Older Tinyduino Smartwatch

[JonahEmbri]

Hello all. I recently purchased Tinyscreen Smartwatch Kit. After a little research, I'm pretty sure that this was an older kit. It features:

TinyDuino Processor (Lithium Support)
TinyScreen OLED TinyShield
Lithium Ion Polymer Battery 3.7 V, 150mAh
TinyShield USB
TinyShield NRF 8001 BLE
SmartWatch Kit

I am fairly new to Arduino, but I followed the instructions and built a working watch. The result left me with two questions.

First, the display will turn off randomly, and the Tinyduino will need to be reset to turn it back on. I initially thought this was because the battery was dying, but the display always turns back on and reads that the battery has at least some power. There is also nothing in the programming (I am running the default code with slight modifications) which should cause it to time out. Why is it turning off, and is there any way to fix this?

Secondly, the default code uses the ANCS library to get notifications from the connected device. Does anyone know if there is a way to use the ANCS library to send the time as well? Resetting the time and date after every reboot is quite annoying. If this is not possible with ANCS, can someone recommend another library that would be able to do?

Please keep in mind that I am relatively new to Arduino. Thank you for your time and your assistance.

[HunterHykes]

Hi Jonah,

The display timeout issue you're experiencing is due to the default timeout variable in the smartwatch code. I noticed this myself when I first began tinkering with the watch. This can be modified in the
SmartWatchANCS_ST.ino file on line 90. The variable sleepTimeout is set to 5 by default. By increasing this value you will be able to change how long the screen is on after startup!

As for the time synchronization, we are still working on a way for this to work with the old Smartwatch Kit. However, the issue is not present in the new Smartwatch Kit featuring the Bluetooth Low Energy TinyShield.

I hope this helps!

[JonahEmbri]

Sorry, its been a while since I have looked at this project.

I am currently running the default "Old kits with Nordic BLE: iOS version" that is initially given by the TinyScreen SmartWatch tutorial (https://tinycircuits.com/blogs/learn/158289927-tinyscreen-smartwatch-tutorial). In this program, the 'sleepTimeout' variable causes the smartwatch to go to sleep, which is good in my case (saves power, etc). When it does this, I am able to wake it back up by pressing one of the buttons, or when a notification from my phone is passed. The problem I am describing is similar, where the screen turns off like it is going to sleep. However, it proceeds to stay off, and I have to physically restart the Tinyduino to wake the system back up.

While this would normally be a slight annoyance, since I have the old version, the time is reset when I restart the watch (rubbing salt in the wound). 

I am glad to hear you have fixed the time reset problem with the newer versions. Unfortunately, this is turning into a mildly expensive reminder to do your research before buying anything 

[JonahEmbri]

An interesting thought occurred to me last night when I ran into the issue: what if it has something to do with the battery? I have the USB module (obviously), and I powered up my Tinyduino last night. It was still running fine this morning. This suggests that there is something wrong with the battery and not the program correct?