21 ms·

I made a smart watch from scratch

1451 points by mnem 7y ago

moreentropy 7y ago
The CCCamp 2019 badge will be a (low cost) smart watch called card10: https://gitlab.hamburg.ccc.de/card10/logix https://gitlab.hamburg.ccc.de/card10/logix
- okso 7y ago
  Awesome, thanks for the info !
- kkarakk 7y ago
  how do you interact with anyone presenting at/participating in CCC? does everyone just meet on day of? i have a hard time reading any of their material and there's never any links on who to ask questions to. OR do they just like it that way
michaelmior 7y ago
I would have been impressed with anything functional, but to me this actually looks nicer than the vast majority of commercially produced smart watches. Awesome!
- blinky1456 7y ago
  The Samsung smart watches look really nice to me, I don't know how decent they are in real life though since I don't own one.
  - learc83 7y ago
    Just got a Galaxy watch Sunday. So far I like it a lot. The rotating bezel is by far the best feature compared to other smart watches.
  - asaddhamani 7y ago
    Right now they're very gimmicky, Apple watch has a much better app ecosystem
    - epaga 7y ago
      I own an Apple Watch and have yet to find any apps I'd use for it - I currently use it entirely for telling the time and for notifications (and for the record am quite happy with it!). Any watch apps you can recommend?
      - oflannabhra 7y ago
        Watch app's I frequently use: - AutoSleep: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1164801111 https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1164801111 or Sleep++ - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sleep/id1038440371 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sleep/id1038440371 - HeartWatch: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/heartwatch.-heart-activity/id1062745479 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/heartwatch.-heart-activity/i... I much prefer this complication to Apple's. It displays the most recently recorded heart rate measurement - Dark Sky: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dark-sky-hyperlocal-weather/id517329357 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dark-sky-hyperlocal-weather/... I also prefer this weather complication and watch app - Overcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/overcast/id888422857 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/overcast/id888422857 Great watch app for controlling podcast playback, and includes the option to go phone-free (with AirPods). - WorkOutDoors: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/workoutdoors/id1241909999 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/workoutdoors/id1241909999 If you go hiking outdoors, even infrequently, this app is great. It allows you to store trail maps on your watch, and optionally record workout of your hiking (with GPS data, etc). - Baby Monitor - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/best-baby-monitor/id432791399 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/best-baby-monitor/id43279139... Drop an iPhone or iPad near your sleeping baby, check in on them from your watch (with notifications and optionally video). Not sure if you have kids, but this app is a bit of a marvel, especially when out and about or traveling. - Fantastical - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fantastical-2-for-iphone/id718043190 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fantastical-2-for-iphone/id7... I prefer this app to the built in Calendar.app, both for iPhone and Apple Watch. The complication is great, especially in the larger sizes. Of Apple's built-in apps, I frequently use: Messages, Now Playing, Walkie Talkie, Workouts, Maps, Activity, Wallet, Phone, and Music.
  - parthdesai 7y ago
    While it's not a proper smartwatch, i find withings' (Nokia) hybrid smartwatch[0] to be really aesthetically pleasing. [0]: https://www.withings.com/ca/en/steel-hr https://www.withings.com/ca/en/steel-hr
    - zius 7y ago
      I am wearing one right now and it’s amazing - Especially it’s battery life (easily 1 month+). I get loads of compliments about this watch. The feature set is just enough for my needs, even though I considered getting an Apple Watch. The app is also more than decent.
      - parthdesai 7y ago
        Yup, same. I love that i have to charge it once every 3 weeks, tracks my bike rides while i commute to work, runs and workouts. People usually don't believe that it's a smart watch and more surprised when i say that it's Nokia. I usually get the reaction "They are still relevant"
        xur17 7y ago
        I currently use a Fossil Explorist, but I'm pretty frustrated by the battery life, and honestly it's just... slow. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on run tracking - I don't want to carry my phone with me, and it's really nice to have my watch track distance via gps.
        parthdesai 7y ago
        So i have got HR, but i always carry my phone with me (music) while running or biking. So i'm not really sure how it will do without a phone. I can try it out in without phone in couple of days if you want to know about that.
      - bluehatbrit 7y ago
        I had one of the original Withings watches (before Nokia bought them out) and it lasted about a year until it stopped reliably keeping time. It got to the point where I was doing hard resets and changing the battery every few weeks and I gave up in the end. I was really disappointed, it looks beautiful and worked so well for a year and then became totally useless. I spent a good £200 on it as well if I recall correctly. Withings were empathetic but took a long time to respond to my tickets and eventually I just gave up. I've still got it because I can't bring myself to get rid of it. I loved that it looked like an analogue watch, got lots of compliments on it and everyone was surprised when they found out it counted steps (etc) as well. Are the recent ones better? I'd consider getting the new one that looks like the old Withings Activite if it holds up to the claims on the box.
  - michaelmior 7y ago
    Agreed. I don't have one either, but the photos look great.
  - praneshp 7y ago
    I had a gear S for 2 years before I gave it away recently. The look attracted some positive comments, and the rotating bezel was a favorite of mine. Anything software was shit (ie poorly done/buggy), and samsung used a lot of dark patterns (you have to install an app to get the watch paired, which is fair, but it keeps nagging you to install a second app). My friend and I were one of the first batch of people to get it (preorder a few months before release), and had some issues initially that they quickly resolved (by sending us new watches)
    - kkarakk 7y ago
      Shoddy development and Samsung go hand in hand. No matter the product - their customizations on top of Android are invariably bonked after an OS update, their watch OS is weird and buggy to develop for, their mobile OS(that they seem to have abandoned) was also weird and buggy to develop for and irritatingly hard to deploy to... all they seem to focus on is a finished LOOKING end product. i rejected a job at samsung dev based only on that knowledge - who wants to work for a company with an almost institutional disregard for software?
azhenley 7y ago
Looks good. Time for you to do a Kickstarter!
funkythingsss 7y ago
congratulations! What an accomplishment
dan1234 7y ago
Here’s the Reddit thread with more feedback from the creator[0]. Amazingly gets a week between charges[1] [0]https://old.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/bivyok/i_made_a_smartwatch_from_scratch/ https://old.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/bivyok/i_made_a_smartw... [1]https://old.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/bivyok/i_made_a_smartwatch_from_scratch/em3sqbv/ https://old.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/bivyok/i_made_a_smartw...
- iscrewyou 7y ago
  Thank you for including old in the reddit url!
  - def_true_false 7y ago
    If you use https-everywhere, you can just make a custom rule -- click "Add a rule for this site" in the extension popup and fill this in: Matching regex ^https://www\.reddit\.com/ Redirect to https://old.reddit.com/
  - ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
    What does adding "old" do?
    - coverband 7y ago
      Shows post using the older site design I believe.
    - Zenbit_UX 7y ago
      Disables their recent redesign and reduces the amount of javascript and bullshit that comes with the update.
    - hotgeart 7y ago
      You'll get the 'old' design. Check with your "private mode" browser : - https://www.reddit.com/ https://www.reddit.com/ - https://old.reddit.com/ https://old.reddit.com/
tboerstad 7y ago
This is nicely done, beautiful aesthetics. There are multiple phases (HW, SW, Mechanics) which would be impressive enough on their own. Kudos! Love the little gifs to explain how it's done, especially the stenciling of the PCB. I'm curious, how/why did you choose the DA14683 chip?
- tboerstad 7y ago
  Quoting the OP from the reddit thread: "I picked the MCU for a couple of reasons: -Very low power transmit/receive for the bluetooth (<4mA). I get around a week of battery life -Cheap -High speed on the SPI bus. The display writes are limited by the SPI bus. It requires a 9-bit word (additional bit is used for data/command). So being able to run the SPI bus at 48MHz is clutch. -Has PMIC integrated into chipset. I don't need to include additional circuitry for a buck-boost regulator or a lipo charger since the dialog part has it all built in! -Cheap"
aw3c2 7y ago
Bottom images seem photoshopped.
- tyingq 7y ago
  You mean the ones he specifically says are "rendered"? He mentions Fusion 360, the CAD software he designed the case in.
  - aw3c2 7y ago
    Ouch, stupid me. Sorry.
jordan_clark 7y ago
I googled and added it up (just out of curiosity) using the BOM, and total cost was ~$88USD (not counting shipping) Also, the OS is FreeRTOS (Open sourced by AWS/Amazon in '17) if anyone is interested
- naraic0o 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure FreeRTOS has been open source since its inception in 2003, see posts going back to 2004 at [0]. Amazon forked it, merged their fork with the original project and took over it in 2017. You can read about it here [1]. [0] https://sourceforge.net/p/freertos/news/ https://sourceforge.net/p/freertos/news/ [1] https://freertos.org/FAQ_Amazon.html https://freertos.org/FAQ_Amazon.html EDIT: actually, I don't think they fully merged their fork as there's a variant called a:freeRTOS
  - moftz 7y ago
    FreeRTOS was previously GPLv2 with a couple of added clauses (anything linked with FreeRTOS is now GPL too and you can't publish performance metrics without approval). I'd imagine there were a lot of companies not wanting to GPL everything they made with FreeRTOS (i.e. Amazon) so with a new MIT license, anyone can do whatever they want.
    - ForHackernews 7y ago
      So they somehow took over a free software project and removed the GPL? That doesn't seem like a positive development!
      - kingosticks 7y ago
        And assuming they didn't merge their fork back in, the original FreeRTOS codebase doesn't get any of their fixes/improvements either.
        slacka 7y ago
diimdeep 7y ago
Tony Stark level DIY
- logicallee 7y ago
  yeah very impressive. Is this how products are really prototyped? I feel he could have mentioned either 20 years of experience in all parts of this field (if that's how come he could do it so cleanly) or if he did actual prototyping steps he could have mentioned them or showed some pictures. From the pictures, it comes off as something anyone can do in a week or two. like building a table. Maybe I'm wrong and the pictures do do the process justice? Either way definitely amazing.
  - ramses0 7y ago
    The physical assembly would likely be a week if you're following instructions and avoiding other people's mistakes. The person who made it probably made a lot of mistakes that you're not seeing, and is used to working at this level of quality. You could imagine this whole thing started on a breadboard and IDE at some point, but the final assembly is "print the things that I drew on the computer, glue and screw together".
  - blihp 7y ago
    It's pretty clear the author knows what they're doing and pretty much anytime I see a post like this I assume they are (smartly) doing some self-marketing rather than a 'see how easy/cool this project is?' So it's part 'look at this nice watch I made' and part 'look at what I could be doing for your product'. Far better than just saying 'designed and built a smart watch' on the resume.
    - logicallee 7y ago
      oh, got it. I don't know if it's true or not but that is a really good assessment. I was really perplexed by the part where he says "now here are some boring circuits, feel free to skip this". Like, who would skip that? What you've written makes perfect sense though.
ConfusedDog 7y ago
I was expecting a brick on wrist, but this surprised me! And the circuit looks simple. I love the charging dock and textual of the watch frame! Screen resolution is a bit low though. I'd join if there's an open source community dedicated to work on this stuff, I think there's a lot of room improve the OS and software. I'm glad to have seen this!
- swalladge 7y ago
  > I was expecting a brick on wrist, but this surprised me! Agreed, I can't believe how thin and professional it is! This has to be the most mind blowing thing I've seen for a long time. :O
taoufix 7y ago
I clicked thinking, this is just a guy who'll disassemble a smartwatch and put his DIY housing and strap on it. But man! I was so wrong, and I'm totally impressed.
magashna 7y ago
I'm annoyed that he made a watch from scratch and its wrist twist to show screen timing is still faster than my smartwatch
- bicx 7y ago
  What they don't show is how often it turns on when he doesn't want it to. That was probably a tough calibration to make for other manufacturers, especially when production smartwatches have much higher-resolution screens and processors that drain battery.
  - alphakappa 7y ago
    That is absolutely correct. Figuring out when the watch is in an upright position is trivial. Figuring out whether the user intended to actually get it to turn on is extremely hard, and it involves looking at the history of motion that preceded it, and making judgments based on a whole lot of user data. The other problem is making the tradeoff between detecting this fast enough (to turn on all the systems that follow so that the screen can light up fast enough) and waiting long enough (so you can be extra sure that the user intended to look at the screen) The garden path is easy. Making it work mostly unobtrusively is very hard.
    - skummetmaelk 7y ago
      Also the power cost of running this analysis all the time can be higher than just turning on the screen even though the user didn't "request" it.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  I'm guessing Android watch? That's what you get from running Android on a device.
jshowa3 7y ago
This is crazy.
scoutt 7y ago
The DA14683 is fantastic. I played a bit with an eval. board and it's really good for it's price vs. features (~$3 for 250 pcs. at Mouser). But soon the idea of releasing code for it as Open Source faded away, since you need to sign an SLA (https://support.dialog-semiconductor.com/connectivity/request-access-restricted-content https://support.dialog-semiconductor.com/connectivity/reques...), that limits the way source code based on their in SDK is released (only to your customer, in an only “need to know” basis). I hate when this happens. I wonder how the creator of this watch managed to publish the source code, including the Dialog SDK; if there is a backdoor I am missing.
- opencl 7y ago
  Probably by ignoring the license.
  - echlebek 7y ago
    Pretty reasonable way to solve this problem really. Are they really going to bring the hammer down on a hobbyist?
    - ISO-morphism 7y ago
      I share a hatred for this sort of thing that happens all too often the closer you get to hardware, mainly as a byproduct of the culture. However, refusing to adhere to a proprietary license damages respect for all software licenses, especially the GPL, in the global software community. Depending on where you fall on the anarchy vs rule-of-law scale that may or may not be a good thing. Flip side of the argument: "Someone wrote a GPL library I want to use but I don't want to release my source. Is anyone really going to notice, care, or bother to bring the hammer down on my company?"
