- Oh, God, this is it.
A smartwatch, but it just, ah, Oh yeah, look, there it is.
It's still keeping time, wearables.
Some of them are okay, but a lot of them are less okay
between their un-intuitive interfaces
patchy app compatibility, subpar battery life
and nasty habit of phoning home with all of your most
intimate details.
It is no wonder that someone finally said it, forget this.
I'm gonna build my own smartwatch with blackjack.
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(upbeat music)
I'm gonna be upfront.
We didn't do this whole thing on our own.
In fact, all we really did was print ourselves
a neat watch case and wrist strap.
But what's cool about this project is
that we could make this watch if we wanted to.
Both the hardware and the software
are completely open source.
And the name of the project you ask?
I'm glad you did.
It's Open Source Smartwatch.
It's a good name.
Paul Smith, the lead is a full stack cloud developer
by day maker by night.
And you might think that someone who works
in cloud computing would have wanted every aspect
of their project to synchronize with cloud servers
but it's actually quite the opposite
while wearables might not be on your radar.
The biggest tech giants in the world have latched onto them.
And for good reason
besides being an ever-present link to your smartphone
they're the perfect opportunity
to load somebody up with sensors.
And while those sensors can do extremely valuable things
like measure your heart rate or your movement
the unseen bonus
for these tech companies is the absolute treasure trove
of data that can be harvested from them.
That is what made Paul so uncomfortable.
Starting back in 2018 then
he began with an E ink display, an older ESP module
and a handful of surface mount components.
The first test meal might not have been
the prettiest thing in the world,
but it was clearly a strong start
because look where we are just a few short years later
like, look at this thing.
It's a little on the bulky side, but damn it's wearable
you know, like, cause it's a wearable, get it.
But I just mean it's not luggable like it's wearable
a little rough around the edges,
literally like, Oh, but there it is.
The goal was to make a watch that supported
modern conveniences, GPS, maps and tracking
but stored the data locally on a micro SD card.
And Paul has actually got all of that going.
But the version that I'm wearing is the Light Edition.
That means no GPS or SD expansion
but it also means a smaller PCB and therefore body size
as far as the software goes, there are a few watch faces
and some hardware demos, but that's about it.
Now the late edition here started out as a side quest
but has become a pretty popular one just a few days ago.
PCB manufacturer really go made a trial
run of these watch assemblies that sold out within minutes.
And that bonds really well for getting this hardware
into the hands of a community of people that will build
upon Paul's work and to develop new software for it.
But then let's say they do that.
What would you get?
Every part of our watch is 3D printed.
Even the flexible strap, which before we did this video
I didn't even know
that you could print such like rugged, flexible things.
That's super neat.
At first glance here,
we've got a 200 by 200 pixel round IPS display.
Of course it's not quite 4,000 pixels because it's round
but it looks pretty good from all angles and has more
than ample brightness below that we've got four buttons
and a micro USB port for data transfer and charging.
The top left button is reset.
Then the other three are utility buttons
that vary depending on what app you're using.
And I got to say, I am so glad to see hardware buttons,
like I use my pebble time for music control
when I'm on my motorcycle and it's like tactile buttons.
Hello, sometimes I wear gloves,
On this one then if we long pressed the lower left button,
like so, we get a little white square that pops up
and then on release, we change pages.
So far, they're only six pages.
The watch face, a stopwatch,
a connection test to link to the wifi you configured,
a ball and crosshair test for the accelerometer.
This can kind of pass for a game, right?
How long can you hold your arm level?
And finally, some system info.
Paul was also nice enough to do a costume page for us
that actually plays our intro, which is super neat.
It has some issues you can actually see
there's a bit of artifacting
in the beginning of the animation
but considering he slapped this together in 20 minutes
I think I'll give him a pass.
Now because it's not all sealed up
with an insane amount of adhesive.
All we have to do to take it apart is remove...
