Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I made a smart watch from scratch

m.imgur.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 228 posts

Re: I made a smart watch from scratch

#131

Post by aasasd »

freehunter wrote: post #87
jonatron wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The “we don’t have flying cars” argument always strikes me as begging for something to complain about. We could easily have flying cars if there was literally one reason to have a flying car. There is not a single reason to have a flying car, so no one has put in the time to make one because no one would buy it because it’s pointless.

Have you seen the 90s? Cool things don't need a reason.

Re: I made a smart watch from scratch

#132

Post by kickopotomus »

glitcher wrote: post #116
josefresco wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But for about $90 in parts Oh and I don't know, about $250K worth of professional experience and skills but yeah.. we have.

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?

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.

Re: I made a smart watch from scratch

#133

Post by jacquesm »

closetohome wrote: post #92
jordan_clark wrote: post #12

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

Or like $6800 depending on how you value your time.

Fortunately for the OP that's not how he thought about this. People who put a value on their time for everything are invariably terrible company for anything that is fun, will teach you something or that is useful to others rather than only immediately to themselves.

Re: I made a smart watch from scratch

#135

Post by LolWolf »

glitcher wrote: post #116
josefresco wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But for about $90 in parts Oh and I don't know, about $250K worth of professional experience and skills but yeah.. we have.

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?

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.

Re: I made a smart watch from scratch

#136

Post by novok »

frenchy wrote: post #93
bluGill wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do women put up with that?

That's a good question. This comes up every-now-and-then with my wife. She's usually says that pockets don't really matter, and then I point out that I have to carry her goods in my pockets. I suspect it's something really subtle along these lines: Beautiful women can often get by being useless, so women in general acrew certain trappings of uselessness so as to associate themselves with beauty. It's sort of like men…

I think the more accurate reason is women carry purses because of the lack of pockets, and since most women have purses, you don't need to put pockets in your clothing. It also used to be scandalous for women to wear pants vs a skirt or a dress, which doesn't lend itself to pockets.

And aesthetically, a pocket stuffed with things, especially in more form fitting clothing, doesn't look good.

Re: I made a smart watch from scratch

#137

Post by opencl »

glitcher wrote: post #116
josefresco wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But for about $90 in parts Oh and I don't know, about $250K worth of professional experience and skills but yeah.. we have.

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?

The case is 3D printed on what appears to be a $160 Monoprice Mini Delta.

Soldering was done in a reflow oven, commercial units start at around $200 or you can use a modified toaster oven. This board doesn't look too terrible to do with an iron or hot air gun either. You can get a decent combo hot air/iron station for about $60.

You'll want some test equipment, cheap multimeters start at free from harbor freight but you'll probably at least want to step up to a ~$15 model. Logic analyzers are handy and until fairly recently were quite expensive but now you can get them for $10. An oscilloscope might be handy for debugging the power circuitry here, you can get a cheap one for $20 or a nice one for a few hundred or an old nice one for about a hundred.

An adjustable bench power supply isn't really necessary but nice to have, those start around $50.

A professional EE's workbench will probably have many thousands of dollars worth of equipment on it but most hobbyists have much more modest budgets.

Re: I made a smart watch from scratch

#138

Post by bewuethr »

LolWolf wrote: post #135
glitcher wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

I'm pretty sure they used a Monoprice Mini Delta[1], which is one of the cheapest fully assembled 3D printers available (about $160), so it's not even that bad without a printer.

[1]: https://www.mpminidelta.com

Re: I made a smart watch from scratch

#139

Post by mensetmanusman »

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.

Homelessness: unsolvable in a society where it is illegal to force someone to take care of themselves (by being sheltered). The west has decided that individual freedom is worth the cost of some people using it to choose to be homeless. I think this legal framework will make it impossible to solve homelessness.

Poverty: It is now known that there is a rising gulf between subjective and objective well being. A majority of millionaires do not think they are rich. I think this psychology will make it impossible to solve poverty.

Cancer: Entropy/cosmic rays scrambling DNA... I think thermodynamics will make it impossible to solve cancer (as in, all cancer) for everyone (very rich with DNA repair therapy in the medium/near future).

War: Actually living now in the most peaceful time in human history as a % of humans in conflict. I think the human desire for power/wealth (again, back to poverty) will make it impossible to solve the zero war scenario. At least nukes scared everyone from the big wars so far :)

Re: I made a smart watch from scratch

#140

Post by gabriel34 »

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…

For open source community projects a better bet than a bespoke case would be aiming for the form factor a a popular watch movement, so that hackers can chose to buy or build a bespoke case.
Post reply on HN