If the trends are anything to go on, after the success of Fitbit we are nearing a sort of fitness tracker singularity. Soon there will be more fitness trackers on wrists and ankles then there will be stars in the sky. We will have entire generations who will grow up not knowing what life is like without the ever-present hug of a heart monitor strapped across their chest. Until then though, we can learn a bit of design for manufacture from this excellent teardown of a watch shaped fitness tracker.
This tracker has a nice round e-paper screen, which could be a welcome part in a project if they start washing up on the shores of eBay. The rest of the watch is a basic Bluetooth low energy module and the accessory electronics wrapped in a squishy plastic casing.
There’s a lot of nice engineering inside the watch. As far as the electronics go, it’s very low power. On top of that is plenty of clever cost optimization; from a swath of test points to reduce quality issues in the hands of consumers to the clever stamped and formed battery tabs which touch the CR2032 that powers it.
The teardown covers more details: the switch, what may be hiding behind the epoxy globs, the plastics, and more. One thing that may be of interest to those that have been following Jenny’s excellent series is the BOM cost of the device. All in all a very educational read.
Interesting teardown.
Too bad they didnt take the time to uncapsulate the epoxy blob, or mention the unpopulated footprints.
I think their packaging cost estimation is waaayy over estimated.
The round ePaper display is really cool. would be intersting to see if the thing is hackable through the testpoints…
Today I learned there is such a thing as a ‘Push Button Reboot Controller’ :) Nifty!
Why will there not be any stars until people wear fitness trackers?
Troll…. (Actually, nice one) But yeah… Troll….
I am usually a stickler for grammar too, but that one snuck by me.
You guys should maybe talk to someone outside the 18-35 white male hacker demographic once in a while. Fitness trackers aren’t anywhere near saturation.
Nah.