Finally, A Pebble-like Hackable Smartwatch!

As someone who was a huge fan of the Pebble e-paper smartwatches, I have been waiting for a similar product to come along since they were sadly dismantled by FitBit in December of 2016. So I was simply delighted when I saw the Watchy e-paper smartwatch pop up on Tindie! Open hardware, open software (things I wished the Pebble had done) and a beautiful design immediately had me looking more closely at what documentation was available. While things are still in development, it does use an ESP32 and the schematic is available — meaning anyone with experience developing for the ESP32 can dive in right away.

The Watchy features a 200×200 ultra low-power e-paper display, 3-axis accelerometer, vibration motor, Bluetooth LE and Wi-Fi support, plus included STL files for 3D-printable cases — this watch is absolutely loaded! I’m hoping we see the documentation on the Watchy website improve in the near future so that people can get hacking on the Watchy. The built-in USB-to-serial programming port is such a lovely touch, and will make firmware upgrades much easier for end-users.

I really hope we see an ecosystem spring up around this watch. One of the great things about Pebble was the excellent developer tools and API they provided for creating both watchfaces and apps. I used my Pebble so much that the band finally wore out, and since most functionality has been discontinued (though the Rebble project aims to keep them alive) it now sits in a revered spot on my desk. My wrist is bare, and this seems like a great option. It looks like 3D printing cases for it should be fairly simple; again, this makes me hope that community support and an ecosystem of accessories and support forms around it!

Pick one up, and help bring hackable e-paper smartwatches back into style!