Customisable tech is an interesting concept. The newest version of something like this (that doesn’t end in ‘Pi’) is the T-Watch Ultra from a Chinese company called Lilygo. Odds are good you’ll find these on various import platforms, but the main sales portal is AliExpress.
The price? Around R1,850, including shipping to South Africa. What you’re getting is a rugged-looking smartwatch with a series of custom functions. It’s up to buyers to make this wristwear do what they want it to — within limits, of course.
What T-Watch today
Unlike the CircuitMess DIY wearable, there’s little construction needed for the T-Watch Ultra. The customisation all happens on the inside. This is thanks to an ESP32-S3 microcontroller, which allows Arduino, ESP-IDF, and MicroPython functions to run on the watch.
The wearable’s supporting hardware helps to facilitate your creativity. A 410 x 502 2.01in AMOLED screen, 16MB of flash storage, and 8MB of PS RAM might not sound like much, but users can expand storage by up to 32GB via microSD. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are connectivity options, GNSS is included, there’s a haptic motor inside, as well as a microphone and a “self-learning AI”… whatever that’s supposed to be.
The whole T-Watch Ultra is powered by an impressive-for-a-wearable 1,100mAh battery. Since the device lacks most fitness functions, like heart-rate sensors and so on, all of that is dedicated to whichever programming language you’re familiar with. Lilygo’s watch could make an interesting side-project when it becomes available on 22 May.
