See that image? That’s the result of a tiny miscalculation back in march :-(  It’s still smaller than my first try, but it was supposed to be much smaller.  See the “chin” on the bottom?  It’s supposed to be the same size as the smaller “forehead” above.

This mistake goes back to when I picked a new OLED display. The idea was to make the smallest possible watch with the display centered.  Because the display isn’t symetrical vertically (there has to be room on one side for the chip and the electrical connector), this isn’t as simple as it would seem... in fact, it’s so hard, that Albert Einstein might have had trouble with this at age 3. So, when I messed up the calculation in Excel, I didn’t notice until it was too late.

I designed and made the PC Board in a bit of a rush to take it to the Maker’s Faire. I didn’t want to damage the screen, so I avoided handling it -- it wasn’t until I got the PC board and the screen together that I realized the problem. But, even though it’s not as aesthetically pleasing, there was still stuff to learn by continuing on (not to mention that those PC boards were expensive!).

So, I’m making a case for the second version so that I can wear it as a watch.  This one will hopefully have buttons (I need to machine this), and it’ll serve as a testbed for using the accelerometer as a user interface.  A lot of the components are all new (but similar to ones that I’ve used before), so I’ll be testing those.  And, finally, I’ve got a much better charging system connector to try (I’ll write about this later when I get some good pictures).

This second version as an attempt at thinness & a bigger battery - it would have worked, if I hadn’t made the case so big!!  I didn’t have components under the battery, so I saved 1mm of thickness.  But, one drawback this left was that I had a lot of wasted space above the circuitry - hopefully I can optimize it with the new design to eliminate that waste.

If you’re at Hope or in NYC July 18th-21st 2008 , drop me a line!  john at maushammer and then dot com.  Or, look for me at the show - I’m hard to miss with my shiny red backpack.