Surprisingly, the antiquated phone had all the components needed to make a smartwatch including a small screen and a vibrating motor for notifications.
Davis used an Arduino board along with resistors to get the LCD from from Nokia 1100 working. He then connected it to the smartphone using a Bluetooth module and coding to receive text notifications as well as date and time.
A rechargeable 3.7v battery and charging board were used to power the device with all the components encapsulated in a custom 3D printed case.
According to Davis, the biggest challenge was to make the old screen work with Arduino while still maintaining a small watch form. He added that he would probably use a thinner battery and a full fledged circuit board with surface mounts to make the smartwatch much thinner if he had to go about it again.
Davis has also uploaded a three-part video on how to build the smartwatch on his YouTube channel.
Here’s the first part of the video, enjoy:
This article originally appeared on Make.
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