PineTime smartwatch - a Linux Phone companion

[binarian]

This is the PineTime, a side-project of ours. If you are a rtos or mbed developer and have an interest in smartwatches make sure to PM me on the forum or in the chats.

This looks pretty nifty!  But uh....just make sure before it goes into production, you actually have a "9" value, instead of 2x "11", yeh?
9 should be IX, not XI.

[tophneal]

This is the PineTime, a side-project of ours. If you are a rtos or mbed developer and have an interest in smartwatches make sure to PM me on the forum or in the chats.

This looks pretty nifty!  But uh....just make sure before it goes into production, you actually have a "9" value, instead of 2x "11", yeh?
9 should be IX, not XI.

Haha! It works out if you just rotate you head after it changes from the 8 o'clock hour to 9.

Cool stuff, though. I'll be excited to see if any development occurs to allow this watch to work with other phones than the Pine.

[Beattie]

Yes, its using the same chassis as other watches on the market.

Just out of curiosity is there information(data sheet etc..)available for the base device?

[Jeeves]

I'm super interested in developing for this. I'll buy a dev kit day one. I really would urge you to choose the 1MB flash/256K RAM option though. 512K/64K is a bit limiting. Having 256K of RAM makes it basically the same as the original Pebble watch. One interesting thing to do might be to actually port the Pebble userspace to a new watch.

Is there going to be any external flash for program storage or just the on chip flash?

[PJE66]

I'm super interested in developing for this. I'll buy a dev kit day one. I really would urge you to choose the 1MB flash/256K RAM option though. 512K/64K is a bit limiting. Having 256K of RAM makes it basically the same as the original Pebble watch. One interesting thing to do might be to actually port the Pebble userspace to a new watch.

Is there going to be any external flash for program storage or just the on chip flash?

I concur with your comments. The additional space would be useful, and external SPI flash would be useful for storing additional code and assests, and would also allow easier porting of CircuitPython for quick and dirty development (although what impact CircuitPython would have on battery life would need to be determined).

[maiden]

regarding Pebble compability, we got the rebbleOS that have support for nrf52840, see here:

https://github.com/pebble-dev/RebbleOS/t...rm/asterix

i am waiting for the devkit, but i got both nrf52832 and nrf52840 devkits, so i will start to play arround with rebbleOS on those, hopefully it should not be too hard ro add pineTime support gor RebbleOS

[ericgundrum]

PineTime details now in the wiki: https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PineTime

[Jeeves]

PineTime details now in the wiki: https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PineTime

Well, it all seems reasonably well documented at least. Managing that size of display from a MC with so little ROM/RAM is going to present some interesting challenges, especially if we want to produce an API that third parties can use without having to worry about the implementation details too much.

It seems kind of a shame the display doesn't have a copyrect command. You could (ab)use all that juicy extra display RAM it intends for vertical scrolling for stuff like glyph storage.

Edit: Actually, I take it back a little. I can find nothing at all about the touchscreen. Is the devkit going to come with some sort of documentation for that? I guess just a header with the register names might be enough to get it working. It would be a little annoying if the only way to figure it out would be to reverse engineer some binary driver.

[mitcoes]

I love you PINE people - me included -, I will buy the watch and the phone.

I would love a standard USB charger - connection,
I do not care if it is USB-C or mini-USB but STANDARD and OPEN, please.

Also, that one of the default spheres would be a 24h - instead of 12 - one, with a "PINEtime" I suggest 00.00 % of the GMT day inspired in the "failed" swatch internet time (000.00 GMT+1) circle too.

Plus some data inside as changes in the weather by hours, as rain /not rain, sun and moon rise and set, or wind speeds and directions changes with good and configurable ideograms as mini icons.

[binarian]

I would love a standard USB charger - connection,
I do not care if it is USB-C or mini-USB but STANDARD and OPEN, please.

Also, that one of the default spheres would be a 24h - instead of 12 - one, with a "PINEtime" I suggest 00.00 % of the GMT day inspired in the "failed" swatch internet time (000.00 GMT+1) circle too.

Seconded on the charger!  I was rather saddened to see a non-standard charger....especially a "proprietary" one.  I also would like a 24h option.

I am concerned by the display.  240px at 1.3" is around 185 dpi, which is significantly less than the 294 dpi of my 2015-era low-end phone.  I sometimes notice pixels on that.  Although I've never owned or used a smartwatch, I imagine the viewing distance is more or less comparable to that of a phone.  Therefore, I am concerned that pixels would be grossly evident in certain situations.  Perhaps a slightly higher dpi screen, at the expense of increased cost?