I like your hpdl watch better than the LilyGo watch. As a lover of analog and casio watches I can tell you that your watch can soon build you a loyal following in its current form if you only build 3 such watches and put them on Amazon, etc. and price them at 50$. Next batch of 3 you could try at 100$.
Don't worry about glass cover, our local watch repair guy can easily slap one in it
I like a good smart watch and I appreciate open source, but an ESP32 isn't a great pick when low power consumption is important and the device is going to be communicating regularly. I'm surprised LILYGO went that direction in a watch form factor.
There are only a few features I care about in a smartwatch:
1. O2 monitoring. I have sleep apnea and live at high altitude, so this matters to me.
2. Motion sensor. Also mostly for tracking sleep.
3. Vibrator for notifications.
4. A screen backlight.
5. Battery life longer than a week.
6. Waterproof enough to survive a splash in the shower/rain.
I consider GPS, cellular, AI, touchscreens, cloud-only sync and control apps, and just about everything else to be anti-features. There are no devices that really cover all this that I've found. A few Garmin and Amazfit/Zepp devices come close, but they have enough drawbacks for me to not be happy with them. The new Pebble is nearly perfect, but the lack of an O2 sensor is a dealbreaker for me :(
The Sensor Watch circuit board [1] inside the case of a Casio F91-W / A158W / A159W satisfies 2, 4, 5, and 6.
Battery life measured in months, if not years. Although the simple LED backlight and the segment LCD leaves a bit to be desired, and there is no wireless connectivity for notifications. Open source firmware.
The Ollee watch cirtuit board [2] is similar, but has closed-source firmware and configuration in a smartphone app.
I'd think combining 1 and 6 (O₂ monitoring and waterproofing) would be difficult.
Does anyone know if this has an accelerometer? I recently got a nice sports-oriented smartwatch (non-Garmin), to use it mostly for rowing, but it doesn't track the rowing-rate. It should be pretty easy to program one if the watch has accelerometers, but couldn't tell from the spec sheet (maybe that means no?)
No mention of battery life? I guess it depends on the software that you run. But it would be nice to have a benchmark for how long it would last in normal watch mode.
This device looks capable of a lot of features and possibilities. Unfortunately nothing comes to my mind because I'm not good with diy hardware (once connected raspberry pi zero with led strips). Could someone tell examples of interesting and/or useful projects one can implement with this watch?
To be honest there is not much to it, you buy the movement, put it in a case, and put the hands on it. you can get everything from aliexpress. it's easier and often cheaper to just buy a normal watch if you need one.
have wished for decades now there was an open-source Garmin on the level of Cyanogenmod / LineageOS for Android
not sure if it will happen this decade but definitely next decade
proper running/cycling metrics are hard as demonstrated by how many well-funded competitors are somewhat close but not there 100% yet (Coros, Amazfit, etc)
someone once hacked and decompiled older Garmins but newer ones are encrypted/signed/locked-down
I'm very excited about this. GPS was the final piece of the puzzle.
I love(d) my bangle.js. Such a true hacker device. Really fun to use WebUSB and push JavaScript files as apps.
But the GPS on that device was a mess, honestly. I know this is a complicated problem but having to synchronize to satellites and recalibrate all the time was beyond me.
I really wanted it to work because I built my own toy run tracker visualization tool.
I am curious about this new lilygo device because it sounds like it has an alternative location sensor: "A u-blox MIA-M10Q GNSS module provides accurate location tracking..."
I'll need to look that up. Anyone have a summary on what's the difference between that and regular GPS?
not sure if this will help you but there is a neat website that allows you to build free maps for older Garmin models that didn't have them at first like Fenix5
1990s is going way back though, they didn't even have mass-storage mode then, it was their proprietary "garmin mode" for usb which only things like BaseCamp can talk to
That's more a programmable watch than a DIY one :-)
I build mine from scratch, including the PCB and a 3D printed case.
For sure, that's not at all the same level of customability, programmability, capacity, nor quality. But It is really a DIY one.
For anyone interested: https://github.com/jblezoray/hpdl1414-watch
I like your hpdl watch better than the LilyGo watch. As a lover of analog and casio watches I can tell you that your watch can soon build you a loyal following in its current form if you only build 3 such watches and put them on Amazon, etc. and price them at 50$. Next batch of 3 you could try at 100$. Don't worry about glass cover, our local watch repair guy can easily slap one in it
The HPDL-1414 appears to be discontinued though still available from some suppliers in varying MOQs and leads.
I like a good smart watch and I appreciate open source, but an ESP32 isn't a great pick when low power consumption is important and the device is going to be communicating regularly. I'm surprised LILYGO went that direction in a watch form factor.
Most of their lora devices are ESP32.
What would you suggest instead?
