Idk if this might be useful or not, but there is a smartwatch platform (bangle.js 2) that uses the NRF52840 chip (extremely low power, solid BLE support, works with Espruino, micro python, arduino, and other IDEs) battery life is around a week, depending on what you run, of course.
The watch includes an always-on color transflective display, GPS, accelerometer , barometer, haptic motor, compass, sound, touchscreen, etc.
You could do firmware from scratch or you could use the onboard OS and write the program as an App.
The watch isn’t distracting, unless you install stuff on it to be distracting. I think your program might be able to be written as a “watch face” so that it would not have to be launched from the launcher, but you could also write firmware for the watch so that it just does what it does period.
It seems to me like this does everything you want, maybe?
I bought a couple of these (2?) years ago for my kids to program on, they have been great!
Thank you! I did actually buy a Bangle 2 early on in the project; I was impressed by the Espruino project and by how small the watch is, but it seemed slow to wake, and the screen was tiny, dim and had a lot of light bleed. But you’re making me think I should take another look. Very cool that your kids are programming their own watches!
Yeah, the transflective display is not great, but the power usage is nil when the backlight is off, which is nice. E-ink might be even nicer.. but the price is a major stumbling block for most form factors.
The pebble might be a good option though, not only is the os now open sourced but there is apparently someone trying to build new watches.
Once you get out of the hobby space, Hardware is a tough business, and there are a lot of people that would benefit from a solid solution that won’t be up for tinkering.
You might also find that there are Chinese manufacturers with white-box watches that might be running common chips like the nrf52840/832. I certainly see a lot of apparently identical smartwatches around 30 dollars that are marketed under different brands. Those might be a better direction if you are looking at a broad market.
OTOH, once you get away from the supportive and nurturing maker environment most of the fun will leak out, so depending on your motives, you might want to stick to your solution - which looks pretty great to me, even if it might not be as simple to scale production.
Best of luck with whatever direction you are looking at. By the way, you might try a resin printer if you are going to be doing any production in house. For larger multiples of small parts they are crazy fast and the finish is pretty great.
Thanks! Yeah, it's odd to me that there are so many cheap Apple Watch clones on Aliexpress with nice AMOLED displays and sensors galore, but nothing hackable, nothing with an e-paper/MIP display. I feel like they would make way more $$ if they made one that was hackable? Lilygo.cc has done a lot of work on open hackable watches, but they're big and not water-resistant.
Idk if this might be useful or not, but there is a smartwatch platform (bangle.js 2) that uses the NRF52840 chip (extremely low power, solid BLE support, works with Espruino, micro python, arduino, and other IDEs) battery life is around a week, depending on what you run, of course.
The watch includes an always-on color transflective display, GPS, accelerometer , barometer, haptic motor, compass, sound, touchscreen, etc.
You could do firmware from scratch or you could use the onboard OS and write the program as an App.
The watch isn’t distracting, unless you install stuff on it to be distracting. I think your program might be able to be written as a “watch face” so that it would not have to be launched from the launcher, but you could also write firmware for the watch so that it just does what it does period.
It seems to me like this does everything you want, maybe?
I bought a couple of these (2?) years ago for my kids to program on, they have been great!
https://banglejs.com/