Joey Castillo Unveils Sensor Watch Professional, a Hackable, Low-Energy, Open Supply Wristwatch Platform

An replace to the open supply and hackable Sensor Watch is coming quickly. Joey Castillo from Oddly Particular Objects introduced a Crowd Provide marketing campaign for Sensor Watch Professional. This new addition to the watch line builds on the already hackable platform with choices for expansions.

Sensor Watch Professional is a alternative PCB for Casio wristwatches that make the most of “Module 593,” such because the Casio F-91W. It prioritizes low energy consumption by not incorporating options like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or a high-resolution display. Regardless of the absence of power-hungry options, it incorporates loads of {hardware} with hackable functionality.

With this new introduction, there are three Sensor Watches: the unique, Lite, and Professional. The unique is now not accessible as a result of the Sensor Watch Lite changed it. The Lite streamlined the unique design by eradicating the 9-pin flex cable connector and shifting the temperature sensor to the PCB.

All three variants use a low-power Microchip SAM L22 microcontroller. These chips have an Arm Cortex-M0+ core working as much as 32 MHz with 256 KB on-chip flash and 32 KB of RAM. The RAM retains its contents whereas in low-power modes. The Sensor Watch board additionally consists of an exterior 8 KB flash chip. The L22 incorporates many peripherals that make it best for Sensor Watch. For instance, it has a built-in RTC (pushed by an exterior 32.768 kHz crystal) and a {hardware} driver appropriate with the Casio LCD!

Constructing on the success of Sensor Watch Lite, sensor Watch Professional provides new {hardware} options. It consists of an infrared sensor for mild detection or receiving information, upgrades the LED to RGB, and reintroduces the unique’s 9-pin flex cable PCB connector for sensor add-on boards.

With Professional bringing again the unique’s nine-pin sensor connector, Sensor Watch Professional will provide an accelerometer (LIS2DW) add-on for movement monitoring (streaming to USB or UART), faucet detection, and fall detection. Alternatively, {hardware} hacking-inclined customers can design a customized add-on flex circuit utilizing the nine-pin connector to include any sensor they like, showcasing the watch’s versatility.

The Sensor Watch neighborhood has demonstrated exceptional creativity in pushing the capabilities of the unique always-on Casio LCD. These modern makes use of show all kinds of useful data regardless of its limitations! An thrilling point out within the marketing campaign itemizing is a customized 11-digit segmented LCD possibility, additional increasing the probabilities for artistic show use.

Castillo teased the distinction between the unique and the brand new customized LCD in this Mastodon publish. This instance reveals the extra data accessible when displaying (contrived?) information like a location.

One key cause for Sensor Watch’s reputation is its distinctive battery life. The primary battery take a look at, carried out on the unique {hardware} and firmware, lasted 425 days. In distinction, the more moderen take a look at on Sensor Watch Lite, working on optimized firmware, operated for two.4 years—greater than twice so long as the earlier take a look at.

The Sensor Watch Professional LCD has a built-in USB-Micro appropriate footprint. You possibly can plug it right into a cable to connect with a PC. From there, it seems as a mass storage gadget or a reset button can put it right into a U2F-compatible bootloader mode. There are two present firmware choices. Motion (and shortly Motion 2.0) is a pre-built software to handle the screens or watch faces. This firmware is a superb place to begin for those who simply wish to customise a show. Alternatively, the Sensor Watch library (appropriate throughout all variants) offers naked metallic entry to the {hardware}.

Oddly Particular Objects has began a pre-launch on Crowd Provide. You possibly can enroll on the Sensor Watch Professional product web page to obtain notifications when the pre-sale marketing campaign goes reside.