Tweets
Replying to @josecastillo
also not making the cut: battery voltage. I’ve learned that it’s going to display the same number for months on end, which doesn’t justify a whole screen. There’s also technically a low battery warning built into the Simple Clock watch face, so that eventuality is mostly covered.
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Replying to @josecastillo
I’m tempted to add countdown and/or stopwatch, but I worry that the list of watch faces is already getting long. And temperature log is one that I find indispensable, but it’s complicated and I wonder if its usefulness justifies what would be a long explainer in the instructions.
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Replying to @josecastillo
Finally time set and settings: again, table stakes. Time Set is obviously a requirement. Settings lets the wearer choose things like their LED color (red, blue, or shades of pink and purple) as well as fine tune watch face timeouts and low power settings. Unsexy, but necessary.
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Replying to @josecastillo
Temperature. This one puts the “sensor” in Sensor Watch, and since everyone’s Special Edition board comes with a temperature sensor, it seems silly not to expose its readings via a preinstalled watch face.
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Replying to @josecastillo
Moon phase: again, torn. But it is useful, and unlike sunrise/sunset it “just works” since everyone on earth is getting the same moon at roughly the same time. Feels like grouped together with sunrise/sunset, it’s a compelling pair of screens to advance through.
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Replying to @josecastillo
Sunrise/Sunset I’m torn about. It requires the user to enter their latitude and longitude, which is a few dozen button presses. But once it’s done, it’s done, and it’s such a useful feature to have that I think the utility factor outweighs the awkward onboarding experience.
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Replying to @josecastillo
World Clock is useful for many, maybe not for all, but it does introduce the UI for customizing things: using just the three buttons on the watch, you can change the letters on the top row and the time zone to whatever you want. Feels useful for folks to make the watch their own.
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Replying to @josecastillo
Simple clock is easy: telling the time is table stakes for a wristwatch, so this has to be the first watch face in the list. It’s also home to the hourly chime feature, which feels like table stakes for a gadget based on F-91W in particular.
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Closing in on a final list of watch faces to ship preloaded on the Special Edition Sensor Watch boards. My thinking right now:
• Simple Clock
• World Clock
• Sunrise/Sunset
• Moon Phase
• Temperature
• Time Set
• Settings
unpacking my thoughts on this in a brief thread:(original)
RT @hackaday: Modern, Frugal PCB Breathes New Life Into Soviet-Made LED Watch https://hackaday.com/2022/03/31/modern-frugal-pcb-breathes-new-life-into-soviet-made-led-watch/
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biking to north williamsburg just now I passed a white woman blocking traffic and screaming ethnic slurs at a driver so yeah, the state of our union avenue: not so great.
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Replying to @josecastillo
the backlash we’re seeing now is so vile and vitriolic, I don’t even know how to process it. anyway. I don’t have any answers, except to say that Trans Rights Are Human Rights, and if there’s anyone in your life who doesn’t feel that way, you need to spread the word.
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Replying to @josecastillo
I’m not saying things were great ten years ago. I mean, as of this day in 2012, Barack Obama still opposed gay marriage. but we were making progress, and by 2016 there was progress for trans students, transition care, housing discrimination. it felt like our activism was working!
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So I’m not trans (I fit elsewhere in the acronym) but 10 years ago I helped create an LGBT community on reddit, and one of my duties each year is changing the header for trans day of visibility. When I did it this morning I felt anger at how far we’ve backslid in the last decade.
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Replying to @josecastillo
I guess this is just me. I roll fours. it’s what I do. Wordle 285 4/6*
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Replying to @josecastillo
tempted to change my bio from “I make things sometimes” to “Known for creating innovative small electronics.”
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PROJECT! OF! THE! WEEK! Thanks to @adafruit for the PyPen shout out in this week’s Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter! It’s true: SAMD51 chips are in short supply. But I have a few leftover from a previous project, so I’m hoping to build rev 2 next week!https://blog.adafruit.com/2022/03/30/icymi-python-on-microcontrollers-newsletter-new-twitter-communities-thonny-update-and-more-python-circuitpython-icymi-micropython-thepsf/
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Replying to @josecastillo
Whoa, I didn’t expect this one! Wordle 284 3/6*
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Replying to @tahnok
The first 90% of the effort is shaving 90% of the yaks. Then the last 10% is where you shave the other 90% of the yaks.
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Replying to @josecastillo
this is all by way of saying, finishing this video and uploading it was a prerequisite for shipping those first 90 units, because there needs to be a link to this resource on the printed documentation that comes with the board.
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Alright! Finished a first cut of the Sensor Watch assembly video. I can’t just give people a sheet full of instructions and a “good luck”; my hope is that a detailed video of the process will set folks up for success when doing the board swap themselves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr0pKeC2VFU
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also today: finishing up the Sensor Watch assembly video, which means lots of ADR and voiceover. I’m full stack on this one: hardware engineer, software engineer, sound engineer and voice actor.
