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Watchy: Remember Pebble? This Arduino-Compatible Open Source Hackable $50 Smartwatch Uses An ESP32 Microcontroller And An E-ink Display (hackaday.com)

submitted 4 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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It used to be that building your own watch was either a big project or it meant that you didn’t really care about how something looked on your wrist. But now with modern parts and construction techniques, a good-looking smart watch isn’t out of reach of the home shop. But if you don’t want to totally do it yourself, you can turn to a kit and that’s what Stephen Cass did. Writing in IEEE Spectrum, he took a kit called a Watchy and put it through its paces for you.

With its gray-tinted screen, Squarofumi’s Watchy inevitably conjures echoes of the Pebble smartwatch, which made a huge splash in 2012 when it raised over US $10 million on Kickstarter. Pebble ultimately had its lunch eaten by Apple and others, but Watchy is different in a few key respects: It is not trying to be a mass-market device. It is unashamedly for those willing to tangle with code. It’s also inexpensive — just $50 versus the Pebble’s $150, let alone the Apple Watch’s $400 price tag.

See https://hackaday.com/2021/03/06/the-ieee-builds-a-smart-watch/

#technology #hardware #watchy #opensource #smartwatch

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 years ago (2 children)

Building an open source smart watch is relatively easy. Try to build one with only components without degrading working conditions along the supply chain. Doing research on this task is by the way one of the most efficient ways to learn what a shithole this world is we were born into.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 years ago (1 children)

Is that what happened with the components for Watchy? Can you provide any specific details so we are all aware then? Well then they certainly don't deserve to be promoted at all - I thought it was quite a noble idea actually. Now I'm concerned about them as there was no mention about it in any articles I saw.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 years ago (1 children)

No, it's not about Watchy specifically, but electronics as a whole. Nearly nobody in this industry cares about mineral mining conditions. For this reason I only buy used electronic devices, but if you build something on your own you cannot buy everything used and for many components it is close to impossible to find a manufacturer that uses materials that were mined under at least somewhat fair conditions. Apart from these general social problems what I like about projects like Watchy is that they increase repairability which is a huge ecological problem especially for wearables.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 years ago

Ah OK I was worried and do not want to give the wrong impression about Watchy if they have no guilt. Really should start a different topic for that then to focus specifically on that issue and maybe list the guilty parties.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 years ago (1 children)

I used to think a lot about the working conditions of those who produced the goods and services I use.

Then I read what happened with Fairphone (in short they offered better working conditions in poor countries but many refused them to work much more and earn a little more because they were induced to a prototype of consumerism) and I started to think.

My conclusion is that it is not possible to give freedom to the people of another country (and to other people in general). Each people must conquer it alone because true freedom is awareness. When freedom is won with pain it becomes awareness and there is hope that it will be passed on to future generations.

The only two things we can give are culture, the one that among other things defines the rights of the human being, and the other is the technical knowledge to free oneself.

Unfortunately the majority of people in more developed countries are losing both very quickly and soon there will be nothing to pass on but we will all have to win it all over again.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 years ago (1 children)

Being able to give freedom would be nice, but not exploiting people and also not supporting self-exploitation is a start, isn't it? And yes there are people that refuse to work for Fairphone, but others don't and it's worth doing it for them and worth for the alternative that is being built practically but also in minds.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 years ago

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

The best thing we can do is study the Modern Monetary Theory and make the whole world understand that a sovereign State can guarantee full employment and a full welfare for the entire population.