- Sidnicious 7y ago
  Does anyone know how this compares to the nRF5x series (and/or other BLE-friendly microcontrollers)?
SnowingXIV 7y ago
This is really cool and as a software guy the electrical engineering component is a huge black box to me. Circuit boards all connected up and getting a physical device to handle lithium ion batteries to properly charge and not blow up is beautiful. He does a great job with pictures, videos, and giving detail at both a high level and semi-in-depth explanations really made it shine. Is there anyone that does similar type of posts? Or even a follow along type of deal to get feet wet with actually building devices (maybe it includes a list of items to buy first)? Don't get me wrong I love writing software but showing someone something you physically made as opposed to sending a link to a website seems so much more satisfying.
- TheHideout 7y ago
  While I didn't give super detailed instructions, I posted something similar for a cyberpunk face-shield prop I made [0]. I started with a cheap VR toy and pretty much everything else is from Adafruit. [0] https://imgur.com/gallery/JOnd3H1 https://imgur.com/gallery/JOnd3H1
- chli 7y ago
  While it's definitely satisfying to interact with the physical world it also means that sometime you're debugging your software issues (which might be hardware ones), using output signals connected to an oscilloscope or a logic analyser (once you have exhausted the blinking LEDS options...) !
- chc4 7y ago
  Some people at CERN made a smartwatch for a colleague's retirement a number of years ago. Their entire project is FOSS, complete with a talk at FOSDEM 2015. It's not quite a tutorial or walk through, might be interesting for you. https://www.ohwr.org/project/f-watch/wikis/Home https://www.ohwr.org/project/f-watch/wikis/Home
foldor 7y ago
I'm still disappointed that new smart watch development has seemingly stalled in progress as of late. I was hoping that by this time we'd have watches that had 24 hour battery life, and an always on display that didn't need a flick of the wrist to activate. I hoped that wouldn't be asking for much, but I guess it's harder than I assumed.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  That thing unfortunately seems to have died with Pebble.
  - wlesieutre 7y ago
    Amazfit is the closest player to Pebble's old space. I don't think they have any 3rd party app ecosystem at all, but the baseline experience covers time, notifications, workout tracking, and a couple other things. Bip and Stratos are the watchier lines, they also have more minimal Fitbit strap-style product that I forget the name of. EDIT: Here's another new entry https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/04/garmin-revamps-entire-forerunner-family-new-smartwatches-start-at-199/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/04/garmin-revamps-entir... > Like most Garmin smartwatches, the Forerunner 45 and 45S track all-day activity and sleep, deliver smartphone alerts to your wrist, and are easy on the eyes thanks to an always-on, sunlight-friendly display. Even though the Forerunner 45 watches are the most affordable of the bunch, they still have a heart-rate monitor and built-in GPS, so users can make outdoor runs without the help of a smartphone. > It can also connect to external sensors like a running dynamics pod and heart-rate chest straps to capture more running data while you train. The Forerunner 245 watches have the same one-week battery life as the Forerunner 45 watches do when in smartwatch mode, but they'll last up to 24 hours in GPS mode or six hours when using GPS and music playback simultaneously. That looks really promising.
    - sbradford26 7y ago
      Currently wearing an Amazfit Bip and I really like it. I got one for my Dad to replace his Pebble Time Steel and he loved it so much I got one. I usually get around 20+ days of battery life and it does everything I need, aka sleep tracking, notifications, and activity tracking.
tambourine_man 7y ago
My first reaction when I read the title was to complete the sentence in my mind: “…and it sucks”. But I'm very glad I was wrong in my scepticism. This is freaking amazing on so many levels. Edit: It’s been a while since I’ve been so excited about a project. Now I can’t work just thinking of taking a month off to play with this thing :)
- adriansky 7y ago
  Do it! What would you build if you take a month off?
  - harias 7y ago
    Not OP, but I would build a better CRM. The present solutions are far from intelligent.
    - tomcam 7y ago
      In a month? CRMs have very large feature sets these days
    - uh_yikes 7y ago
      I am also very interested in this. Mind sharing some of your ideas?
  - justaj 7y ago
    Not OP, but I wouldn't currently be able to build much of use, so I'll probably be busy learning.
zaarn 7y ago
Considering there is still no good replacement for my Pebble Time, I might use this manual to build my own. The Rebble team might also be interested in this.
- scottydelta 7y ago
  I have been looking for a replacement since the day Fitbit shutdown the pebble services. I am glad that Rebble team took over some of the services but it would still be nice to find a replacement. what do you think of wearOS based devices like fossil sport or Ticwatch pro? I have been looking at this wiki to identify a few good replacements to pebble time: https://www.reddit.com/r/WearOS/wiki/watches https://www.reddit.com/r/WearOS/wiki/watches
  - zaarn 7y ago
    I'm not a fan of any of the sports-focused replacement watches that seem to compete against the Pebbles. The Fossil Sport seems to lack a eInk Display and the vendor only promises 24 hour battery time. The TicWatch seems to manage 40 Hours, something which my recently Pebble Time with a half dead battery achieved. The main reason I'm severely disappointed in the market is the lack of long battery lifetime devices. And those that do run for a week on a single charge usually lack in other parts of the product. And after all that, it's all so expensive. A Pebble Time costs around 60€ to 80€ used on Ebay, and that is after they went out of production. Most competitors don't go that low!
sara27362 7y ago
Even you can't believe there is a hen in world's biggest animals See the video how they looks and what they do https://cutt.ly/1rOU7Q https://cutt.ly/1rOU7Q Fish walking with legs like humans See the video on link below http://bit.ly/2XRGyYD http://bit.ly/2XRGyYD This couple is different Girls are both twins and boys are also twin brothers see how they look in video http://bit.ly/2VwoZQd http://bit.ly/2VwoZQd A cute dog is dancing in video Just watch this video and try to control your laugh http://bit.ly/2ZK1XVs http://bit.ly/2ZK1XVs
StavrosK 7y ago
What a great project! I love how much attention to detail he put in. Fantastic, this is exactly the kind of thing I love studying and working on myself. Sidenote, I'm a bit disappointed that people use imgur to showcase their projects, as I don't think it's very good for that. I built https://www.makerfol.io/ https://www.makerfol.io/ for this exact purpose but people seem to still prefer imgur for some reason, and I'm not sure why :/
- therealidiot 7y ago
  Just a heads up but your terms and conditions link doesn't work
  - StavrosK 7y ago
    Oh oops, thanks for letting me know! I'll fix that ASAP.
- OJFord 7y ago
  > people seem to still prefer imgur for some reason, and I'm not sure why :/ To be brutally honest: because it's more likely to still be there in x years, for any value of x. Of course if you _really_ care, you host it yourself, and then it exists for as long as you care. Imgur's an easy happy middleground though, so people use it.
- frenchy 7y ago
  FYI, the gravatar images don't load on my browser because I have Firefox's content blocker enabled. The alt-text "The user's avatar" is showing in a bunch of places, and on the project list it overlaps with the project titles. I'd recommend: * Replacing "The user's avatar" at the top with the user's name. * On the project list, just setting the alt-text to "". Otherwise: nice site.
