Design a overfunctional watch


Binky

Death's Steed
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If you were to design a cool/geeky watch (maybe like one of those calculator watches, but far better) what would it be/do/look like?


Limitations:

  1. No giant laser cannon or other equally impractical hardware
  2. Must fit under standard sleves (no glueing a Pandora to your wrist)
  3. Consider battery life (must last at least one day)
  4. Use common sense, if you don't have any, borrow someone else's :p .


Usefulness is an optional bonus.


I have a plan in the works...
 
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Ooh, goodness me... I used to collect game-watches in the early 1990s, so my mind's still full of ideas that were impossible back then, but have now almost been surpassed*. (My favourite was the Starwing one, which is the European version of the Star Fox watch, and one of the only watches I know of that had a localised version to match its name-changed console relative.)


*I say "almost", as I'm unsure that the newer technology I would imagine going into this has been shrunk *quite* enough to match the form-factor of the old game-watches yet.


My idea? A modern-day game-watch, of course. :p The idea behind the old watches was that you would play them one-handed, since the watch was meant to stay on your wrist. The Starwing/Star Fox watch was my favourite because it had a pretty sophisticated, and intuitive, control system, involving six buttons. This would be what I'd use for the basis of a modern equivalent, though I would also include a resistive touch-screen for some sort of doodling/note-taking application. Storage would be a must in order to buy new games via a web-browser on your computer and put them in the watch, as well as for retrieving notes and doodles from the device.


I guess you'd have to use an ARM CPU for it (I gather that the one in the Raspberry Pi can be powered for a while from four AAs, so perhaps a hypothetical SoC in that vein, plus a small rechargeable cell for power?), but instead of having the game part running all the time (the game display on the old watches moved one frame per second when in watch mode, so you could count seconds easily without the need to flash the colon in the time-display, which would have potentially been trickier to see due to its smaller-than-usual size), it could be turned off or put into sleep mode, and the watch would have a separate, old-fashioned LCD digital watch component with its own watch-battery (not a difficult-to-get cell like the LR1130 of the Starwing/Star Fox watch, though!), thus making it overfunctional AND useful. :p
 
Cool Arduino Watch


Arduino-Watch-Build-Instructions.jpg



Take a look at this instructable
 
I would probably arange batteries (and other stuff) like this


Even with heaps of other stuff, that design would still get you a few watt-hours
 
Mad Design Comeing Up!


<wanders off to find pencil & paper>
 
angry birds on a watch

https://www.youtube.com/embed/AiAAlmyHa1Q?feature=oembed

EDIT: I actually think this one wins this little game... gps, bluetooth, wifi, full linux based OS, touchscreen, 250 mah rechargeable lipo, 8gb storage, will last 8+ hours depending on useage, hardware buttons, play actual games... including emulators (lol at the thought), 600mhz arm based soc.... yea... it wins


EDIT2: motorola quotes 20 hours if used as mp3 player... so if its idle and used to just check time 24 hours no problem


EDIT3: $200 off amazon
 
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This is a watch.


It has buttons.


super-watch.png

  • plug usb host into usb slave to fasten
  • copy files on/off microsd
  • use as mp3 player
  • scientific graphing calculator
  • type notes
  • the blocks at the bottom are full of battery
  • recharge batteries over USB
  • can fuction as torch
  • or TV remote
  • mass storage mode for SD card access
  • record stuff with headset (in+out) socket
  • Lots of buttons
  • play games with arrow keys (and spacebar?)
  • maybe bluetooth, avoid radios as they gobble battery life
  • probably not touchscreen, buttons are better in such a small thingum
  • probably does time related stuff as well
 
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OK, I just got a reply from the uwatch's creator, Dave Jones about the uWatch2:

No major progress, but hoping too soon.


Yes, I'd be disappointed if I didn't get something out this year.
 

"The recommended retail price for MOTOACTV 8GB is from £249.99,"


Sure does a lot for a wristwatch, but I'd rather get another pandora for that kind of money.


Having said that, in my eyes Android is not a "full linux OS" - it may be under the hood, but I'm being kept out unless I hack around and install more software.
 
The low resolution may be responsible for it running well.. couldn't find it in numbers given a quick search
 
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Oh I just noticed this thing has to be rooted, it's normally just a sports watch!
 
"The recommended retail price for MOTOACTV 8GB is from £249.99,"
http://www.amazon.co...25809255&sr=8-1


snap one up brand spanking new right now for the low low price of £129 or $200 USD


- CPU: TI OMAP3 (3630) - 600Mhz ~ 1200Mhz Cortex A8


- GPU: PowerVR SGX530


- Ram: 256MB


- Nand: 8GB


- Wifi: 802.11n


- BlueTooth 4.0


- Fm Radio


- GPS


- ANT+


- BLE (bluetooth low energy)


- Accelerometer


- LCD: 1.6" QCIF+


- Resolution 220 X 176


- 258mah battery


- microusb 2.0 port


- stereo headphone jack


- capactive touch screen (w/ corning gorrila glass)


- 4.6cm x 4.6cm x 9.6mm


- 35g


rooting and teardown


http://www.cmw.me/?q=node/55


EDIT: specs are similar to the pandora it seems, maybe port angstrom to it and use an iCP?


http://www.pandorawi...#Specifications


EDIT2: looking more into this... "rooting" in this form is not actually breaking into the device... it's the equilivent of doing an OS upgrade on the pandora... uses standard textbook android tools and commands (ie fastboot and adb) and you just flash a more capable system image, bootloader isn't locked or anything like that on most phones. Look at it as a community firmware, that's basically all it is.


EDIT3: added a bunch of stuff (still digging up as much as I can about it)
 
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