I made a smart watch from scratch • Hacker News Board

Re: I made a smart watch from scratch

#71

Post by bluGill » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:12 PM UTC

xena wrote: post #45

coldtea wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, since you can tell the time with a regular, non smart, watch, too -- and some will also do notifications and other stuff. In fact, even with the apps it's sorta gimmicky. Unless you use it for health purposes (e.g. heart monitoring), a smartwatch is not of the "my life change" category. At best the "I could do the same shit with my mobile phone, now I also have another device for them that I can do them in a wor…

Women's clothes don't have pockets. Always having an active LTE modem strapped to my wrist makes me feel safer. It is easy to be separated from my phone because I don't have pockets.

Why do women put up with that?

Re: I made a smart watch from scratch

#72

Post by pavlov » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:14 PM UTC

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/So...

Re: I made a smart watch from scratch

#73

Post by iscrewyou » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:18 PM UTC

dan1234 wrote: post #8

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_smartw... [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/bivyok/i_made_a_smartw...

Thank you for including old in the reddit url!

Re: I made a smart watch from scratch

#74

Post by Sidnicious » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:20 PM UTC

scoutt wrote: post #23

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/reques... ), that limits the way source code based on their in SDK is released (only to your customer, in an only “need to k…

Does anyone know how this compares to the nRF5x series (and/or other BLE-friendly microcontrollers)?

Re: I made a smart watch from scratch

#75

Post by debt » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:23 PM UTC

How did he get that screen?

Re: I made a smart watch from scratch

#76

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:25 PM UTC

js2 wrote: post #64

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]

Re: I made a smart watch from scratch

#77

Post by josefresco » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:27 PM UTC

js2 wrote: post #64

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.

>But for about $90 in parts

Oh and I don't know, about $250K worth of professional experience and skills but yeah.. we have.

Re: I made a smart watch from scratch

#78

Post by reaperducer » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:28 PM UTC

epaga wrote: post #22

asaddhamani wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now they're very gimmicky, Apple watch has a much better app ecosystem

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?

- Deliveries - News - NY Times - Starbucks - Stocks - Mail - Homekit - Carrot Weather - United Airlines

and a weird checkers program are the ones I use most. But I don't have the fancy new Apple watch. I have the original one, which is much more limited than current models.

Re: I made a smart watch from scratch

#79

Post by njepa » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:32 PM UTC

js2 wrote: post #64

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.

While I can appreciate the sentiment, the reason we can do things like this is because of all the research and development that went into things like integrated circuits, manufacturing and CAD. This is more the classic hacker thing, were you use something larger and serious for you own purposes. Not making something primarily for serving ads, or whatnot.

This technology can very well, and was to a large extent made to, be used for something else. I don't think researchers or EEs are stepping over homeless people more than anyone else. When it comes to doing good things with electronics I would be more worried about patents, or just finding the time.

Re: I made a smart watch from scratch

#80

Post by jonatron » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 4:36 PM UTC

js2 wrote: post #64

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.

Homeless, poverty, cancer, or war are all people problems, and people are complicated. We do have flying cars but they're not very good at flying or driving.