  - StavrosK 7y ago
    Ah, thank you, but removing the alt-text would be bad for accessibility. It is meant for visually impaired people, after all. Maybe setting the title would fix this, I'll look into it, thank you!
p1esk 7y ago
Be sure to read the comments on imgur, made my day :)
vkaku 7y ago
It's interesting to know how one can build the one thing for about ~$80 even in small quantities, and everything is available, incl Source. If people started selling the pre-soldered board as a smart-watch starter kit on Aliexpress , pretty sure someone would buy it. This is the sort of thing that would make DIY popular, I can see why.
js2 7y ago
We haven’t solved homelessness, poverty, cancer, or war. We don’t have self-piloted flying cars. But for about $90 in parts, one person can design, manufacture, and build their own bespoke smart watch. Humans have made truly remarkable progress in some very specific ways.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- josefresco 7y ago
  >But for about $90 in parts Oh and I don't know, about $250K worth of professional experience and skills but yeah.. we have.
  - mhb 7y ago
    And a dollar for the piece of chalk.
    - castlecrasher2 7y ago
      don't forget imgur's hosting costs...and the computer you're on right now!
  - glitcher 7y ago
    And if you had zero of the tools and equipment beforehand used in the process, what would the additional cost be to just get started?
    - kickopotomus 7y ago
      If you want to buy your own 3D printer and reflow, it's going to be pricey. If you live in an urban area, there are likely "maker spaces" nearby where you can pay a nominal fee to use the communal tools.
    - LolWolf 7y ago
      What tools? I think the biggest thing is a reflow oven, but, honestly, I've soldered using a cheap, used toaster oven from Goodwill + an oven thermometer. Worked wonders! The 3D printer might have been the biggest offender, to be fair, but many libraries have some (as do many maker spaces that are hourly). Additionally, you can order a number of 3D printed parts online as well, for relatively low cost.
Poiesis 7y ago
To save folks a click, copy, and paste, the GitHub project is https://github.com/S-March/smarchWatch_PUBLIC https://github.com/S-March/smarchWatch_PUBLIC
pavlov 7y ago
That is really lovely — and truly from scratch, including the software! The first photo looks a lot like Android Wear, so first I assumed this would be using a prepackaged OS, but it isn't! The source code is in on Github alongside schematics, PCB files and everything else: https://github.com/S-March/smarchWatch_PUBLIC/tree/master/Software https://github.com/S-March/smarchWatch_PUBLIC/tree/master/So...
debt 7y ago
How did he get that screen?
- Luc 7y ago
  The part number is in the Bill Of Materials file on his github repo: https://www.dhgate.com/product/aml130a2402a-1-3-inch-240-240-round-tft-lcd/413771628.html https://www.dhgate.com/product/aml130a2402a-1-3-inch-240-240...
qhwudbebd 7y ago
Very nice job! I love reading about hardware projects like this but stumble across the write-ups much less frequently/reliably compared to interesting software projects. Are there good groups/lists/sites to hear about more electronic/hardware hacking like this?
- linuxftw 7y ago
  All sorts of interesting projects on Hackaday: https://hackaday.com/ https://hackaday.com/
deadelvis 7y ago
Congrats! Making it round was a good design decision! Who would think a square (or squircle) watch is good watch design anyway? ;)
polpenn 7y ago
How much harder would it be to build an ebook reader?
- naraic0o 7y ago
  I suppose that depends on your requirements, but people have done similar things: https://orbides.org/book.php https://orbides.org/book.php
ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
The design of the charger is shockingly good. I would prefer that 10x to my apple charger disk that is constantly slipping off.
mshockwave 7y ago
this is REALLY great, i hope i can give two upvotes!
duderific 7y ago
I'll take "things people without kids do in their spare time" for 200, Alex.
- skummetmaelk 7y ago
  "Comments people who wish they were capable of doing such a project make on the internet for 800, Alex"
simias 7y ago
Very impressive and inspiring. I've been thinking about making a custom keyboard for a while now but, while I have no problems with the electronic and software side of things, I'm a bit overwhelmed with the 3D modelling required. I tried learning Blender but it really feels ill-suited for designing physical objects. The author mentions considering openSCAD but I've heard pretty bad things about it so I haven't really given it a chance yet. The person making the dactyl keyboard had a very interesting talk where he explain how he basically ended up writing his own DSL in clojure on top of openSCAD, maybe I should try that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk3A41U0iO4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk3A41U0iO4 (if you enjoyed TFA you'll probably like this video as well, it's a step-by-step explanation of how he designed his dream keyboard). Otherwise I suppose I'll have to betray rms and try this freeware Fusion 360 thing.
- allanrbo 7y ago
  OpenSCAD actually comes pretty natural if you are used to writing code
  - skummetmaelk 7y ago
    OpenSCAD is nice for simple geometry, but products today never have simple geometry. Doing bevels in openSCAD is a nightmare for example, and bevels are everywhere.
- gouh 7y ago
  Blender is more artist-oriented and maybe not the best suited for industrial design. But FreeCAD seems quite powerful and could be a good solution for you
- jononor 7y ago
  FreeCAD is the FOSS equivalent type of tool to Fusion360. Lots of learning material available on YouTube. I have designed wearable electronics / jewelery in it several times. One can drop down to Python to do code-based parametric there also, with cadquery. But even as a software developer, I have only done that for 2 out of over 100 designs. I have also maybe 2 times used the OpenSCAD importer to include some existing designs as parts into my project.
aceperry 7y ago
Great project. I'm amazed at how much you can accomplish with today's tools and services. And using the woodfill PLA is a good way to get around the rough look of 3D printers. Great ideas here.
posterboy 7y ago
If you have scratch and junk lying around, why not make a watch from it?
- serf 7y ago
  that's sorta the thinking that makes me take issue from the phrase 'from scratch'. it's a nice project, but in my vocabulary 'from scratch' doesn't mean "after an initial engineering and design phase i'll order a host of parts from a company', it means 'i'd better start wrapping memory cores, let me get the copper wire out.'
ahmetyas01 7y ago
so you are the engineer at google?
Havoc 7y ago
Wow - that's an impressive project. Ambitious and well executed. ...only part that had me confused was using like 25% of screen real estate for showing time and putting flowers on the other 75%. Artistic I guess.
- kenward 7y ago
  My guess is he hasn't gotten to scaling the text sizes yet. It looks like all the text is the same font-size. I think in the Reddit thread, he mentioned having to draw each character (lower-case and upper-case) pixel-by-pixel for the display.
candidera 7y ago
Hi guys, how are you?
Erin_Smith 7y ago
What was your overhead cost on this? It's amazing. Great work
cssbubble 7y ago
This is so awesome. It is a good learning and inspiring for others. I will add this project to DIY section of the Learn-awesome repository https://github.com/learn-awesome/learn-awesome https://github.com/learn-awesome/learn-awesome. Please add such valuable resources here.
adriansky 7y ago
This is so cool. I've never heard of that microcontroller though. It has nice features and applications. Datasheet of the microcontroller he used: https://www.dialog-semiconductor.com/sites/default/files/smartbondtm_da146823_product_brief_hr.pdf https://www.dialog-semiconductor.com/sites/default/files/sma...
srndh 7y ago
On a related note, I was reminded of Woz's Nixie watch - https://youtu.be/m4R3hODnTGo https://youtu.be/m4R3hODnTGo

