Mechanical Apple Watch from real e-waste Apple Watch | Hacker News Reader

Mechanical Apple Watch from real e-waste Apple Watch

instructables.com

570 pointszdw173 comments

I absolutely love this.

I think a lot of techie types might not realize what an engineering marvel a mechanical watch movement is. I'm sure you all realize there are a lot of teeny tiny gears.

But does the HN crowd realize there are 24 precious gems (lab-grown rubies and sapphires!!!!) inside the NH38 movement, serving as bearings and such?

While the Apple Watch is in some ways orders of magnitude more advanced than a mechanical watch movement, in some ways the mechanical watch movement is more impressive. It could be argued that while the Apple Watch is the sum of roughly 100 years of electrical engineering, the mechanical watch is the sum of several thousands of years of mechanical engineering. It took mankind an incredible number of years to really master timekeeping to that level.

(Not that the two are mutually exclusive. I find that the more I understand electronic timekeeping, the more I appreciate mechanical timekeeping, and vice-versa)

I grew to appreciate this watching the excellent videos on Wristwatch Revival:

https://youtube.com/@WristwatchRevival

Which I only knew about through Marshall’s Magic: the Gathering links, but the watch stuff is surprisingly soothing.

Sundials emphasize our reliance on the sun as a source of light and energy. They remind us of the fundamental role the sun plays in sustaining life on Earth and providing us with light and warmth. This dependency gives sundials a sense of harmony with the natural world and instills a sense of wonder and appreciation for the celestial bodies.

Mechanical watches are diamonds for men.

Mechanical watches work at night.

Cannot tell if this is satire

The gods confound the man who first found out how to distinguish hours! Confound him, too, who in this place set up a sundial, to cut and hack my days so wretchedly into small portions!

— Plautus (c.254-184 BC)

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30047352>

Excellent points! I'd like to add that while your Apple watch might last you 5-10 years, a mechanical watch well looked-after can last several lifetimes. I'm currently daily-driving an automatic watch from the mid-60s that still somehow looks pristine and keeps excellent time (for a mechanical, that is). I expect this watch to outlive me.

5-10 years... wishful thinking, that's all I am going to say.

Is it? I have a nearly 5 year old Apple Watch (series 4) on my wrist and I've never had any issues with it.

I'll probably replace it when a new watch comes out with a feature I really want (unlikely) or the battery stops lasting a full day, which might take a few more years as I don't even get close to running out unless I forget to charge it overnight.

I kinda screwed it up taking it apart. Didnt have any oil to add back and rusted one of the gears a bit. Goal is still longer than 5 years and probably an easy 10-20

I take it you didn't want to fall into the rabbit hole that is watch servicing, cleaning and lubrication? That's a deep and expensive one, especially for automatics...

Might I suggest you reach out to Marshall @WristwatchRevival and ask if he wants to give it a proper service? I'm sure he'd be delighted by this project.

Edit: you say "I glued the movement to the dial". That sounds like the dial will never come off, making servicing night impossible, or am I misunderstanding this? Also: "in a normal watch the dial would get sandwiched between the glass and the case somehow" no, typically there are holes drilled through the mainplate with screws that grab or hold the dial feet. The movement complete with dial and hands normally floats in the case, held in place with a couple screws.

+1 to Marshall! I watch his magic podcast but that guy fucking rocks!

Didn't really know if it would work until the end so didn't want to sink even more time and money in. That watch oil is bloody expensive.

I'm sure he would be but I think he must get lots of requests and I am not sure it is his usual victim for a repair =)

It is glued with B7000 glue commonly used for phone repairs and the same glue used on the back glass. It softens right up with some heat and isopropyl alcohol.

True, thank you for that I will change it in the write up. I was thinking mostly of these Seiko movements which to my understanding are normally just sandwiched by the case back but that is certainly not the norm across other watches.

