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application to sync the 93 kB of on-watch data, with the required software and remote servers now being very much outdated and/or gone.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!

Bare PCB Makes A Decent Homemade Smart Watch

September 3, 2023 by Lewin Day 15 Comments

These days, we live in a post-Dick Tracy world, where you can make a phone call with your fancy wristwatch, and lots more besides. [akashv44] has gone a simpler route, designing their own from scratch with a bare PCB design.

The build is based around the ESP-12E microcontroller, providing useful wireless connectivity that lets the watch interface with the outside world. The firmware makes queries of NTP servers and Yahoo’s weather API to collect time and weather data for display. It’s also capable of interacting with Blynk relay modules for controlling other equipment, which [akashv44] uses with lights and an air conditioner. The watch uses a small OLED display and a handful of small surface-mount tactile buttons for control. Power is courtesy of a small lithium-ion pouch cell, with charging handled by a TP4056 battery management IC.

It’s a simple smartwatch, but nonetheless one that teaches all kinds of useful skills in embedded development and design. It’s also funny to think how simple it is to build. A decade ago, before the ESP8266 was released, getting wireless connectivity in such a small package was a major engineering challenge. Even the Apple Watch didn’t come out until 2015! Food for thought.

Modern Software Brings Back The Timex Datalink

July 18, 2023 by Tom Nardi 27 Comments

As much as some people on the Internet might like to think — no, Apple did not come up with the idea of the smart watch. Even if you ignore the calculator watches that we imagine a full 60% of Hackaday readers wore at one time or another in their lives, the Timex Datalink was already syncing with computers and pulling down the user’s list of appointments back in 1994 by decoding the pulses of light produced by a CRT monitor. Hey, it sounded like a good idea at the time.

Unfortunately, this idea hasn’t aged well. The technique doesn’t work on more modern displays, and naturally the companion software to generate the flashing patterns was written for Windows 3.1. But thanks to the reverse engineering efforts of [Synthead], you can now sync any version of the Timex Datalink to your computer using nothing more complex than the onboard LED of the Teensy LC or Raspberry Pi Pico.

There’s actually several different projects working together to make this happen. In place of a CRT, there was an official “Timex Datalink Notebook Adapter” back in the day that was designed to be used on laptops and featured a single blinking LED. That’s what [Synthead] has recreated with timex-datalink-arduino, allowing a microcontroller to stand in for this gadget and featuring 100% backwards compatibility with the original Datalink software.

Appointment data is loaded from a text file.

But since you’re probably not rocking Windows 3.1 anymore, having access to that software is far from a given. That’s why [Synthead] also created timex_datalink_client, which is a Ruby library that lets you generate data fit for upload into the Timex Datalink. At the time of this writing there doesn’t seem to be a friendly user interface (graphical or otherwise) for this software, but it’s easy enough to feed data into it using plain-text configuration files.

Helpfully [Synthead] provides screenshots of information loaded into the original software, followed by a config file example that accomplishes the same thing. It looks like writing some glue code that pulls your schedule from whatever service you fancy and formats it for the Datalink client should be relatively simple.

We’ve previously seen projects that got the Timex Datalink synced without the need for a CRT, but they still required the original software. To our knowledge, this is the first complete implementation of the Datalink protocol that doesn’t rely on any original hardware or software. Expect eBay prices to go up accordingly.

Watch Hides Gesture Controls In Wristband

June 25, 2023 by Bryan Cockfield No comments

Over the last five to ten years, smart watches have become fairly ubiquitous, with the Apple Watch being among the most prominent of them. Not everyone wants or needs all of the capabilities of these devices, though; plenty are still opting for simpler devices which only have a few functions built into them. [Josh] has been working on one of these devices but takes a major design cue from their smart counterparts with the addition of gesture controls for the watch built into the wristband instead of relying on a more traditional button interface.

The watch hosts most of the functionality of a non-smart digital watch, with a timer, alarms, and a stop watch built-in. To change the time or access any of these functions, a combination of resistive and capacitive touch sensors are built into the wristband near the watch face. The combination of sensors aims to use the benefits of either type of sensor, with the capacitive sensors being used for precision and gesture recognition and the resistive sensors being used for pressure sensitivity. Placing these sensors in the band instead of the watch face improves visibility as well, since the screen won’t be obscured by the user touching the screen.

[Josh] originally intended this type of watch to be used for those with prosthetics or other disabilities which would limit the ability to use standard watch buttons or interact with a touch screen on the watch face itself. The device is working quite well as can be seen in the video linked below, but is still in the prototyping phase and under active development. For finishing up the final versions, we’d recommend taking a look at the design of these open-source smart watches for their high quality fit and finish.

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ZSWatch: This OSHW Smart Watch Is As DIY As It Gets

January 16, 2023 by Tom Nardi 17 Comments

We say it often, but it’s worth repeating: this is the Golden Age of making and hacking. Between powerful free and open source software, low-cost PCB production, and high resolution 3D printers that can fit on your desk, a dedicated individual has everything they need to make their dream gadget a reality. If you ever needed a reminder of this fact, just take a look at the ZSWatch.

When creator [Jakob Krantz] says he built this MIT-licensed smart watch from scratch, he means it. He designed the 4-layer main board, measuring just 36 mm across, entirely in KiCad. He wrote every line of the firmware, and even designed the 3D printable case himself. This isn’t some wearable development kit he got off of AliExpress and modified — it’s all built from the ground up, and all made available to anyone who might want to spin up their own version.

The star of the show is the nRF52833 SoC, which is paired with a circular 1.28″ 240×240 IPS TFT display. The screen doesn’t support touch, so there’s three physical buttons on the watch for navigation. Onboard sensors include a LIS2DS12 MEMS accelerometer and a MAX30101EFD capable of measuring heartrate and blood oxygen levels, and there’s even a tiny vibration motor for haptic feedback. Everything’s powered by a 220 mAh Li-Po battery that [Jakob] says is good for about two days — afterwards you can drop the watch into its matching docking station to get charged back up.

As for the software side of things, the watch tethers to a Android application over Bluetooth for Internet access and provides the expected functions such as displaying the weather, showing notifications, and controlling music playback. Oh, and it can tell the time as well. The firmware was made with extensibility in mind, and [Jakob] has provided both a sample application and some basic documentation for would-be ZSWatch developers.

While an unquestionably impressive accomplishment in its current form, [Jakob] says he’s already started work on a second version of the watch. The new V2 hardware will implement an updated SoC, touch screen, and an improved charging/programming connector. He’s also looking to replace the 3D printed case for something CNC milled for a more professional look.

The ZSWatch actually reminds us quite a bit of the Open-SmartWatch project we covered back in 2021, in that the final result looks so polished that the average person would never even take it for being DIY. We can’t say that about all the smartwatches we’ve seen over the years, but there’s no question that the state-of-the-art is moving forward for this kind of thing in the hobbyist space.

Rollercoasters Are Triggering The IPhone’s Crash Detection System

October 12, 2022 by Lewin Day 68 Comments

Apple has been busy adding new features to its smartphone and smartwatch offerings. Its new iPhone 14 and Apple Watch 8 now feature a safety system that contacts emergency services in the event the user is in a automobile accident.

As with so many new technologies though, the feature has fallen afoul of the law of unintended consequences. Reports are that the “crash detection system” is falsely triggering on rollercoasters and in other strange circumstances. Let’s take a look at how these systems work, and why this might be happening.

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