These Engineering Students Built Their Own Smartwatch From Scratch

While fitness monitors like Fitbit used to be all the rage, smartwatches have exploded in popularity since Apple released their Watch. The Apple Watch pushed smartwatches into the mainstream and now they're commonplace. If you are an iPhone user, you will want to buy an Apple Watch. But Android users have more flexibility thanks to the open nature of the OS. There are many Android-compatible smartwatches on the market. You can even make your own. A pair of engineering students previously created the PLACITECH Companion smartwatch prototype and now the team has built a new and improved version of that smartwatch.

The PLACITECH Companion v2.0 looks like most other smartwatches on the market, if a bit bulkier. But it is far sleeker than its predecessor. Not only does is the new version thinner and more comfortable to wear, it also introduces several new features. It connects to the user's smartphone via Bluetooth. That lets the Companion control some functions on the user's phone and share certain data. For instance, one of the "apps" on the smartwatch lets the user control the music playing on their phone. All of the apps appear to be custom made for the Companion smartwatch and are not built on Android.

Companion's creators don't provide many details on the hardware they're using. It seems like they may attempt to launch this smartwatch as a commercial product, so that is understandable. But we can see that it has a custom PCB with either a microcontroller (presumably with an onboard Bluetooth adapter) or an SoC. The full-color LCD displays a user-friendly menu when the user presses the main button. It isn't a touchscreen, so the user has to navigate using three large buttons on the side of the watch. Currently, there are apps for walking navigation, heartrate monitoring, weather, media control, stopwatch, flashlight, and even Pong. Of course, it shows the time by default.

These features make Companion comparable to early smartwatches and the inexpensive, generic models available today. But that is still impressive when you consider that two engineering students designed this smartwatch on a limited budget.