> Apple watch might last you 5-10 years

Tiny ass battery + daily full charge discharge = toast well before 10 years

If they actually cared about sustainability the screen and battery would be user replaceable

The battery of a 20$ Casio F-91W alone, will outlive several Apple watches.

The battery of a 20$ Casio F-91W alone, will outlive several Apple watches.

While I'm with you in spirit, I'm not sure that's strictly accurate.

The F-91W battery is rated for 10 years: https://support.casio.com/storage/en/manual/pdf/EN/009/qw593...

The calculator version (which I use) is rated for three years, assuming you only let the alarm go off for 20 seconds per day, and use the calculator function for less than one hour per day: https://support.casio.com/storage/en/manual/pdf/EN/009/qw320...

You must be fun at parties.

CASIO is known, and I can vouch for this from experience, to be very conservative with their numbers: with a quality cell 7 year battery life usually means about 10, 3 year battery life usually means around 5, 30m water resistance usually means over 50m in practice, 30seconds/month accuracy usually means around 10 or even less, etc.

Dude, we're all nerds. None of us are fun at parties. No need for the sarcasm!

> The F-91W battery is rated for 10 years

What would you consider the average life of an Apple Watch? If it's 5 years, OP is right.

What would you consider the average life of an Apple Watch? If it's 5 years, OP is right.

I'd say the Apple Watch is too new for anyone to know. I still use my six-year-old Apple Watch.

Clearly the selling point of F-91W is the price. I think most owners are comfortable with roughhousing their F-91W and just buying a new one

     use the calculator function for less than one hour per day

I really want to meet a person who is hammering away at the calculator function on their watch for more than an hour per day. That would clearly be the coolest person in the world.

I think people with calculator watches are way cooler in a sea of people with smartwatches.

Casio F-91W costs $16.96 here: https://www.amazon.com/Casio-F91W-Digital-Sports-Watch/dp/B0...

I know Americans enjoy the lowest consumers electronics prices in the world but in Europe it's at least 20 Euros which is more than 20 USD and even at 20 euros it's difficult to find, with most shops asking for more than that.

Indeed. €28.86 = $31.08 USD at Amazon Germany: https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Casio-F91W-1-Classic-Black-Digita...

SEK 587.14 = $54.23 USD at Amazon Sweden: https://www.amazon.se/Casio-Herrar-Digitalklocka-hartsrem-F-...

Partly this is that Amazon isn’t as cheap in Europe. It’s £10.99 ($13.81) including 20% VAT at Argos in the UK.

That's true, but in continental Europe I definitely can't find it under 20 Eruos in any shop. UK is also an exception for low consumer prices.

I remember paying $7 for mine at Walmart. It was on clearance.

Cheap at twice the price.

It's crazy how much cheaper stuff is in the US compared to Europe.

It's completely self-inflicted.

Duties, tariffs, out of control regulations and taxes to pay for underperforming civil servant's pension funds. It all adds up.

Also worker protections, public safety nets, and a general desire to not let corporations chew up and spit out people as if they were iron ore.

Workers protections have nothing to do with consumer prices.

Remember that prices in Europe include sales tax, so the price you see is the price you pay. In the US you need to add sales tax on top, and in some places all sorts of random extra charges like ‘employee healthcare mandate’.

So buy here and take it home.

You'll quickly find that the price differences mostly reflect some combination of various laws and taxes. E.g., I recall reading (pre-Brexit) that UK law required shops to have a two-year warranty period for durable items sold. As in, you bought it from them, you could return it to them and get a new item. Or make them deal with the warranty. In the US, almost anything other than dead-on-arrival can (doesn't always, but can) require the consumer to ship it in the original packaging to the manufacturer's service center at their own cost. That is not a free service. And there may be tariffs involved.

Introduced in 1989. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F-91W

At the moment (Saturday June 10 7:29 pm ET) it's $13.90 here: https://www.amazon.com/Casio-F91W-1-Classic-Resin-Digital/dp...

