ftc300 / ZSWatch

ZSWatch - the Open Source Zephyr™ based Smartwatch, including both HW and FW.

ZSWatch

_{ZSWatch v1}

_{ZSWatch v2}

Smartwatch built from scratch, both hardware and software. Built on the Zephyr™ Project RTOS, hence the name ZSWatch - Zephyr Smartwatch.

Building or getting one

I have received quite some requests regarding building or getting the ZSWatch, I am very close to finish with v2. If you want to get notified when I'm done with v2 then simply press the Watch button (next to Fork and Star) -> Custom -> Releases and you will see in your feed when it's released.
Or you can fill in your mail here (Google form) and I'll send a reminder when it's ready (or if I decide to make a few kits, who knows).

Table of content ZSWatch

• Building or getting one
• Hardware features in ZSWatch v2
• Progress on v2
• Charger/Dock
• Enclosure/Casing
• Software Features
  • Larger not yet implemented SW Features and TODOs
• Android phone communication
• PCB
• ZSWatch v1 in action
• Environment, Compiling and running the code
  • Setting up the environment
  • Compiling
  • Running and developing the ZSWatch SW without the actual ZSWatch HW
• Writing apps for the Application Manager
• Dock
• Licence GPL-3.0

Hardware features in ZSWatch v2

• nRF5340 BLE chip (u-blox NORA-B10 module) compared to v1.
  • 2x CPU frequenzy.
  • 4x RAM (Will allow double buffered of data to the screen and larger framebuffers to decrease lag/tearing).
  • 2x Flash.
  • 6x faster display communication (8-> 30 MHz), should improve lag/tearing.
• Touch screen with 240x240 round disply
• IMU Bosch BMI270, with this one it's possible to do many fancy things such as navigation using gestures and the typical smartwatch wakeup by moving the arm so the display is viewable.
• Bosch BME688 Environmental sensor with AI.
• Bosch BMP581 High performance pressure sensor accuracy in units of ~20cm's.
• ST LIS2MDLTR Magnetometer.
• Analog Devices MAX30101 Heart-Rate Monitor and Pulse Oximeter Sensor.
• Option to not mount some sensors to save BOM cost.

Progress on v2

Schematic for v2 is uploaded and should be final.

You can follow the progress here https://github.com/users/jakkra/projects/1/views/5

Charger/Dock

PCB done, casing to be designed. Idea is that watch will sit on top.

Enclosure/Casing

3D printed casing with 3D printed buttons. Does it's job, but for revision v2 of the watch I'll probably do something CNC'd for nicer looks.

Software Features

• Bluetooth LE communications with GadgetBridge Android app.
• Also support Bluetooth Direction Finding so the watch can act as a tag and is trackable using any u-blox AoA antenna board
• Watchface that shows:
  • Standard stuff as time, date, battery
  • Weather
  • Step count
  • Number unread notifications
  • Heart rate (not implemented yet however)
  • ...
• Pop-up notifications
• Application picker and app concept
  • Setting menu system, with easy extendability
  • Music control app
  • Settings app
  • Compass app
  • etc.
• Step counting

Larger not yet implemented SW Features and TODOs

There are almost endless of posiblities for features that could be implemented, see here for full progress for my current ideas and progress.

Android phone communication

Fortunately there is a great Android app called GadgetBridge which handles everything needed on the phone side, such as notifications management, music control and so much more... The ZSWatch right now pretends to be one of the supported Smart Watches in Gadgetbridge, following the same API as it does. In future there may be a point adding native support, we'll see.

Pairing

• In the watch go to Settings -> Bluetooth -> Enable pairing
• Now go reconnect to the watch from Gadgetbridge app.
• You should now be paired.

PCB

A 4 layer board which measures 36mm in diameter designed in KiCad.

ZSWatch v1 in action

Music control	Accelerometer for step count and tap detection
Notifications from phone (Gmail here)	Settings

Environment, Compiling and running the code

Setting up the environment

Two options, either set up toolchain and everything by following Zephyr Getting Started Guide or you can use the in my opinion easier approch by using the Nordic Toolchain manager. Everything works with both Zephyr and with nRF Connect (Nordic Semi. Zephyr fork). If you are new to Zephyr I suggest installing using Nordic Toolchain manager together with the nRF Connect VSCode plugin as I think that is a bit easier.

