Difference between revisions of "PineTime Hardware Wishlist"
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This page contains a list of things people wish PineTime did differently | This page contains a list of things people wish PineTime did differently | ||
== Hardware == | |||
* Other display technology could be explored. | * Other display technology could be explored. |
Latest revision as of 00:49, 16 March 2023
This page contains a list of things people wish PineTime did differently
Hardware
- Other display technology could be explored.
- E-ink
- Still images require no power to maintain
- A transflective LCD
- Increased readability in bright daylight
- OLED
- Self-emissive display (pixels emit their own light)
- Allows for lower power usage with mostly black screens
- Allows for low power visual notifications (imagine an always-on small red square in the corner to indicate a notification)
- E-ink
- Touchscreen with configurable sensitivity
- Ideal for gloved fingers and water droplet resistance
- Preferably it should remain capacitive, as a resistive touchscreen would have too many trade-offs.
- A slightly bigger 256×256 pixel display
- This resolution is preferable for its binary alignment for low-level simplicity
- It has the property that its X and Y coordinates are each addressable with a single byte, with no bounds checking
- Its total number of pixels is a power of 2 (65536), and each pixel is addressable with exactly 2 bytes.
- The IBNIZ (Ideally Bare Numeric Impression giZmo) virtual machine, designed for minimalist demoscene graphics, has chosen 256×256 for its virtual display specifically for code efficiency.
- If PineTime also chose 256×256 then it would be a target platform for unclipped IBNIZ demoscene programmes, which would be really fun to play around with on one's wrist!
- Full screen refresh is very slow
- A full 16-bit redraw on the display takes at worst 120ms, which is 8Hz
- Modest optimization is possible by adopting 12-bit color
- A smooth scrolling/usage/animation experience would be 30Hz minimum, preferably 60hz
- Display redraw is currently bottlenecked by the nRF52832 maximum SPI clock (8MHz).
- The nRF528(33/40) has one high speed SPI master which supports 32MHz, still well below the ST7789 maximum
- Parallel data transfer could be an option, but using more GPIOs (which don't look available)
- Some sort of scroll wheel (and possibly button combination) would be nice as an additional input method
- Changed GPIO assignment so more functionality is available (i.e. NFC and VSYNC)
- Wireless charging, or Qi Charging capability
- Different MCU with more RAM and ROM, higher clock
- nRF5840 update
- 32MHz HS SPI, QuadSPI
- CryptoCell + Secure Key Storage
- More RAM, a coprocessor
- The possibility to expose USB through power pins
- Ox64/BL808
- Open hardware RISC-V based MCU
- Significant jump in performance
- Significant jump in memory and storage, allowing for more features and better UI's
- Possibly a pre-certified MCU module with a ceramic antenna
- nRF5840 update
- Version without sensors but maybe bigger battery
- Pins on the programmer connector to allow UART while developing (currently there is a TX test point on PCB). (Note: There's ARM SemiHosting, ITM and Segger RTT that fulfil this purpose for most)
- Connect SDO of ST7889 LCD controller to MCU
- Allows MCU to execute READ commands
- Possibility of leveraging ST7889 RAM to save MCU RAM?
- LCD must be centered on case. Currently is not and watchfaces seems different when clock is put on the other wrist.
- A NFC antenna around the case, connected to the NFC pins.
- Used sensors should be NDA-free and preferably also blob-free for easier development
- Possibly replace BMA421 accelerometer with a magnetometer + gyroscope + accelerometer combination
- The BMA421 doesn't have a public datasheet
- Special attention should be paid to advanced features, such as step counting integration or flick detection.
- Possibly replace BMA421 accelerometer with a magnetometer + gyroscope + accelerometer combination
- PineTime SoC could support USB or have a FTDI chip with the relevant pins exposed
- It could allow flashing a sealed device, just like Arduinos work.
- Alternatively, an USB-C port could be added that provides these features.
- A bigger pulldown resistor for the power button
- 100k still leaks a noticeable amount of power when the button is always on.
- Ceramic Bluetooth antenna for better signal reception
- An external RTC circuit
- Allows the main MCU go to deep-sleep while retaining time.
- Allows time retention through MCU reset.
- Ultra low quiescent current PMIC
- In theory could provide a hard reset capability based on button press
- Better deep sleep/shipping/storage/off lifetime
- A nano-power system timer IC could in theory provide a RTC, MOSFET-controlled deep sleep, watchdog timer and button-controlled reset
- Built-in "fuel gauge" for better estimation of battery capacity
- Improved haptic or audible feedback
- E.g. small Piezo buzzer
- Use case would be for very short beeps (think old-school casio watch) as notification.
- Of course developers can PWM other frequency to make it sing, but piezos tend to be shrill.
- A built-in microphone
- Would allow phone call functionality to be built into the watch.
- Could potentially allow for speech recognition for text input.
- Direct access to the external (flash) storage
- Only a small jump in price