If you’re looking to buy a smartwatch today, there are plenty of options. Or, you could follow in the steps of hardware hacking YouTuber Daniel Davis, and build your own. But Davis’ smartwatch isn’t just a Pebble clone or a homemade Android Wear device. Instead, Davis took a different approach, building the smartwatch out an old Nokia 1100, which already had most of the parts he’d need between the small screen and vibrating motor for notifications.
recycling the most ubiquitous cellphone the year 2003 had to offer
The watch itself runs off an Arduino board, and manages to fit a Bluetooth module and 3.7v battery into the 3D-printed watch case. You can see the entire build documented on Davis’s Tinkernut YouTube channel, and while the end result is admittedly a bit bulky for a watch, the smartwatch is fully functional, receiving both call and text notifications, which makes it a pretty impressive hack for recycling the most ubiquitous cellphone the year 2003 had to offer.