1451 points by mnem 7y ago

The CCCamp 2019 badge will be a (low cost) smart watch called card10: https://gitlab.hamburg.ccc.de/card10/logix https://gitlab.hamburg.ccc.de/card10/logix

okso 7y ago
Awesome, thanks for the info !
kkarakk 7y ago
how do you interact with anyone presenting at/participating in CCC? does everyone just meet on day of? i have a hard time reading any of their material and there's never any links on who to ask questions to. OR do they just like it that way

michaelmior 7y ago

I would have been impressed with anything functional, but to me this actually looks nicer than the vast majority of commercially produced smart watches. Awesome!

blinky1456 7y ago
The Samsung smart watches look really nice to me, I don't know how decent they are in real life though since I don't own one.
- learc83 7y ago
  Just got a Galaxy watch Sunday. So far I like it a lot. The rotating bezel is by far the best feature compared to other smart watches.
- asaddhamani 7y ago
  Right now they're very gimmicky, Apple watch has a much better app ecosystem
  - epaga 7y ago
    I own an Apple Watch and have yet to find any apps I'd use for it - I currently use it entirely for telling the time and for notifications (and for the record am quite happy with it!). Any watch apps you can recommend?
    - oflannabhra 7y ago
      Watch app's I frequently use: - AutoSleep: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1164801111 https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1164801111 or Sleep++ - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sleep/id1038440371 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sleep/id1038440371 - HeartWatch: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/heartwatch.-heart-activity/id1062745479 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/heartwatch.-heart-activity/i... I much prefer this complication to Apple's. It displays the most recently recorded heart rate measurement - Dark Sky: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dark-sky-hyperlocal-weather/id517329357 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dark-sky-hyperlocal-weather/... I also prefer this weather complication and watch app - Overcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/overcast/id888422857 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/overcast/id888422857 Great watch app for controlling podcast playback, and includes the option to go phone-free (with AirPods). - WorkOutDoors: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/workoutdoors/id1241909999 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/workoutdoors/id1241909999 If you go hiking outdoors, even infrequently, this app is great. It allows you to store trail maps on your watch, and optionally record workout of your hiking (with GPS data, etc). - Baby Monitor - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/best-baby-monitor/id432791399 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/best-baby-monitor/id43279139... Drop an iPhone or iPad near your sleeping baby, check in on them from your watch (with notifications and optionally video). Not sure if you have kids, but this app is a bit of a marvel, especially when out and about or traveling. - Fantastical - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fantastical-2-for-iphone/id718043190 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fantastical-2-for-iphone/id7... I prefer this app to the built in Calendar.app, both for iPhone and Apple Watch. The complication is great, especially in the larger sizes. Of Apple's built-in apps, I frequently use: Messages, Now Playing, Walkie Talkie, Workouts, Maps, Activity, Wallet, Phone, and Music.
- parthdesai 7y ago
  While it's not a proper smartwatch, i find withings' (Nokia) hybrid smartwatch[0] to be really aesthetically pleasing. [0]: https://www.withings.com/ca/en/steel-hr https://www.withings.com/ca/en/steel-hr
  - zius 7y ago
    I am wearing one right now and it’s amazing - Especially it’s battery life (easily 1 month+). I get loads of compliments about this watch. The feature set is just enough for my needs, even though I considered getting an Apple Watch. The app is also more than decent.
    - parthdesai 7y ago
      Yup, same. I love that i have to charge it once every 3 weeks, tracks my bike rides while i commute to work, runs and workouts. People usually don't believe that it's a smart watch and more surprised when i say that it's Nokia. I usually get the reaction "They are still relevant"
      - xur17 7y ago
        I currently use a Fossil Explorist, but I'm pretty frustrated by the battery life, and honestly it's just... slow. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on run tracking - I don't want to carry my phone with me, and it's really nice to have my watch track distance via gps.
        parthdesai 7y ago
        So i have got HR, but i always carry my phone with me (music) while running or biking. So i'm not really sure how it will do without a phone. I can try it out in without phone in couple of days if you want to know about that.
    - bluehatbrit 7y ago
      I had one of the original Withings watches (before Nokia bought them out) and it lasted about a year until it stopped reliably keeping time. It got to the point where I was doing hard resets and changing the battery every few weeks and I gave up in the end. I was really disappointed, it looks beautiful and worked so well for a year and then became totally useless. I spent a good £200 on it as well if I recall correctly. Withings were empathetic but took a long time to respond to my tickets and eventually I just gave up. I've still got it because I can't bring myself to get rid of it. I loved that it looked like an analogue watch, got lots of compliments on it and everyone was surprised when they found out it counted steps (etc) as well. Are the recent ones better? I'd consider getting the new one that looks like the old Withings Activite if it holds up to the claims on the box.
- michaelmior 7y ago
  Agreed. I don't have one either, but the photos look great.
- praneshp 7y ago
  I had a gear S for 2 years before I gave it away recently. The look attracted some positive comments, and the rotating bezel was a favorite of mine. Anything software was shit (ie poorly done/buggy), and samsung used a lot of dark patterns (you have to install an app to get the watch paired, which is fair, but it keeps nagging you to install a second app). My friend and I were one of the first batch of people to get it (preorder a few months before release), and had some issues initially that they quickly resolved (by sending us new watches)
  - kkarakk 7y ago
    Shoddy development and Samsung go hand in hand. No matter the product - their customizations on top of Android are invariably bonked after an OS update, their watch OS is weird and buggy to develop for, their mobile OS(that they seem to have abandoned) was also weird and buggy to develop for and irritatingly hard to deploy to... all they seem to focus on is a finished LOOKING end product. i rejected a job at samsung dev based only on that knowledge - who wants to work for a company with an almost institutional disregard for software?

azhenley 7y ago

Looks good. Time for you to do a Kickstarter!

funkythingsss 7y ago

congratulations! What an accomplishment

dan1234 7y ago

Here’s the Reddit thread with more feedback from the creator[0]. Amazingly gets a week between charges[1] [0]https://old.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/bivyok/i_made_a_smartwatch_from_scratch/ https://old.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/bivyok/i_made_a_smartw... [1]https://old.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/bivyok/i_made_a_smartwatch_from_scratch/em3sqbv/ https://old.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/bivyok/i_made_a_smartw...

iscrewyou 7y ago
Thank you for including old in the reddit url!
- def_true_false 7y ago
  If you use https-everywhere, you can just make a custom rule -- click "Add a rule for this site" in the extension popup and fill this in: Matching regex ^https://www\.reddit\.com/ Redirect to https://old.reddit.com/
- ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
  What does adding "old" do?
  - coverband 7y ago
    Shows post using the older site design I believe.
  - Zenbit_UX 7y ago
    Disables their recent redesign and reduces the amount of javascript and bullshit that comes with the update.
  - hotgeart 7y ago
    You'll get the 'old' design. Check with your "private mode" browser : - https://www.reddit.com/ https://www.reddit.com/ - https://old.reddit.com/ https://old.reddit.com/

tboerstad 7y ago

This is nicely done, beautiful aesthetics. There are multiple phases (HW, SW, Mechanics) which would be impressive enough on their own. Kudos! Love the little gifs to explain how it's done, especially the stenciling of the PCB. I'm curious, how/why did you choose the DA14683 chip?

