Reverse-Engineering The Web-@nywhere Watch For 2001-Era Smartwatch Action

January 21, 2024 by Maya Posch 9 Comments

Although smartwatches seem to be just a recent fad, people have been strapping wristwatches to their wrists with all kinds of functionality. Whether a miniscule calculator, a remote control, an organizer or as in the case of the Web-@nywhere Watch a web browser. In the last case only sort of, naturally, as it was released in 2001 and this little early 2000s marvel cost only $85 (or $150 in 2024 USD), so what could it really be capable of? This is the million dollar question that [Cameron Kaiser] sought to find out as he found a new-in-box unit for sale.

The Web-@nywhere watch in action. (Credit: Cameron Kaiser)

Beforehand he knew already that the unit required interaction with a PC-based application to sync the 93 kB of on-watch data, with the required software and remote servers now being very much outdated and/or gone. This required some reverse-engineering to once more bring this watch widget back to life. Along the way it became also quite clear that this watch was designed as a cheap rip-off of the much better 1998 Seiko Ruputer – which later got sold also as the onHand PC – using the same joystick-driven interface.

After some poking around with the Windows-based software that came with the watch [Cameron] quickly realized that while it could establish a serial link with the watch in its cradle, it fully relied on a now defunct FTP server formerly run by the manufacturer, Kinger, along with any games and content on it. Since FTP servers were never archived like HTTP sites, this content is likely gone forever.

Fortunately, the protocol between the PC and the watch is a standard serial link (with parity), so [Cameron] was able to sniff the serial traffic and figure out the protocol, the results of which he has made available on GitHub in the form of a Perl script for transforming text and a C-based application to do the uploading. Now once again Web-@nywhere users can proudly roam the streets with 2024-era website content on their wrists.

Arduwatch Design Study Is Compelling Concept For DIY Smartwatch

October 23, 2023 by Lewin Day 10 Comments

Smartwatches are a battleground these days, with smartphone manufacturers vying to have the prettiest, sleekest, and longest-lasting device on the market. Meanwhile, DIY efforts continue to improve in sophistication as better components become available. [Rocky Bergen’s] Arduwatch is a particularly appealing design study, with such visual flair that we’d love to see it become a reality.

The design was inspired by the Arduboy, itself a lightweight homebrewed handheld console of impressive simplicity. [Rocky]’s concept hinges on taking that credit-card sized platform and repurposing it as a wearable device instead. The squared-off, retro design of the Arduwatch is appealing, as is its simple four-button interface and the bright colors [Rocky] chose to show it off. Ultimately, too, its low-resolution display would realistically be more than suitable for a great variety of simple smartwatch tasks, which often just involve displaying notifications and the like.

[Rocky’s] work may just be a design study, but it’s well thought out and eminently viable. We’d love to see how well this design could work in the real world, particularly if built with some nice resin-printed parts paired with a quality watch strap.

If you’ve heard of [Rocky Bergen] before, it may be due to his exquisite collection of retrocomputer papercraft designs. If you’ve been cooking up your own DIY smartwatch ideas, don’t hesitate to hit up the tipsline!

A wristwatch based on a red PCB with seven-segment LCD screens

The Time Machine Mk. 8 Is A Sleek Smartwatch With Retro Styling

June 11, 2023 by Robin Kearey 16 Comments

The primary purpose of a wristwatch is to tell the time, which pretty much any watch does perfectly fine. It’s in the aesthetics, as well as features other than time-telling, where a watchmaker can really make their product stand out from the rest. Watchmaker and electronic artist [Eric Min] focused on those two areas when he designed the Time Machine Mk.8, which combines exquisite design with simple, offline smartwatch functionality.

The heart of the watch is a Microchip ATSAMD21G18 low-power 32-bit microcontroller. [Eric] chose it for its high performance, ease of use and large number of integrated peripherals, a real-time clock being one of them. With the basic clock function thus taken care of, he then decided to add several useful sensors: a battery fuel gauge to keep an eye on the 40 mAh rechargeable lithium cell, a three-axis accelerometer to enable motion sensing and an environmental sensor to track temperature, humidity and pressure.

The various functions are operated using four pushbuttons along with a 16-step rotary encoder set in the middle. The overall design of the watch is inspired by Formula 1 steering wheels, as well as various sports cars and media franchises like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Akira. [Eric] considered a few different options for the display but eventually settled on two four-digit seven-segment LCDs, which fit nicely into the retro-futuristic aesthetic of the Mk.8. It’s so retro, in fact, that it almost makes [Eric]’s faux 1980s magazine ad look genuine.

All components neatly fit together on a dual-layer PCB, which is a true work of art in itself. From the lightning bolt on the front to the hidden Frank Sinatra lyrics, it definitely stands out from the crowd of ordinary LCD wristwatches. It’s also quite a step up from [Eric]’s previous watch design, the Time Machine Mk.IV.

Over the years we’ve seen several other examples of how a bare PCB, or even a stack of them, can become a beautiful wristwatch.

