Porting Python to a $3 smartwatch [video]

Hello --- I made this! Thank you for the kind words.

I have, BTW, just received a $6.50 watch with touchscreen, microphone and speaker, much better build quality, BT 3, 4.2 and 5, plus the traditional fake heart rate sensor and a bigger battery with an actual label on it. It's powered by a YC1133 which contains an ARM Cortex M0 with 56kB RAM and 4MB flash. This would be an awesome device for hacking if there was any information about it whatsoever.

Weirdly, it runs a more complex version of what's clearly the same software stack as the LT716!

The amount of effort put into all the porting and reverse-engineering is impressive. Especially, getting the toolchain working. That's usually where most of the hair-pulling comes in.

For those wanting to hack their own tracker, for slightly more money ($5), you can get one with a Nordic nrf52832 which has lots more documentation and support, including Micropython:

- https://forum.micropython.org/viewtopic.php?t=6498

- https://github.com/fanoush/ds-d6

After watching this video on my own I got the urge to watch more similar videos. Does anyone know of any that are like this one, not really a tutorial, but also not just a dev log either. It feels closer to something like wood working videos where you just watch someone do something cool.

I know of a few channels already like Ben Eater[1], Bisqwit[2], Pezzza's Work[3], Sebastian Lague[4] and sphaerophoria[5]. At least those are the ones I'm seeing when scrolling through my subscriptions really quick.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/@BenEater

[2] https://www.youtube.com/@Bisqwit

[3] https://www.youtube.com/@PezzzasWork

[4] https://www.youtube.com/@SebastianLague

[5] https://www.youtube.com/@sphaerophoria

I really love programming my banglejs. Chrome plus webusb plus JavaScript is really fun. But the GPS is really hard to use. I wrote a toy application that posted data to a webapp for tracking my runs. But the GPS is so unreliable it isn't worth it. I know GPS synchronization isn't an easy problem. But I would love to find another smart watch with GPS that is a much fun to hack as banglejs.

I would love to buy a square shaped cheap Chinese smart watch and develop custom apps on it. Has anyone tried something similar before? Where can I start?

Thanks!

https://rbaron.net/blog/2021/07/06/Reverse-engineering-the-M... is the reverse engineering desc. he followed

Chinamen should amp their game. You can charge 30€ more on a shitty watch if it was "open-source". I have LilyGo T-Watch for 40€, and if it was waterproof, it would certainly to be only watch I ever need. https://github.com/timonoko/t-watch-2020-micropython-hacks

This reminds me of an XKCD[1] where the character marveled about an obscure piece of single-purpose hardware running Java.

[1] https://xkcd.com/801/

Shame the smartwatch ecosystem doesn't have more stuff like this. Was hoping Bangle.js would take off, but it seems like most people would rather settle for Apple watches.

Wouldn't it be simpler to use just the chassis and display and made pcb with the mcu of your choice?

can't find the LT716 smartwatch on aliexpress. Is it discontinued?

Let me save you an hour:

Micropython, not real python, on an aliexpress LT716 smartwatch with an el-cheap-o 24MHz TC32 SoC (512KB flash + 16KB of RAM, BLE hardware).