One of the great successes of the Raspberry Pi is undoubtedly its open nature. Thanks to him, many users can program tailor-made solutions to respond to specific problems. Well, Squarofumi Watchy could say that it is the Raspberry Pi of smart watches.
An open source smartwatch
While we could say that Watchy is like the Raspberry Pi of smart watches, the qualifier as the successor to Pebble would not hurt either. Because this is a proposal that some points share with both projects, as you can see below. But first, let’s make the introductions formal.
Squarofumi Watchy is an open source smartwatch. This means that anyone with knowledge in the area of software development could create all kinds of applications for him as long as his hardware was capable of supporting and running them without any problem.
This in itself is already an important advantage and reason more than enough for those most enthusiastic users to go for it with their eyes closed. Because while it is true that there are already very attractive proposals within the smartwatch sector, it is also true that many who prefer to be able to create what they think they need or better adapt to their personal preferences.
And of course, this Watchy has few rivals there. But we talk about its hardware, because it says a lot about the type of proposal it is. For starters, it offers a 1.54-inch E-Ink e-ink panel with a 200 x 200 resolution and a square aspect ratio,
In controller issues it uses the ESP32-PICO-D4 chip that stands out mainly for its support and compatibility with Arduino, MicroPython, NodeMCU or Lua ROTS environments. These names that may sound like Chinese to you are the ones that will allow many enthusiasts to keep coming up with new options.
In addition to the screen, processor and the USB interface as standard, the watch also has a 3-axis accelerometer, vibration motorcycles, Bluetooth connection, WLAN and a 200 mAh battery that should last more than a week seen what is seen.
A smartwatch to configure and use to your liking
With all the above seen and clear, it is evident that this is a very particular watch. So much so that it is demonstrated as soon as you buy it because it does not arrive with an operating system or with a housing. Something that is partly justified because its cost is very low (about 40 euros ) and because this way you have the possibility of creating your own, to your personal taste and without having to make a second investment in straps, etc.
Of course, all this has an even greater counterpart and that is that being such a niche product, production is low and it is difficult to get one. But now that you know it (if you haven’t seen it before) you are on the track and all you have to do is keep an eye out to catch a unit as soon as it recovers.
