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Show HN: Our new $149 hackable Bluetooth wristwatch

getinpulse.com

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Re: Show HN: Our new $149 hackable Bluetooth wristwatch

#111

Post by brk »

cstone wrote: post #44

This is a very hacker-unfriendly device. I wouldn't buy one. The SDK's compilation tool doesn't invoke a compiler; it uploads your code to a service running off of http://174.129.29.50:8080 . The Arduino is fantastic because the bootloader is open-source, the hardware is open-source, and it's easy to find out full information about the hardware and pull the MCU datasheets yourself.

How can you call it "hacker unfriendly"? The thing is designed to be hacked, that's the whole point of it.

The Arduino and this are two totally different classes of devices.

For staters, this appears to be very much about the hardware. I wouldn't expect it to be open source, just like the iPhone or Motorola Droid you can develop your own apps for doesn't have open source hardware. You don't actually have to be granted access to 100% of the codebase and hardware layout for a product just to develop a neat application around something.

I saw this and immediately thought of 5 or 6 cool uses for it so I bought one. Sure, if I was going to build some kind of a product around this, or develop an app that was going to be my retirement income, I'd want a little more information about the company and their licensing models. But for a $150 hackable gadget, this thing is one of the coolest toys I've seen in a while.

Re: Show HN: Our new $149 hackable Bluetooth wristwatch

#112

Post by harrisonhjones »

nickpinkston wrote: post #96
erohead wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

96x128 pix full color OLED display

Post the STL file for us 3D printing enthusiasts - Apple posts blue prints for us case hackers ;-) http://developer.apple.com/resources/cases/

I know this is off-topic but does a similar thing exist for the nexus one? Is there a repository for such files?

Re: Show HN: Our new $149 hackable Bluetooth wristwatch

#113

Post by fuzzythinker »

fuzzythinker wrote: post #93

Few comments: * Your 3rd video is the most presentable one and best intro, make it on top. * The screen seems not be a touch-screen since not mentioned in features. So seems like only way to navigate the on-screen "buttons" with a single physical button is to press it until it cycles to highlight screen button and press and hold it to select. This does not seem to be a good UI. For a v.2, you either need to use a cap…

A bit more on v.2 side buttons: Make them on one side only, probably the standard right side, to account for need of opposing thumb's empty space. Make it 3 buttons, all three for single action contextual buttons for single action context menus; top & bottom can also act as scrollers for lists and long messages, middle button being 'OK' button. This button layout will still be useful even if you have a touch screen because of the small screen real estate.

A bit more nitpicking suggestions:

- First 2 videos are too noisy, replace/edit/re-do if you have time.

- Overall tone of the website and watch's usage and features is a bit too hacker oriented. This may be the audience you're after now. You'll need to sell to mainstream audience after you figure out what they are after. IMHO, its the smartphone/tablet pairing. Do not take no as an answer, either talk to Apple to get around iOS terms or if that fails, start with the jailbreak route.

Re: Show HN: Our new $149 hackable Bluetooth wristwatch

#115

Post by _b8r0 »

JonnieCache wrote: post #8

For comparison: Texas Instruments sell something called the EZ430 Chronos watch, which has a much lower-res display, a proprietary RF protocol with a USB transceiver, and a bunch more sensors including 3-axis accelerometers, pressure and temperature. It is based on the MSP430 microprocessor which is much less powerful than this thing, its capped at 16mhz or something IIRC and only has around 8K of program space. It i…

I bought 3 EZ430s. While they're interesting concepts, they're not without their problems (most notably not keeping time very well on the default firmware). You do come up against limitations and they're more of a proof of concept than anything else.

Re: Show HN: Our new $149 hackable Bluetooth wristwatch

#117

Post by sliverstorm »

windsurfer wrote: post #81
runjake wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The _state_ of battery technology is the biggest issue _for_ inPulse. There's not much they can do, given the lack of viable battery technology available. They _might_ be able to save a decent amount of battery life by using e-paper, but you lose color, and I'm not sure in practice you'd end up saving much power over the OLEDs they're currently using.

Even doubling the battery life of the battery would barely give it a week.

Seriously. When one has a 60x lead in lifetime over the other, you don't blame 'poor battery technology', especially when they use the same 'poor battery technology'!

Re: Show HN: Our new $149 hackable Bluetooth wristwatch

#118

Post by kristiandupont »

beagle3 wrote: post #85
jasongullickson wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has the nano been successfully jailbroken? Last I saw was that some of the images/text could be changed but I wasn't aware of anyone getting actual new code running...?

Seems I was mistaken and the answer is "not yet".

Well also, it doesn't run iOS so a jailbreak wouldn't be that interesting..
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