The F-91W is the only watch I’ve owned in the past 20 years but I mostly go without since the strap breaks after a year or two.

Apple always has had this tussle between making things repairable and sustainable vs selling more of stuff. It does not have to be this way. Don't they make a log of money from non hardware services. I heard apple pay rakes in close to 800m $

According to this [0] Apple made 93 b over the past four quarters. The Apple watch is bigger than the entire Swiss watch industry [1] but still a minor part of Apple.

My point being that they’d have to sell a hell of a lot of services to outpace the iPhone, and those services are mostly popular because they integrate into the iPhone. And people want the new shiny ones.

[0] https://ultimatestockpicker.com/company-detail/AAPL/

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertanaas/2020/02/07/apple-wa...

Battery replacement service through Apple is $80, which is not an unreasonable amount for a once-every-four-years repair; between the parts required and the expected probability of screwing it up and damaging it, you wouldn't really be saving any money doing it yourself.

Did that watch survive from the 60s without service? If you need to have a vintage watch like that serviced it would cost about the same as buying a new apple watch. Some of these old watches can also become a bit of a ship of theseus. It's a 60's watch with a new crystal,mainspring and rotor.

I serviced it myself a few months ago. It definitely needed a new crystal, but the movement was in very good condition. I didn't even replace the mainspring. Some pictures here: https://www.watchrepairtalk.com/topic/25437-first-successful...

A watch from the 60s can still be serviced today (80 years later).

An apple watch will intentionally brick itself (to preserve battery life, honest) after 8 years.

Now just can -- when disassembling a mechanical wristwatch you realize that these things were built with serviceability in mind. There's no glue, everything comes apart with ease. That's one of the main reasons for my fascination with them. How many other things in our daily lives are built like this?

Under relatively normal wear, the only parts that should be replaced are the crystal, mainspring, and rotor. That's 3 wear parts, not exactly a "ship of theseus".

If something is broken, sure. It might need replacing. But that's rarer, I think, than people realize, and rarely is it more than one or two parts of the movement.

I recently repaired my great-grandfather's pocket watch and the only replacement necessary was the mainspring.

I've use a 100 years-old watch as a daily driver for a few years (until it was stolen...). It was serviceable, but it was relatively expensive, so I lived with its known 2-5 minutes daily drift. I'd say that up to 10 minutes of daily drift is perfectly tolerable in my book, so it could probably go 200 years without any servicing whatsoever :)

> 10 minutes of daily drift is perfectly tolerable

Heh I feel bad when I'm 10 min late to a call, but if I had your watch I'd be 20 min late!

I'd wind the watch and adjust it in the morning, and will be 2-5 minutes late in the evening. But at times I would adjust it during the day while watching time close to another, more reliable time source (like a public clock in a train station, for instance, or TV news in a shop window). After all it only takes a second to adjust: pull the crown, turn it a tiny bit, and push it back in :)

People are wincing at the idea of watch that is 5+ minutes off, but I typically intentionally set my watches roughly 5 minutes fast anyway. Helps me avoid being late for stuff. (I realize this makes no sense if you think about it too hard... shhhhhh)

If I need the precise time, I can pull out my phone or just ask another human who nearly because they will surely have a phone :)

(Note to non-watch enthusiasts: we are talking about the tolerances on very old watches; a modern $100 mechanical is usually accurate to within 5-10 seconds a day)

I wear an automatic Tag Heuer. I have been asked by many people why I still wear a mechanical watch. My answer is, battery powered watches (including smart watches and quartz movements) might have a life, but a mechanical watch ticking incessantly has a soul.

Also: an Apple watch lacks elegance and is literally sexless.

I demur. My 2017 38mm Series 3 w Hermès Sport band is a joy.

Yeah. A mechanical watch is almost like a companion.

