Homemade Smartwatch Features Beautifully Simple Interface

While it’s very neat to be able to turn on a light or appliance with your smart device, it’s hard to beat the convenience of a simple switch versus opening the correct app and selecting an option. To mimic this convenience, YouTuber “the Technowright” has built a smartwatch, which features only three buttons — the middle shows the time, date, and temperature, while the other two buttons are used to activate two separate appliances. Sure, there’s no way to receive text messages or Twitter updates, but perhaps one of the buttons could be reprogrammed for custom functionality if that’s important to you.

The watch itself takes the form of a small PCB, with an OLED display on the top as an interface and a small LiPo battery for power. Processing is provided by an ESP8266 ESP12-E module which connects to the Internet to control appliances via Blynk. Time and date is gleaned from the Network Time Protocol (NTP), and temperature is taken from the Yahoo Weather API.

The strap is cleverly repurposed from a pair of safety goggles, so hopefully he has something else to cover his eyes during further experiments, but this could be made out of any number of materials. Be sure to check out his video explanation/demo in the video below. Code, schematics, and PCB files are available on GitHub.