There are only a few features I care about in a smartwatch:
1. O2 monitoring. I have sleep apnea and live at high altitude, so this matters to me.
2. Motion sensor. Also mostly for tracking sleep.
3. Vibrator for notifications.
4. A screen backlight.
5. Battery life longer than a week.
6. Waterproof enough to survive a splash in the shower/rain.
I consider GPS, cellular, AI, touchscreens, cloud-only sync and control apps, and just about everything else to be anti-features. There are no devices that really cover all this that I've found. A few Garmin and Amazfit/Zepp devices come close, but they have enough drawbacks for me to not be happy with them. The new Pebble is nearly perfect, but the lack of an O2 sensor is a dealbreaker for me :(
The Sensor Watch circuit board [1] inside the case of a Casio F91-W / A158W / A159W satisfies 2, 4, 5, and 6. Battery life measured in months, if not years. Although the simple LED backlight and the segment LCD leaves a bit to be desired, and there is no wireless connectivity for notifications. Open source firmware.
The Ollee watch cirtuit board [2] is similar, but has closed-source firmware and configuration in a smartphone app.
I'd think combining 1 and 6 (O₂ monitoring and waterproofing) would be difficult.
[1]: https://www.sensorwatch.net/
[2]: https://www.olleewatch.com/
It's cool that the firmware is hackable but I think "DIY" is an imprecise way to describe that.
Does anyone know if this has an accelerometer? I recently got a nice sports-oriented smartwatch (non-Garmin), to use it mostly for rowing, but it doesn't track the rowing-rate. It should be pretty easy to program one if the watch has accelerometers, but couldn't tell from the spec sheet (maybe that means no?)
It had a Bosch motion sensor with AI abilities it says in the description.
No mention of battery life? I guess it depends on the software that you run. But it would be nice to have a benchmark for how long it would last in normal watch mode.
This device looks capable of a lot of features and possibilities. Unfortunately nothing comes to my mind because I'm not good with diy hardware (once connected raspberry pi zero with led strips). Could someone tell examples of interesting and/or useful projects one can implement with this watch?
LILYGO site shows pre-orders of all 3 versions are sold out unfortunately.
This does look very cool. Every peripheral one could think of, even LoRA!
That stood out to me, too. Garmin should take a hint.
s/Watch/Smartwatch
Regular DYI watches aren't big news...
(I would be over the moon for a DIY smartwatch with zero AI and e-ink screen.)
I would consider a DIY mechanical/analog watch to be far bigger news/more impressive than a smartwatch.
To be honest there is not much to it, you buy the movement, put it in a case, and put the hands on it. you can get everything from aliexpress. it's easier and often cheaper to just buy a normal watch if you need one.
It's impressive you start with a lathe and make the movement yourself!
buying movement is like buying whole PCB
DIY analogy would probably be about acquiring individual gears
Is it different with a smartwatch? You buy the kit, it's not like you solder much as far as I understand.
I thought so too, but after quick research apparently there are kits. For various values of "DIY", I guess...
Sure but buying a movement kit is no different than buying a pcb. Writing code is not impressive any more.
Preorders sold out already!
have wished for decades now there was an open-source Garmin on the level of Cyanogenmod / LineageOS for Android
not sure if it will happen this decade but definitely next decade
proper running/cycling metrics are hard as demonstrated by how many well-funded competitors are somewhat close but not there 100% yet (Coros, Amazfit, etc)
someone once hacked and decompiled older Garmins but newer ones are encrypted/signed/locked-down
> newer ones are encrypted/signed/locked-down
I have a garmin watch and didn't know this.
That said, I just used it out of the box, and never (on purpose) hooked it to wifi, bluetooth, garmin connect, etc. Can't do that with an apple watch.
Have you looked at the specs for the upcoming PineTime Pro [1]?
[1] https://pine64.org/2026/03/28/pinetime_march_2026/
I'm very excited about this. GPS was the final piece of the puzzle.
I love(d) my bangle.js. Such a true hacker device. Really fun to use WebUSB and push JavaScript files as apps.
But the GPS on that device was a mess, honestly. I know this is a complicated problem but having to synchronize to satellites and recalibrate all the time was beyond me.
I really wanted it to work because I built my own toy run tracker visualization tool.
I am curious about this new lilygo device because it sounds like it has an alternative location sensor: "A u-blox MIA-M10Q GNSS module provides accurate location tracking..."
I'll need to look that up. Anyone have a summary on what's the difference between that and regular GPS?
I have a garmin from the late 90s and am saddened by the lack of FOSS software to even sync a new map onto it
not sure if this will help you but there is a neat website that allows you to build free maps for older Garmin models that didn't have them at first like Fenix5
https://garmin.bbbike.org/
1990s is going way back though, they didn't even have mass-storage mode then, it was their proprietary "garmin mode" for usb which only things like BaseCamp can talk to