It only "lives" when you wear or wind it. It's only a few seconds of active "work" on your part per day but I find myself feeling kind of paternal toward them, or like I'm caring for a little mechanical pet buddy or something.

Quartz watches and computers in general are also miracles to me, as well!

But mechanical watches are their own special sort of miracle that I really appreciate.

> I think a lot of techie types might not realize what an engineering marvel a mechanical watch movement is. I'm sure you all realize there are a lot of teeny tiny gears.

For those who want to learn more about it, this is an awesome interactive explanation of the functioning of mechanical watches: https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/

It is a tiny loss to my life that my mechanical watch lies in a cupboard while a Garmin brandishes my skin, but entertains my need for self-data. A measurement only ankle bracelet would be a perfect solution. Who cares about exact time when you have thousands of gears giving you a few seconds drift per day.

Yeah I want the monitor, not the screen. Apple, Polar, Garmin, I don't care.

You might be interested in the Oura ring then. I can't recommend it, because I haven't tried it. But sounds like the kind of thing you're talking about.

I do exactly this. Very happy with the solution though I did get grandfathered in to their paid subscription (so I don’t pay it)

Mechanical watches are a deep and expensive rabbit hole though.

They certainly can be a deep and expensive thing, lol

But it can also be very affordable! Can get a perfectly great mechanical for around $100!

(Although, now that Seiko has abandoned that price level and prices on everything have gone up in general, $150-$200 is perhaps a more realistic starting point. Still a lot of "new old stock" Seikos at that $100ish price though if you look...)

While I realize these dollar amounts are not affordable to everybody, I have noticed that many people who scoff at these prices happily spend hundreds or thousands per year on their hobbies and entertainment....

I have a collection of five watches (2 digital, 3 mechanical):

Seiko 5 SNZG09K1 $245 Vostok Amphibia 420059 $154 Casio A158W-1 $30 Orit CS201 $34 Wilk Classic Skeleton $970

All prices in Canadian dollars. Each of these has a place in horology; meaning; or use for me. The Wilk is a custom piece; there will never be one that is the same. The Casio is for "geek cred". The Orit is for health monitoring. I normally wear two watches. Both the Seiko 5 and the Amphibia have cemented their place in watch history.

They make me happy... these watches are, in general, not looked down upon by "watch snobs".

This story (making an Apple watch into a mechanical) makes me smile... now I want one!

Note that the Seiko 5 SNGZ09K1 is now $281 (Canadian) from Amazon. But the Vostok is $148 now (again, from Amazon).

    A measurement only ankle bracelet would be a perfect solution

Has anybody ever tried that? Would it work, if you had a big enough strap to fit an ankle?

Well, you've got two wrists: https://www.theverge.com/23522956/double-wristwatch-apple-wa...

I actually think that a digital watch with solar cell, multiband receiver and led backlight is a greater engineering marvel.

I really like my Casio LCW-M100TSE [1]. It's a (mostly) analog watch with a solar cell, radio receiver and led backlight. Keeps perfect time (radio sync), never needs charging, battery changing or winding, has a titanium case and titanium band so is incredible light but nearly indestructable, and looks good without being overly pretentious or a statement of wealth. And most importantly, doesn't interrupt me with notifications when I'm trying to concentrate. As watches go, I think it's as close to perfect as any watch I've had. Never would have thought that as I got older and wealthier, I'd end up back with Casio 40 years after having Casio watches as a teenager, but there you are.

[1] https://www.casio-europe.com/euro/products/watches/radio-con...

Absolutely love that one. It is exactly my kind of watch... a sleeper gem. A true "if you know you know" watch.

Everybody else sees an affordable Casio. But those who know, know.

I own this, too, and used it as my only watch until a few days ago. Then the titanium mod for my GW-M5610U-1ER arrived by mail. I am wearing this now, but I wish it was as light as the LCW-M100TSE (which is 70g vs. 100g of my new one). Since I prefer pure digital watches which I grew up with I will stick to the G-Shock with titanium mod.

