As the year draws to close I decided to shake of the dust on my account with an update on this iteration of what I'm now calling the "Dumbwatch."

Over the time spent with this project I have learnt much about building up a wearable device from scratch. While on the home stretch with this particular project I had hit a wall comprised of two major factors: the case design and power supply issues.

I had always the intention to build this version would of balsa wood and while numerous mockups (in thick cardboard) were made, I found that I couldn't incorporate the LiPo and supporting USB-C charger board without adding to the already significant heft that was already present with the device. Thanks to the ATmega I became very aware of how little I was using this particular MCU. With the significant amount of time (and money) that I already invested in this project I pushed to have it encased with much haste. As noted by the chunk missing out of the right hand section in the photo below.

The power supply became the final nail in the proverbial coffin for this watch. As I fumbled to fit the battery assembly with socketed breadboard cables, it soon became clear that I wouldn't be able to fit it in. Then a short happened and after much debugging with the desktop PSU I found that I had cooked a second ATmega.

To be so close to a somewhat wearable device and have this happen actually broke me for a while. I had drawn up plans for an ATtiny85 based followup as soon as I finished this but had to take a break. I boxed the case as best as I could and now this watch now hangs on my wall as a reminder for me not to be too hasty with finishing a project.

I do hope to return to this form of the watch as all other parts of the device (codebase and UX) were pretty much complete hence the current "shelved" status of this project.