Again we can get the strap working
and then all we have to do is take off these four screws
to show you what's inside.
I fixed it score 10 out of 10.
Just like the shirts@ttstore.com
we'll make you a 10 out of 10.
Do you know what I mean?
Okay, so we just gotta give it a little pop up.
Ooh, there's the screen.
Ooh, gotta be careful.
All right, here we go.
So under the screen you find the brains of the operation
or well, okay.
Actually it's on the underside of this.
Oh, good Lord.
Okay, I've completely ruined it Colin.
- [Colin] Why would you do that?
- All the buttons fell out there it is.
That right there is the open smartwatch
PCB in all of its glory.
It's just 36 millimeters in diameter.
So that's 1.4 inches for you Liberians
and it's heart is this tiny little chip right here.
The TTGO 32 micro it's a system and package module
based on the ESP 32 made by expressive.
The ESP line of chips has absolutely surged in
popularity lately due to their low cost,
large feature set and diminutive size.
This one in particular is actually even smaller
than most of them.
About half the area of a normal ESP 32
measuring it just 13.3 by 19.2 millimeters.
And this tiny powerhouse is an absolute bargain
at around $7.
Not only is it a very capable processor
if you can even run Python on it
it has built in wifi and Bluetooth and a huge variety
of open source tools and libraries to build upon.
So it's a logical choice
for someone who's bootstrapping
a small device like this one,
we've actually been using a relative of this guy
in some of our own projects here at LG.
Now we're not gonna go too deep into the PCB design here
because frankly we're not qualified.
However, the fine folks over@hackstar.io have
written an excellent breakdown of this entire board.
So if you want to dive into the components
we're going to have that linked in the comments for you.
To keep it simple though
this light version of the open smartwatch packs
a barometer, triaxial accelerometer, a real-time clock
and all of the power conversion and charging ICs
that are needed to keep this thing running.
And run it will.
In fact by Paul's calculations before 450 million power
a single cell lipo down here
should give you up to 50 days of sleep time
due to all the power conserving features
that are built into the board and the software.
Although of course feature clip leg, you know,
say, for example, watch faces
that are more than just a thing moving like this
are probably going to reduce that.
And guys, that is it, that's the whole thing.
At least for the electronic side of it.
Full proof of concept, we pulled down some of the CAD files
project and gave them a go ourselves
in our Prusa SL1 resin printer and made this case
which is variant that supports 20 millimeters
spring pin watchbands and whoop, well, okay.
We've got the tolerance is off just a little bit
on that one, but Hey, generally speaking
it feels a lot more finished cause like man,
rather than those resin printers
like basically feels so good
by the way, if you guys are into 3D printing,
get subscribed because we have some
really cool stuff in the works.
We are making a case
and we're actually checking out a chocolate printer.
Now of course, for the average consumer today
the open smartwatch, isn't very smart, really at all.
It doesn't even have on risk notifications.
So pretty much all it does is tell the time
which means you might be wondering
why we bothered to feature it online as tech tips.
The reason is that we really like Paul's Moxie.
Paul thinks that you should at least have the choice
to keep your data to yourself.
And we want to see this project become a success.
Yeah, there's no app store,
but there's also no micro-transactions,
no monthly access plans and no cloud phoning home.
Just a cool tech project that we are rooting for
along with other similar ones, like the pine time,
which has made by the same folks
that brought us the pine foam that you saw in short circuit
and the Watchy both of those are also open source.
These sorts of projects hardly ever get the same
sort of traction that big consumer box
can bring to a device.
But it's really important to us that they continue to exist.
So guys, if you've got the time and you've got the skills
reach out to the developers in the link below
if you want to help them move forward.
And while you're down, looking at the links below
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We hope you guys enjoy us
taking a look at this neat little watch project.
And if you like, sort of out there wearables
why not take a look at our video covering
the Nubia Alpha a device
that I absolutely loved,
even though objectively speaking just atrocious.
It's really bad.