Tested with both

• Zephyr 3.3.0
• nRF Connect SDK 2.3.0

Compiling

After setting up the environment using one of the two above options you can compile the application from either command line or within VSCode.

Building with command line:

west build --board zswatch_nrf5340_cpuapp

Compiling from VSCode nRF Connect plugin:

• Press "Add folder as Application".
• Choose zswatch_nrf5340_cpuapp as the board and nRF Connect SDK 2.3.0.
• Press Create Application

NOTE
If you are building with Zephyr you need in addition manually compile and flash the zephyr/samples/bluetooth/hci_rpmsg sample and flash that to the NET core. With nRF Connect this is done automatically thanks to the child_image/hci_rpmsg.conf. For convenience I have also uploaded a pre-compiled hex image for NET CPU if you don't want to recompile it yourself. Flash it using following:
nrfjprog -f NRF53 --coprocessor CP_NETWORK --program app/child_image/GENERATED_CP_NETWORK_merged_domains.hex --chiperase

To build the NET core image: Command line:

• Navigate to zephyr/samples/bluetooth/hci_rpmsg
• Fill in "this_folder" in this command and run it west build --board zswatch_nrf5340_cpunet -- -DBOARD_ROOT=this_folder/app -DOVERLAY_CONFIG=nrf5340_cpunet_df-bt_ll_sw_split.conf
• west flash
• This only needs to be done once, unless you do a full erase or recover of the nRF5340, which you typically don't do.

VScode:

• Add zephyr/samples/bluetooth/hci_rpmsg as an application.
• Select zswatch_nrf5340_cpunet as board (VSCode should pick this one up automatically if you added the ZSWatch application earlier).
• Press Add Fragment and select the nrf5340_cpunet_df-bt_ll_sw_split.conf
• Done, press Build Configuration.

Running and developing the ZSWatch SW without the actual ZSWatch HW

This is possible, what you need is a nRF5340-DK (or EVK-NORA-B1) and a breakout of the screen I use https://www.waveshare.com/1.28inch-touch-lcd.htm.
You may also add any of the sensors on the ZSWatch, Sparkfun for example have them all:
BMI270 BME688 BMP581 MAX30101 LIS2MDL

When using the nRF5340-DK all you need to do is to replace zswatch_nrf5340_cpuapp with nrf5340dk_nrf5340_cpuapp as the board in the compiling instructions above. You may also need to tweak the pin assignment in app/boards/nrf5340dk_nrf5340_cpuapp.overlay for your needs.

Writing apps for the Application Manager

Check out the sample application for the general app design. The main idea is each app have an <app_name>_app.c file which registers the app, chooses icon and drives the logic for the app. Then there should be one or more files named for example <app_name>_ui.c containing pure LVGL code with no dependencies to Zephyr or the watch software. The idea is that this UI code should be runnable in a LVGL simulator to speed up development of UI, however right now that's not set up yet. The <app_name>_app.c will do all logic and call functions in <app_name>_ui.c to update the UI accordingly.

Each application needs to have a way to close itself, for example a button, and then through callback tell the application_manager.c to close the app:

When user clicks an app in the app picker:

• application_manager.c deletes it's UI elements and calls the application_start_fn.
• <app_name>_app.c will do necessary init and then call the <app_name>_ui.c to draw the app UI.
• User can now navigate arund and the application and do whatever.

When user for example presses a close button in the application:

• Typically a callback from the UI code in <app_name>_ui.c will call <app_name>_app.c to tell that user requested to close the app. <app_name>_app.c will notify application_manager.c that it want to close itself. application_manager.c will then call <app_name>_app.c application_stop_fn and <app_name>_app.c will tell UI to close then do necessary de-init and return.
• application_manager.c will now draw the app picker again.

The application manager can also at any time close a running application by calling it's application_stop_fn.

Licence GPL-3.0

Main difference from MIT is now that if anyone want to build something more with this, then they need to also open source their changes back to the project, which I thinks is fair. This is so everyone can benefit from those improvements. If you think this is wrong for some reason feel free to contact me, I'm open to change the LICENCE.