tboerstad 7y ago
Quoting the OP from the reddit thread: "I picked the MCU for a couple of reasons: -Very low power transmit/receive for the bluetooth (<4mA). I get around a week of battery life -Cheap -High speed on the SPI bus. The display writes are limited by the SPI bus. It requires a 9-bit word (additional bit is used for data/command). So being able to run the SPI bus at 48MHz is clutch. -Has PMIC integrated into chipset. I don't need to include additional circuitry for a buck-boost regulator or a lipo charger since the dialog part has it all built in! -Cheap"

aw3c2 7y ago

Bottom images seem photoshopped.

tyingq 7y ago
You mean the ones he specifically says are "rendered"? He mentions Fusion 360, the CAD software he designed the case in.
- aw3c2 7y ago
  Ouch, stupid me. Sorry.

jordan_clark 7y ago

I googled and added it up (just out of curiosity) using the BOM, and total cost was ~$88USD (not counting shipping) Also, the OS is FreeRTOS (Open sourced by AWS/Amazon in '17) if anyone is interested

naraic0o 7y ago
I'm pretty sure FreeRTOS has been open source since its inception in 2003, see posts going back to 2004 at [0]. Amazon forked it, merged their fork with the original project and took over it in 2017. You can read about it here [1]. [0] https://sourceforge.net/p/freertos/news/ https://sourceforge.net/p/freertos/news/ [1] https://freertos.org/FAQ_Amazon.html https://freertos.org/FAQ_Amazon.html EDIT: actually, I don't think they fully merged their fork as there's a variant called a:freeRTOS
- moftz 7y ago
  FreeRTOS was previously GPLv2 with a couple of added clauses (anything linked with FreeRTOS is now GPL too and you can't publish performance metrics without approval). I'd imagine there were a lot of companies not wanting to GPL everything they made with FreeRTOS (i.e. Amazon) so with a new MIT license, anyone can do whatever they want.
  - ForHackernews 7y ago
    So they somehow took over a free software project and removed the GPL? That doesn't seem like a positive development!
    - kingosticks 7y ago
      And assuming they didn't merge their fork back in, the original FreeRTOS codebase doesn't get any of their fixes/improvements either.
      - slacka 7y ago

diimdeep 7y ago

Tony Stark level DIY

logicallee 7y ago
yeah very impressive. Is this how products are really prototyped? I feel he could have mentioned either 20 years of experience in all parts of this field (if that's how come he could do it so cleanly) or if he did actual prototyping steps he could have mentioned them or showed some pictures. From the pictures, it comes off as something anyone can do in a week or two. like building a table. Maybe I'm wrong and the pictures do do the process justice? Either way definitely amazing.
- ramses0 7y ago
  The physical assembly would likely be a week if you're following instructions and avoiding other people's mistakes. The person who made it probably made a lot of mistakes that you're not seeing, and is used to working at this level of quality. You could imagine this whole thing started on a breadboard and IDE at some point, but the final assembly is "print the things that I drew on the computer, glue and screw together".
- blihp 7y ago
  It's pretty clear the author knows what they're doing and pretty much anytime I see a post like this I assume they are (smartly) doing some self-marketing rather than a 'see how easy/cool this project is?' So it's part 'look at this nice watch I made' and part 'look at what I could be doing for your product'. Far better than just saying 'designed and built a smart watch' on the resume.
  - logicallee 7y ago
    oh, got it. I don't know if it's true or not but that is a really good assessment. I was really perplexed by the part where he says "now here are some boring circuits, feel free to skip this". Like, who would skip that? What you've written makes perfect sense though.

ConfusedDog 7y ago

I was expecting a brick on wrist, but this surprised me! And the circuit looks simple. I love the charging dock and textual of the watch frame! Screen resolution is a bit low though. I'd join if there's an open source community dedicated to work on this stuff, I think there's a lot of room improve the OS and software. I'm glad to have seen this!

swalladge 7y ago
> I was expecting a brick on wrist, but this surprised me! Agreed, I can't believe how thin and professional it is! This has to be the most mind blowing thing I've seen for a long time. :O

taoufix 7y ago

I clicked thinking, this is just a guy who'll disassemble a smartwatch and put his DIY housing and strap on it. But man! I was so wrong, and I'm totally impressed.

magashna 7y ago

I'm annoyed that he made a watch from scratch and its wrist twist to show screen timing is still faster than my smartwatch

bicx 7y ago
What they don't show is how often it turns on when he doesn't want it to. That was probably a tough calibration to make for other manufacturers, especially when production smartwatches have much higher-resolution screens and processors that drain battery.
- alphakappa 7y ago
  That is absolutely correct. Figuring out when the watch is in an upright position is trivial. Figuring out whether the user intended to actually get it to turn on is extremely hard, and it involves looking at the history of motion that preceded it, and making judgments based on a whole lot of user data. The other problem is making the tradeoff between detecting this fast enough (to turn on all the systems that follow so that the screen can light up fast enough) and waiting long enough (so you can be extra sure that the user intended to look at the screen) The garden path is easy. Making it work mostly unobtrusively is very hard.
  - skummetmaelk 7y ago
    Also the power cost of running this analysis all the time can be higher than just turning on the screen even though the user didn't "request" it.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
I'm guessing Android watch? That's what you get from running Android on a device.

jshowa3 7y ago

This is crazy.

scoutt 7y ago

The DA14683 is fantastic. I played a bit with an eval. board and it's really good for it's price vs. features (~$3 for 250 pcs. at Mouser). But soon the idea of releasing code for it as Open Source faded away, since you need to sign an SLA (https://support.dialog-semiconductor.com/connectivity/request-access-restricted-content https://support.dialog-semiconductor.com/connectivity/reques...), that limits the way source code based on their in SDK is released (only to your customer, in an only “need to know” basis). I hate when this happens. I wonder how the creator of this watch managed to publish the source code, including the Dialog SDK; if there is a backdoor I am missing.

opencl 7y ago
Probably by ignoring the license.
- echlebek 7y ago
  Pretty reasonable way to solve this problem really. Are they really going to bring the hammer down on a hobbyist?
  - ISO-morphism 7y ago
    I share a hatred for this sort of thing that happens all too often the closer you get to hardware, mainly as a byproduct of the culture. However, refusing to adhere to a proprietary license damages respect for all software licenses, especially the GPL, in the global software community. Depending on where you fall on the anarchy vs rule-of-law scale that may or may not be a good thing. Flip side of the argument: "Someone wrote a GPL library I want to use but I don't want to release my source. Is anyone really going to notice, care, or bother to bring the hammer down on my company?"
Sidnicious 7y ago
Does anyone know how this compares to the nRF5x series (and/or other BLE-friendly microcontrollers)?