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Replying to @josecastillo
Not-at-all fun fact: the Special Edition backers are going to be the only ones who get a lazer bear on their board; thanks to applicable regulatory compliance issues, I am going to have to remove it and replace it with a staid CE marking, so as to be allowed to ship to the EU.
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Still on track to get all the Special Edition (aka blue) Sensor Watch boards out in April. Today’s task: updating the documentation.
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Replying to @josecastillo
Meanwhile, original battery test is at day 141. Still 3.0 volts. This is reassuring as we’ve made it over a third of the year and it’s still at nominal voltage! Of course this test isn’t as useful now since the old firmware drew nearly 3x the power in wake, but it’s a data point.
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Replying to @josecastillo
New battery test, day 36: 3.05 volts. So I think it’s possible this isn’t our “beginning of the curve” bump. I think it’s possible that with the new lower power firmware (8-9µA sleep, ~11µA wake) the watch may just sit at a higher resting voltage thanks to the lower current draw.
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Replying to @josecastillo
splendid indeed. Wordle 283 4/6*
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Replying to @josecastillo
thinking about it now, it would be a good spot for a 1µF capacitor on the regulator input, VHI. I think I’m going to get away with not having it, but if it weren’t already headed to the fab, I would probably make that change. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Replying to @josecastillo
(R5 had previously been there to pull down the gate on a P-channel MOSFET. This would have allowed power to flow from the battery to the regulator when not plugged in to USB, but when I moved from that design to the pair-o-Schottky’s, it became vestigial)
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Replying to @josecastillo
whoops! glancing at these renders again, spotted a minor mistake. Note to self: you forgot to remove R5. It doesn’t matter, but there’s no need to place it, and you can remove the footprint in a future rev to space things out more and make it a bit easier. https://twitter.com/josecastillo/status/1507794429070831616
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I did not watch the Oscars last night, but after everything I’ve heard, I’m glad this moment floated across my feed. https://twitter.com/NaomiOhReally/status/1508380858096492553
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Replying to @james_hockridge and @tahnok
You can sign up for updates here! https://www.crowdsupply.com/oddly-specific-objects/sensor-watch
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Replying to @josecastillo
close-up this grape candy colored circuit board looks delicious; I just want to eat it up!
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Replying to @josecastillo
Looks like @kicad_pcb 6.0.4 fixes the raytracing glitch, so, a better render!
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Replying to @jhestolano and @tahnok
There’s a tiny physical button in there, and in the past I’ve managed to press it from outside accidentally (hard drop, washing machine spin cycle). Since a very quick double tap enters bootloader mode, it’s plausible that just the right knock could do it. https://twitter.com/tahnok/status/1483086858959699976
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just fixed my last showstopper bug for Sensor Watch. Thanks to beta tester @tahnok for reporting this; it’s a staggeringly rare issue (I’ve only been able to reproduce it once), but it would have been infuriating to folks if the bootloader shipped out with this problem.
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Replying to @kicad_pcb and @GregDavill
Looks like I’m still on 6.0.2 — downloading 6.0.4 now!
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Replying to @masklayer
I had no idea this setting existed, thank you!
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How about “never” — is never good for you?
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Replying to @buerviper
Totally; at some point my heuristic just becomes “Does this word feel Wordle-y? Because it could be any of these.”
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Replying to @josecastillo
Once again hard mode almost screws me; there were several options left by the time I hit #6. Wordle 282 6/6*
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Replying to @josecastillo
i take it back i LOVED this one. Wordle 281 4/6*
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Replying to @josecastillo
Ok I’m two guesses in and I do not think I am going to get today’s worldle. What the hell.
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Replying to @GregDavill and @kicad_pcb
This is the gateway drug to getting me on nightly builds, I can already see it!
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just yawned so hard on my bike ride home that I heard it echo off a nearby building
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Replying to @josecastillo
200 placements later, this is 100 temperature sensor boards for 90 very special Special Edition Sensor Watch backers :)
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Replying to @mattk
It is, sorta; I didn’t have room to route pin 47, so I routed it through pin 48 and covered that pin with soldermask so it’s not electrically connected.
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don’t mind me, just picking and placing.
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Replying to @josecastillo
And… there it is. If you have a spare SAMD51G on your bench and want to order a PCB of your own, I’ve shared the project link here. No guarantees it’ll work the first time! But hey, you’ll find out right alongside me. https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/h3aMzNsC
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Replying to @josecastillo
screw it. If a thing’s worth doing it’s worth doing right. Added three whole resistors just at the edge of the battery keepout area: the aforementioned RESET pull-up plus another for SWCLK, and a pull-down on the display enable line, just in case. Now I think it’s ready to go.
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