BTW, you forgot to mention that the LCW-M100TSE has a sapphire crystal, which is quite a unique feature in that price class. IMO it is the watch with the best value for the price.

Yeah! I've got a few of those as well.

They are different kinds of marvels to me, and I deeply appreciate them! I'm a big G-Shock fan in particular.

I am (among many other things!) a computing enthusiast, a quartz watch enthusiast, and a mechanical watch enthusiast. I find that appreciating each one of those things enhances my appreciation for the others.

Yeah, for folks who want to know more about watchmaking we had a customer make a complete watch, including movement:

https://community.carbide3d.com/t/watchmaking-on-the-nomad/4...

and I found an animated overview:

https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/

Many maybe don’t, but also many of the techie types I know tinker with mechanical watches, bicycles, combustion engines, etc. And I think more than the average!

Unrelated to the article, but hijacking the history and making it impossible to navigate back is the new cancer in the internet I guess.

It’s been common for ages and stupidly built single sign on sites have made it even worse.

I seem to recall that hijacking the back button goes back to the 1990's. I suspect some of the ways in which it was done (like with naive redirects) probably don't work today, but the annoying effect has been there for eons.

I remember browsers stopped it for awhile. Maybe I’m misremembering?

I don't think you are. I think early versions of the problem happened because the website did a redirect: x.y.com/ would sand you to w.y.com/ and your browser would stupidly remember that as a user navigation. Your back button from w.y.com would take you to x.y.com, which would perpetrate the redirect. The fix for that is not to enter redirects into the back history, only user-initiated navigations.

This is still around

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/History_API

Here’s the direct link to the video:

https://youtu.be/B2h5WwrkJFg

I enjoyed it immensely.

I thought people would find it really boring, hence the 800% speed up on most clips. Very glad to hear at least some people enjoyed it

Congrats, very well done! What was the laser doing the cutting and engraving?

I loved the video format, reminded me of the Primitive Technology channel where he just gets out of the way and lets the work itself (plus closed captions) do all the talking.

Just a no name, Chinese, 20W fiber laser. Takes a minute to get through but it works.

Would have liked to do a little more talking but the video already took way too bloody long and I didnt know if anyone would watch it

You should narrate the video, it would make it easier to follow for people who've no idea what you're doing (like me).

Did a few captions and would have liked to do more narration. Needed to get it done for an Instructables competition tho so just posted it as is

This is the opposite of boring :) Thank you and well done!

This is an abuse. And it’s one of obligations of web browsers to protect users from abuse.

The other thing I've seen is they scroll you to the bottom where those weird article embeds are.

That's why I just middle click to open everything on a new tab nowadays. Back button still works 90% of the times, but when it's hijacked it's incredibly annoying, and I have plenty of monitor width for the tabs.

That's why I still prefer laptop to mobile or tablet: there is a middle click.

Longpress on iOS Safari gives you a menu that lets you open a link in the background, which is essentially open in a new tab. I use it all the time, e.g to work through the HN front page selecting some comment pages to read later

Ah!

I wish I could say thanks, but when I tried it out just now, I realised that I have seen it many times — trouble is, it's labelled in my mind as "that annoying popup I keep triggering by accident, how do I disable it?"

Still, have a metaphorical cookie: even though I don't like the thing, sharing knowledge kindly is always good :)

If nothing else, now you know what behavior was triggering the thing you don't like. Maybe now you can start to make it only happen deliberately, which might make it less annoying.

Too bad some modern sites even somehow block middle clicks.

Im on a mac cmd+click has always been reliable

Not sure I've seen this on the wild

A website cannot block the right click "open as new tab" action, and since that's what my gesture based interaction add-on uses, I'm safe.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/gesturefy/

I'm surprised to see this from Instructables (Autodesk). If you right-click the back button you'll see that it did four redirects and you can click the 5th to get back.