SnowingXIV 7y ago

This is really cool and as a software guy the electrical engineering component is a huge black box to me. Circuit boards all connected up and getting a physical device to handle lithium ion batteries to properly charge and not blow up is beautiful. He does a great job with pictures, videos, and giving detail at both a high level and semi-in-depth explanations really made it shine. Is there anyone that does similar type of posts? Or even a follow along type of deal to get feet wet with actually building devices (maybe it includes a list of items to buy first)? Don't get me wrong I love writing software but showing someone something you physically made as opposed to sending a link to a website seems so much more satisfying.

TheHideout 7y ago
While I didn't give super detailed instructions, I posted something similar for a cyberpunk face-shield prop I made [0]. I started with a cheap VR toy and pretty much everything else is from Adafruit. [0] https://imgur.com/gallery/JOnd3H1 https://imgur.com/gallery/JOnd3H1
chli 7y ago
While it's definitely satisfying to interact with the physical world it also means that sometime you're debugging your software issues (which might be hardware ones), using output signals connected to an oscilloscope or a logic analyser (once you have exhausted the blinking LEDS options...) !
chc4 7y ago
Some people at CERN made a smartwatch for a colleague's retirement a number of years ago. Their entire project is FOSS, complete with a talk at FOSDEM 2015. It's not quite a tutorial or walk through, might be interesting for you. https://www.ohwr.org/project/f-watch/wikis/Home https://www.ohwr.org/project/f-watch/wikis/Home

foldor 7y ago

I'm still disappointed that new smart watch development has seemingly stalled in progress as of late. I was hoping that by this time we'd have watches that had 24 hour battery life, and an always on display that didn't need a flick of the wrist to activate. I hoped that wouldn't be asking for much, but I guess it's harder than I assumed.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
That thing unfortunately seems to have died with Pebble.
- wlesieutre 7y ago
  Amazfit is the closest player to Pebble's old space. I don't think they have any 3rd party app ecosystem at all, but the baseline experience covers time, notifications, workout tracking, and a couple other things. Bip and Stratos are the watchier lines, they also have more minimal Fitbit strap-style product that I forget the name of. EDIT: Here's another new entry https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/04/garmin-revamps-entire-forerunner-family-new-smartwatches-start-at-199/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/04/garmin-revamps-entir... > Like most Garmin smartwatches, the Forerunner 45 and 45S track all-day activity and sleep, deliver smartphone alerts to your wrist, and are easy on the eyes thanks to an always-on, sunlight-friendly display. Even though the Forerunner 45 watches are the most affordable of the bunch, they still have a heart-rate monitor and built-in GPS, so users can make outdoor runs without the help of a smartphone. > It can also connect to external sensors like a running dynamics pod and heart-rate chest straps to capture more running data while you train. The Forerunner 245 watches have the same one-week battery life as the Forerunner 45 watches do when in smartwatch mode, but they'll last up to 24 hours in GPS mode or six hours when using GPS and music playback simultaneously. That looks really promising.
  - sbradford26 7y ago
    Currently wearing an Amazfit Bip and I really like it. I got one for my Dad to replace his Pebble Time Steel and he loved it so much I got one. I usually get around 20+ days of battery life and it does everything I need, aka sleep tracking, notifications, and activity tracking.

tambourine_man 7y ago

My first reaction when I read the title was to complete the sentence in my mind: “…and it sucks”. But I'm very glad I was wrong in my scepticism. This is freaking amazing on so many levels. Edit: It’s been a while since I’ve been so excited about a project. Now I can’t work just thinking of taking a month off to play with this thing :)

adriansky 7y ago
Do it! What would you build if you take a month off?
- harias 7y ago
  Not OP, but I would build a better CRM. The present solutions are far from intelligent.
  - tomcam 7y ago
    In a month? CRMs have very large feature sets these days
  - uh_yikes 7y ago
    I am also very interested in this. Mind sharing some of your ideas?
- justaj 7y ago
  Not OP, but I wouldn't currently be able to build much of use, so I'll probably be busy learning.

zaarn 7y ago

Considering there is still no good replacement for my Pebble Time, I might use this manual to build my own. The Rebble team might also be interested in this.

scottydelta 7y ago
I have been looking for a replacement since the day Fitbit shutdown the pebble services. I am glad that Rebble team took over some of the services but it would still be nice to find a replacement. what do you think of wearOS based devices like fossil sport or Ticwatch pro? I have been looking at this wiki to identify a few good replacements to pebble time: https://www.reddit.com/r/WearOS/wiki/watches https://www.reddit.com/r/WearOS/wiki/watches
- zaarn 7y ago
  I'm not a fan of any of the sports-focused replacement watches that seem to compete against the Pebbles. The Fossil Sport seems to lack a eInk Display and the vendor only promises 24 hour battery time. The TicWatch seems to manage 40 Hours, something which my recently Pebble Time with a half dead battery achieved. The main reason I'm severely disappointed in the market is the lack of long battery lifetime devices. And those that do run for a week on a single charge usually lack in other parts of the product. And after all that, it's all so expensive. A Pebble Time costs around 60€ to 80€ used on Ebay, and that is after they went out of production. Most competitors don't go that low!

sara27362 7y ago

Even you can't believe there is a hen in world's biggest animals See the video how they looks and what they do https://cutt.ly/1rOU7Q https://cutt.ly/1rOU7Q Fish walking with legs like humans See the video on link below http://bit.ly/2XRGyYD http://bit.ly/2XRGyYD This couple is different Girls are both twins and boys are also twin brothers see how they look in video http://bit.ly/2VwoZQd http://bit.ly/2VwoZQd A cute dog is dancing in video Just watch this video and try to control your laugh http://bit.ly/2ZK1XVs http://bit.ly/2ZK1XVs

StavrosK 7y ago

What a great project! I love how much attention to detail he put in. Fantastic, this is exactly the kind of thing I love studying and working on myself. Sidenote, I'm a bit disappointed that people use imgur to showcase their projects, as I don't think it's very good for that. I built https://www.makerfol.io/ https://www.makerfol.io/ for this exact purpose but people seem to still prefer imgur for some reason, and I'm not sure why :/

therealidiot 7y ago
Just a heads up but your terms and conditions link doesn't work
- StavrosK 7y ago
  Oh oops, thanks for letting me know! I'll fix that ASAP.
OJFord 7y ago
> people seem to still prefer imgur for some reason, and I'm not sure why :/ To be brutally honest: because it's more likely to still be there in x years, for any value of x. Of course if you _really_ care, you host it yourself, and then it exists for as long as you care. Imgur's an easy happy middleground though, so people use it.
frenchy 7y ago
FYI, the gravatar images don't load on my browser because I have Firefox's content blocker enabled. The alt-text "The user's avatar" is showing in a bunch of places, and on the project list it overlaps with the project titles. I'd recommend: * Replacing "The user's avatar" at the top with the user's name. * On the project list, just setting the alt-text to "". Otherwise: nice site.
- StavrosK 7y ago
  Ah, thank you, but removing the alt-text would be bad for accessibility. It is meant for visually impaired people, after all. Maybe setting the title would fix this, I'll look into it, thank you!

