumulating dust). A newly opened H2O may fare better.
Update: I just realized my bezel lifting up may also be part of the reason for the unreliability of the touch screen. Something about the bezel not lying flat may be interfering with the infrared beams. I find that the touch screen functionality behaves better when I try to press down gently on the the bezel to get it to lie flat. A bit of a hassle but I'll live with it until I figure out a way to get the bezel to stick properly.
One more problem I've noticed is that I can connect to wifi but none of my Pocket articles are updating. I'm still on software 3.11.0 (10/16/14). Maybe I need to update the firmware manually to get Pocket to sync again? Another problem for another day.
Anyway, I made this post because of how nice and helpful everyone has been in this forum, especially ReaLx3m and frostschutz and hope to pay it forward. Hope this might be useful to others hoping to revive their H2O's