The Casio Smartwatch You Never Had

July 20, 2022 by Jenny List 25 Comments

In a way, you have to feel a bit sorry for the engineers at Casio. They can produce the most advanced digital watches ever to grace the wrist, but their work will forever be associated with one of their more lowly creations. The Casio F91 is the archetypal digital watch — it’s affordable, it’s been in production since the Ark, it does the job so well that it’s become a design classic, and it remains a very tough act to follow.

If it has a flaw though, it’s that the functions of a watch from 1989 are very basic. Wouldn’t it be nice if a Casio F91 could be a modern smartwatch! Well thanks to [Pegor] it can, with a complete re-engineering of the classic watch’s internals. Now the simple classic timepiece is fully up-to-date!

All the Casio internals are removed, and a new movement holder supports a fresh PCB with an OLED display mounted via a flexible sub-PCB. The brains comes courtesy of a Texas Instruments CC2640 BLE microcontroller. This gives it a 15-day battery life, which is nothing like what the original watch would have but compares favorably to smartwatches. He admits that the software needs some work, but with hardware this well-executed we hope that others can contribute some improvements.

This is probably the most impressive F91 hack we’ve seen, but it’s by no means the first revamped Casio we’ve shown you.

A Commodore 64 running a smartwatch link program

The Commodore 64 Smartwatch Can Now Sync With Your Commodore 64 Desktop

July 18, 2022 by Robin Kearey 5 Comments

If you’ve got a smartwatch on your wrist, chances are you’ve also got a device nearby that links up with it. Most modern watches will happily sync with Android devices or iPhones, and some will also talk to Windows PCs. But what if you’re running an alternative OS? Something like, say, Commodore BASIC? In that case, you might want to check out [Nick Bild]’s latest project, which lets you to sync your smartwatch to your Commodore 64.

Sadly, you can’t just use any old smartwatch: the project is an extension of [Nick]’s Commodore 64 Smartwatch that we featured earlier. This watch can run Commodore 64 programs thanks to a custom software stack, but like most typical smartwatches also includes an accelerometer that counts your steps. Syncing the step counter to your computer is straightforward: after you come home from your daily run, you simply tap “sync” on the watch, enter LOAD"SYNC.PRG",8,1 on your Commodore 64, and the computer will show your total step count.

The C64 watch communicates with the host computer through a built-in infrared port. The classic Commodore computers don’t have an IR receiver, so [Nick] built one himself using an Arduino Micro hooked up to the C64’s User port. A custom program reads out the data and shows the step count on the screen.

Although the feature set of this app is a bit limited, [Nick]’s project demonstrates how the good old Commodore 64 can still perform useful tasks in today’s world. Not that we needed much reminding: after all, we’ve even seen it run AI applications using TensorFlow Lite.

Continue reading “The Commodore 64 Smartwatch Can Now Sync With Your Commodore 64 Desktop” →

PineTime Smartwatch And Good Code Play Bad Apple

October 16, 2021 by Brian McEvoy 11 Comments

PineTime is the open smartwatch from our friends at Pine64. [TT-392] wanted to prove the hardware can play a full-motion music video, and they are correct, to a point. When you watch the video below, you should notice the monochromatic animation maintaining a healthy framerate, and there lies all the hard work. Without any modifications, video would top out at approximately eight frames per second.

To convert an MP4, you need to break it down into images, which will strip out the sound. Next, you load them into the Linux-only video processor, which looks for clusters of pixels that need changing and ignores the static ones. Relevant pixel selection takes some of the load off the data running to the display and boosts the fps since you don’t waste time reminding it that a block of black pixels should stay the way they are. Lastly, the process will compress everything to fit it into the watch’s onboard memory. Even though it is a few minutes of black and white pictures, compiling can take a couple of hours.

You will need access to the watch’s innards, so hopefully, you have the developer kit or don’t mind cracking the seal. Who are we kidding, you aren’t here for intact warranties. The video resides in the flash chip and you have to transfer blocks one at a time. Bad Apple needs fourteen, so you may want to practice on a shorter video. Lastly, the core memory needs some updating to play correctly. Now you can sit back and…watch.

Pine64 had a rough start with the single-board computers, but they’re earning our trust with things like soldering irons and Google-less Linux mobile phones.

Continue reading “PineTime Smartwatch And Good Code Play Bad Apple” →

Hackaday Podcast 139: Furter Burner, Glowing Potato Peeler, Hacked Smartwatch, And The Last Atlas

October 8, 2021 by Tom Nardi No comments

Hackaday editors Tom Nardi and Elliot Williams bring you up to speed on the most interesting stories of the week. Hackaday’s Remoticon and Germany’s Chaos Communication Congress are virtual again this year, but the Vintage Computer Festival will be live. We’ll also talk about ocean-going drones, the recreation of an old-school light bulb with a potato peeler, cheap smart watches with hidden potential, and sanding down shady modules to figure out just how you’ve been scammed. Stick around for some thoughts on turning real-estate signs into a handy prototyping material, and to find out why some very impressive Soviet tech is getting the boot from America’s space program.

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct download (52.775158 MB)