I highly doubt this is effective at anything.

Why do browsers even allow this behavior? The back button should automatically skip any blind redirects.

because Single-Page-Applications

they want the back button work with app internal state changes

Single page apps don't require a frontend router and the same can be achieved by unconditionally sending a redirect from the server side for any request as long as you also hook into the "beforeunload" event in the browser.

It's not the back button, but these two otherwise useful APIs used in a malicious way together:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/befo...

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Location/hr...

Instructables went down the pan years ago when they tried to paywall the allsteps view.

Autodesk as a company are known for shitty behaviour, so it doesn't surprise me they made it worse.

Another dark pattern is hijacking back to move you to the 'front page' of the site. Like twitter, get linked to a tweet and then the back button takes you to your feed, which absolutely nobody requested.

I love watches but don't think I'll ever wear an Apple Watch. It just doesn't feel like a Watch. It's very much a wrist computer. I would love if they made an Apple Watchband, as in a computer-powered wristband of some kind that does all the great things Apple Watch does (pedometer, heart monitoring, gps, notifs) but replaces the watch band of my Actual Watch. Now that'd be something I would wear.

That would be amazing (especially if it was an Apple product).

I also love mechanical watches and own a handful. But I also love the convenience to pay with my apple watch. The way I solved it: I wear my apple watch on the right arm and a "real" watch on the left.

I do this at times when working from home. Never had the guts to actually do this in public. Maybe a fitness band with a real watch

I even tried wearing the Apple Watch upside down on my dominant hand, but very easy to damage the watch that way

There's the Sony Wena which is basically a smart watchband with NFC payment, which seems like the concept that you and GP wants.

I'd hazard to guess watch enthusiasts would be less likely to like smart watches because they don't really provide the same value/draw. I have an Apple Watch because it's basically just an excuse to touch my phone less. I don't need to take it out when I get a notification, or when I'm listening to music and want to skip a track. I don't wear it as a fashion statement or with hopes I can pass it down for generations. It's just a phone accessory.

I'm a "watch person" and I wear watches 95% for fashion reasons. It's occasionally convenient for actually telling the time when I wear one, but it's not my default action because I only wear one 1/3 of the time when I leave the house and never at home.

I have no interest in wearing a smart watch because I'd never have it without also having my phone, and my phone has maybe a few notifications per day at most when not actively using it - I massively filter my email via aliases, my work notifications go only to my work laptop, and texting with friends usually happens on my laptop. I don't care about the health features.

I wear a nice mechanical watch every day, but I do own an Apple Watch to use if I have to be reachable while doing something where getting at a phone would be inconvenient. It's pretty great for that purpose.

A few years ago, H. Moser & Cie made a mechanical watch with their superb levels of craftsmanship that kinda/sorta parodied the Apple Watch: https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/moser-swiss-alp-watch-s-in...

This is mentioned in the OP's link.

Through posting on Reddit I learnt that Moser wasn't the only one either. Apparently Ciga Designs did some similar watches and even Casio has one, the MTP-M305

I find this version (also from H. Moser & Cie) more appealing:

https://www.ablogtowatch.com/h-moser-cie-swiss-alp-watch-fin...

Could you perhaps explain this paragraph?

> Alert readers will notice that Moser managed, in one paragraph, to dismiss the efforts of all three major luxury watch groups – Richemont, Swatch, and LVMH – as somewhat lacking in intestinal fortitude

The paragraph they are referring to is the press release further up the page.

They are basically saying none of the major manufacturers had done anything serious in the realm of smart watches.

The reason it’s a “dangerous game” is because the watch industry was disrupted once before by the quartz crisis (cheap quartz watches flooding the market) and many manufacturers went out of business or had to merge with others to form larger groups to survive. So the danger is that smart watches will do the same.

Watches had a rough time for a while after quartz became a thing in the 80’s.

