Bluetooth Wristwatch Based On An Arduino

We hate to admit it, but we missed out on the TI Chronos watch deal last week. While we’re still a little bit burned over the fact that these watches sold out so fast, [Ahmet] sent in his Open Source Bluetooth Watch and we’re thinking this could eventually be a decent replacement.

The watch is built around an Arduino Pro Mini, a scavenged Nokia LCD, and a BlueSMiRF Gold. The Bluetooth connects to a Nokia N900 with a little Bluetooth client app [Ahmet] wrote. He also wrote a small GUI for the watch’s LCD display. Afterwards, he was able to display missed calls, new email, and is now working on support for changing songs on his N900’s media player.

Admittedly, a little work needs to be done on the enclosure. Still, the potential for this watch is much greater than the iPod as a watch project we saw last year. Right now, we’re thinking about what could be added to [Ahmet]’s watch. An accelerometer would probably be on the top of our list, but if you have any ideas feel free to leave them in the comments.

Check out the walk through of the watch’s functions after the break.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RvVWvOCQYA&w=470]

30 thoughts on “Bluetooth Wristwatch Based On An Arduino

  1. So cool! Man I have always wanted to do this. I wish I had electrical engineering skills (one day when I take the classes).
    Just needs a custom PCB to make it thinner and some kind of slick case so you can take it on a plane!

    1. Ya, don’t wait starting engineering by that time you will not have time to do stuff you really like, also, I made an RFiD engeneering project with an arduino without knowing a single shit out of arduino programming in 2 nights, a cool reader with an LCD display and it even saved the codes in the EEPROM memory of the arduino.
      Also, lots of skills, like soldering and PCB design, university will not teach you, they will ask you to go out and learn…

      Just an opinion of a guy who used to think just like you.

  2. I know everyone says this but… Make it kickstarter.

    I would be happy to pay up to get a kit with a case, battery, screen and bluetooth. If it could go into batch and with SMD soldering it would be a killer I think.

    Imagine “The Arduino Watch” … Just a usb plug for charging and reprogramming at the top and every newb could get his own awesome watch. (And yes that’s a positive thing you old school “hax0rs”…)

  3. Great Watch! Im waiting for the bluetooth watch to take hold. A quick way to review what the buzzing in your pocket was would be pretty nifty.

    BTW, whats the music in the background, is that a homemade track?

  4. It’s a good start, interested in seeing the next revisions of it because I’m sure it’ll shrink in size and have more features, including buttons on the front (and being able to tell the time? ;) ). I’d also look at getting cheap Chinese sourced BT transceivers because the BlueSMiRF Gold module is more expensive than a full-price Chronos!

    After seeing various wrist computers (Fossil, OnHand PC, ZyPad, TI Chronos, DIY PIC based programmable scientific wristwatch) I’ve wanted to get/make one of my own, seeing the various wrist blood pressure monitors on the market has given me the idea that you could gut one and put your own electronics inside; microcontroller, screen, buttons, decent sized battery, accelerometer, wireless, IR for remote control, temp sensor, speaker etc. which could be a useful tool for logging data or even turn it into a basic multimeter for voltage/ampage/frequency measuring etc.

    BTW I got my half-price Chronos yesterday, been having trouble getting the software installed, one machine won’t install the wireless USB dongle driver and an other won’t install the main program or one of the programming environments, which is somewhat frustrating, but even if I don’t manage to do anything spectacular with it I still really like the sleek design of it as a normal wristwatch.

  5. Most importantly a watch must have two key criteria:

    – low battery consumption: fail
    – mechanical robustness: fail

    This is no wristwatch, this is a Arduino with LCD strapped to some guys wrist.

      1. Thats just silly!! It doesn’t need that much starting power. It would be better to have deep cycle marine battery that could be strapped to the other wrist. Hmmm, a windmill might be work well while running. Might be time to talk to all of those DIY nuclear reactor people.

  6. I have wanted to do this kind of thing myself for a few months now, and I’ve put some thought into making it compact enough to be a watch.

    The key is to start with a compact and low power screen. I was considering this 96×96 pixel black and white lcd display, or maybe a single color oled.

    Then it’s just a matter of designing a small surface mount pcb to fit under the display and filling the rest of the space in the case with the largest lithium polymer battery possible (The battery life is just going to be too small to consider non-rechargeable batteries.)

    We need to fit at least a microcontroller, bluetooth chip/module and probably a accelerometer onto a board about the same size as the screen. The microcontoller would probably be an amtel or low power arm chip but it might be possible to use a single SoC with both bluetooth and a microcontroller.

  7. sorry to say…but, ..besides of ‘cool’, who will need such watch?

    as a toy, or as a high school project, it is very Good.

    Any real meaning, any practical usage that this watch has? I can buy a simple watch just for $4 on the street.

    1. “Any real meaning, any practical usage that this watch has?”
      Well, judging by the video and article, it can control his music and show alerts from his phone. Moreover, given the Open Source nature, it could be programmed to display or control arbitrary data/functions as needed. As it stands now, it works as a wrist-mounted remote and at-a-glance data display. That sounds quite useful, although perhaps a bit “unnecessary” for the average person. I think it’s a great project, and had actually been thinking of a similar idea myself.

  8. needs e-ink display. bring up the price a little but longer bat. Plus you could read in daylight.

    I’ve always wanted a watch that had touch pad mouse type control. So you could use it to control home media PC. Or presentation PC for meetings.

    All this thing would need is touch screen added :)

  9. We’re goana bring wristwatches back in style folks. They’ll be our window into the world between sensing and actuation. Like what’s done here. Looking at the Computerless Arduino featured here on HAD for the same purposes. It was an earlier prototype in what has now become a KickStarter project of Teague Studios. I could see this taken further to a “Wrist-Top” development platform.

  10. im quite surprised to have my project on hackaday :D
    i wasnt expecting it to be so popular :D
    thank you all fellows :)
    About the Android Client Software
    Im able to multiboot Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread on my n900.So i will develop Android client very soon :)

  11. So this wristwatch doesn’t have the option of keeping time? No RTC? Pretty pathetic.
    And why is the LCD being supported only by a small header, on ONE side of the board?

    It’s like the author is asking for the community to bash on his project.

    1. take it easy dude…

      what part of “under heavy development” you didnt understand??

      Time feature was not even anywhere close the top of my concerns while making this watch.

      I just wanted to control mediaplayer of my phone remotely that’s ALL. all the rest is extra features that i think of & added later…

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