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+--- Forum: PineTime Hardware and Accessories (https://forum.pine64.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=137)
+--- Thread: Transflective Display (/showthread.php?tid=13648)
Transflective Display - GregoryS - 04-17-2021
Is it possible that you could change the display of the PineTime watch to be transflective? This is not just a whimsical request. It is very important for many smart watch users. That is because to use the watch as a daily driver, it needs to be easily readable in bright sunshine. For anyone who runs, bikes, or does outdoor work, a standard LCD display is pretty useless in bright sunshine. If you are a runner and want to have a running app to display on your smart watch, you need to have a display that is easily readable over a long period (e.g., a 10K run) without depleting the battery.
There aren't many smart watches that have reflective or transflective displays. They are mainly the Qualcomm Toq (defunct), the Pebble (hardware defunct, but community supported software) and the Sony Smartwatch 3, which is the only transflective Android WearOS display.
I have used a Sony Smartwatch 3 for several years, although its facility as a running watch has gotten worse over the years as Runkeeper has removed its WearOS support, and now because my phone no longer supports the latest Android version, the Watchmaker watch faces that I designed myself will no longer load either.
I would like to de-google my life and switch over to a PinePhone with PineTime and write my own running app that will run on the phone and the watch. But to really be useful the watch needs to have a transflective display.
Do you think it is possible to change the PineTime to use a transflective display, either as the standard display (this would be my preference) or as an optional variant?
If not, do you think that it would be possible for someone like me (I'm not really a hardware person) to replace the current display with a transflective one on the watch as DIY project?
In case you are interested, here are some of the 1.6 Inch transflective displays that I have found on the internet:
DAS ???
$0.10 - $2.00/ Piece|500 Piece/Pieces(Min. Order)
Resolution: 240x240
Interface: MCU
Driver IC: ST7789S
Without TSP
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/1-6-inch-lcd-panel-240x240_60606617252.html
Topfoison TF16001A
$?.??
Resolution: 240x240
Interface: MCU
Driver IC: ST7789S
https://www.topfoison.com/Transflective-lcd-display.html
Display Module DM-TFT16-393
$18.99
Resolution: 320x320
CPU Interface: MIPI
Driver IC: Novatek 35310
https://www.displaymodule.com/products/1-6-320x320-transflective-display-panel-mipi
NovaTek NT35310 Data Sheet:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13i_z-R16Ims_OiSXca4YV8DI-WCZxur7/view
Thank you so much for the introducing the PinePhone and PineTime. I hope to be using both in the years to come.
[EDIT 2021-04-22: Watchmaker faces miraculously started working again yesterday on my Sony Smartwatch 3, but I would still like to use my PineTime to go with my PinePhone.]