p1esk 7y ago

Be sure to read the comments on imgur, made my day :)

vkaku 7y ago

It's interesting to know how one can build the one thing for about ~$80 even in small quantities, and everything is available, incl Source. If people started selling the pre-soldered board as a smart-watch starter kit on Aliexpress , pretty sure someone would buy it. This is the sort of thing that would make DIY popular, I can see why.

js2 7y ago

We haven’t solved homelessness, poverty, cancer, or war. We don’t have self-piloted flying cars. But for about $90 in parts, one person can design, manufacture, and build their own bespoke smart watch. Humans have made truly remarkable progress in some very specific ways.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
josefresco 7y ago
>But for about $90 in parts Oh and I don't know, about $250K worth of professional experience and skills but yeah.. we have.
- mhb 7y ago
  And a dollar for the piece of chalk.
  - castlecrasher2 7y ago
    don't forget imgur's hosting costs...and the computer you're on right now!
- glitcher 7y ago
  And if you had zero of the tools and equipment beforehand used in the process, what would the additional cost be to just get started?
  - kickopotomus 7y ago
    If you want to buy your own 3D printer and reflow, it's going to be pricey. If you live in an urban area, there are likely "maker spaces" nearby where you can pay a nominal fee to use the communal tools.
  - LolWolf 7y ago
    What tools? I think the biggest thing is a reflow oven, but, honestly, I've soldered using a cheap, used toaster oven from Goodwill + an oven thermometer. Worked wonders! The 3D printer might have been the biggest offender, to be fair, but many libraries have some (as do many maker spaces that are hourly). Additionally, you can order a number of 3D printed parts online as well, for relatively low cost.

Poiesis 7y ago

To save folks a click, copy, and paste, the GitHub project is https://github.com/S-March/smarchWatch_PUBLIC https://github.com/S-March/smarchWatch_PUBLIC

pavlov 7y ago

That is really lovely — and truly from scratch, including the software! The first photo looks a lot like Android Wear, so first I assumed this would be using a prepackaged OS, but it isn't! The source code is in on Github alongside schematics, PCB files and everything else: https://github.com/S-March/smarchWatch_PUBLIC/tree/master/Software https://github.com/S-March/smarchWatch_PUBLIC/tree/master/So...

debt 7y ago

How did he get that screen?

Luc 7y ago
The part number is in the Bill Of Materials file on his github repo: https://www.dhgate.com/product/aml130a2402a-1-3-inch-240-240-round-tft-lcd/413771628.html https://www.dhgate.com/product/aml130a2402a-1-3-inch-240-240...

qhwudbebd 7y ago

Very nice job! I love reading about hardware projects like this but stumble across the write-ups much less frequently/reliably compared to interesting software projects. Are there good groups/lists/sites to hear about more electronic/hardware hacking like this?

linuxftw 7y ago
All sorts of interesting projects on Hackaday: https://hackaday.com/ https://hackaday.com/

deadelvis 7y ago

Congrats! Making it round was a good design decision! Who would think a square (or squircle) watch is good watch design anyway? ;)

polpenn 7y ago

How much harder would it be to build an ebook reader?

naraic0o 7y ago
I suppose that depends on your requirements, but people have done similar things: https://orbides.org/book.php https://orbides.org/book.php

ghostbrainalpha 7y ago

The design of the charger is shockingly good. I would prefer that 10x to my apple charger disk that is constantly slipping off.

mshockwave 7y ago

this is REALLY great, i hope i can give two upvotes!

duderific 7y ago

I'll take "things people without kids do in their spare time" for 200, Alex.

skummetmaelk 7y ago
"Comments people who wish they were capable of doing such a project make on the internet for 800, Alex"

simias 7y ago

Very impressive and inspiring. I've been thinking about making a custom keyboard for a while now but, while I have no problems with the electronic and software side of things, I'm a bit overwhelmed with the 3D modelling required. I tried learning Blender but it really feels ill-suited for designing physical objects. The author mentions considering openSCAD but I've heard pretty bad things about it so I haven't really given it a chance yet. The person making the dactyl keyboard had a very interesting talk where he explain how he basically ended up writing his own DSL in clojure on top of openSCAD, maybe I should try that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk3A41U0iO4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk3A41U0iO4 (if you enjoyed TFA you'll probably like this video as well, it's a step-by-step explanation of how he designed his dream keyboard). Otherwise I suppose I'll have to betray rms and try this freeware Fusion 360 thing.

allanrbo 7y ago
OpenSCAD actually comes pretty natural if you are used to writing code
- skummetmaelk 7y ago
  OpenSCAD is nice for simple geometry, but products today never have simple geometry. Doing bevels in openSCAD is a nightmare for example, and bevels are everywhere.
gouh 7y ago
Blender is more artist-oriented and maybe not the best suited for industrial design. But FreeCAD seems quite powerful and could be a good solution for you
jononor 7y ago
FreeCAD is the FOSS equivalent type of tool to Fusion360. Lots of learning material available on YouTube. I have designed wearable electronics / jewelery in it several times. One can drop down to Python to do code-based parametric there also, with cadquery. But even as a software developer, I have only done that for 2 out of over 100 designs. I have also maybe 2 times used the OpenSCAD importer to include some existing designs as parts into my project.

aceperry 7y ago

Great project. I'm amazed at how much you can accomplish with today's tools and services. And using the woodfill PLA is a good way to get around the rough look of 3D printers. Great ideas here.

posterboy 7y ago

If you have scratch and junk lying around, why not make a watch from it?

serf 7y ago
that's sorta the thinking that makes me take issue from the phrase 'from scratch'. it's a nice project, but in my vocabulary 'from scratch' doesn't mean "after an initial engineering and design phase i'll order a host of parts from a company', it means 'i'd better start wrapping memory cores, let me get the copper wire out.'

ahmetyas01 7y ago

so you are the engineer at google?

Havoc 7y ago

Wow - that's an impressive project. Ambitious and well executed. ...only part that had me confused was using like 25% of screen real estate for showing time and putting flowers on the other 75%. Artistic I guess.

kenward 7y ago
My guess is he hasn't gotten to scaling the text sizes yet. It looks like all the text is the same font-size. I think in the Reddit thread, he mentioned having to draw each character (lower-case and upper-case) pixel-by-pixel for the display.

candidera 7y ago

Hi guys, how are you?

Erin_Smith 7y ago

What was your overhead cost on this? It's amazing. Great work

cssbubble 7y ago

This is so awesome. It is a good learning and inspiring for others. I will add this project to DIY section of the Learn-awesome repository https://github.com/learn-awesome/learn-awesome https://github.com/learn-awesome/learn-awesome. Please add such valuable resources here.

adriansky 7y ago

This is so cool. I've never heard of that microcontroller though. It has nice features and applications. Datasheet of the microcontroller he used: https://www.dialog-semiconductor.com/sites/default/files/smartbondtm_da146823_product_brief_hr.pdf https://www.dialog-semiconductor.com/sites/default/files/sma...

srndh 7y ago

On a related note, I was reminded of Woz's Nixie watch - https://youtu.be/m4R3hODnTGo https://youtu.be/m4R3hODnTGo