Now they are seen a jewellery more because every has a smart phone for time telling. But watch collecting as a hobby is making a comeback in the 2010’s to now with the internet and hype generating content like YouTube, instagram, Hodinkee, and consumers are keeping a multi billion dollar market afloat with products from million dollar Patek phillipe to 5 dollar casios.

Not to be confused with the OG, the 1995 Apple watch https://www.cnet.com/culture/original-90s-apple-watch-sellin...

Imagine you find this atrocity of a watch in an old box on the attic and someone is willing to pay $2500 for it.

The Tag Heuer Connected first generation offered a "connected to eternity" program where after the guarantee (2 years?) you where able to convert the watch to an analog movement but it was another $1500... I am not sure if they still do it, they seem to offer a trade in program to get the newest version instead now.

[1] https://forum.watchlounge.com/index.php?thread/240000-was-wu...

This is incredible... hats off to the maker. That being said I really wish that the Chinese ETA 2824-2 clone that is the PT5000 would see more action in place of Seiko movements. It's more accurate, runs at 4Hz, and isn't too far off in terms of cost (last I checked - I could be wrong as regards bulk orders). Then again I don't know whether it can be modded to be "open heart" a la the NH38 so it might not have been appropriate for this project in particular.

I was thinking that about the movement too -- or you could go for a Miyota/Citizen, the high-beat (28800) movements were around $70-80 on ebay the last time I checked.

The Miyota 90S5 would work, it is cheap and “open heart”.

Damn yeah, you guys are all on the money. I was thinking of an ETA clone or Sellita. As well as the Miyota 90S5 which was a really odd pick from ghostganz because I don't think its that popular of a movement. But I was looking at it as I had 0.5mm less height than Seiko's recommended minimum height within the case, and the 90S5 was much thinner. Ended up with the NH38 anyway because I was really REALLY unsure if I could even get this to work so it was a lower monetary investment. And, the stem shape worked for the weirdo linkages I made, because the linkage I made is technically within the footprint of all those movements.

The 90S5 is basically the very popular 9015 but with a big hole in it. :)

And had to be open heart 1. because I liked how the mockup I did looked with an open heart and 2. because any more stem positions for different complication settings would have made my life a lot harder with getting the button/crown to work

Very, very nice. I have been trying to figure out how to replace the battery on my Apple Watch in a country with limited hardware support options, and although this won’t help, it is another reminder that Apple these days designs for disposability rather than long-term ownership…

I always have had somewhat of an unrealistic dream of taking an Apple Watch, removing the screen completely and installing a super thin mechanical movement on top (or putting the guts into a more tranditional looking case). I think it would be possible to use a smaller battery once the screen isn't there, to make more room for the movement as well. I'd love to have the health tracking features, and while I don't have an Apple Watch, I think that it would work without a screen and I'd just be able to use a phone to see the data.

What you describe is the Withings ScanWatch: less screen, more battery duration, smartphone for data, ...

But that's not a mechanical movement, as far as I can see? Actually it can't be, because it needs to move the watch hands out of the way so you can see what's on the display...

Another (slightly less pricey) "smartwatch with hands" alternative is the Garmin vivomove range: https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/698394

Sequent might be of interest yo you https://sequentworld.com/

Nice ideas there!

They are not mechanical indeed, they just look like them. Which is pretty nice. The Garmin one doesn't have ECG though.

I’m looking for an actual Apple Watch, though. I’m all in on the Apple ecosystem so doesn’t really make sense otherwise.

Casio has some watches that pair with the phone for step counter. I think the ones with heart beat monitor have a screen.

I think several watch makers started to do something similar, but not sure if I would trust their software. However, Garmin has good health tracking features and they offer them in an analogue way with their vivomove line: https://www.garmin.com/en-IE/p/742133/pn/010-02566-00

Heh, I was expecting also the movement made from discarded Apple watch materials, and now I feel bad about my disappointment because this project, while being orders of magnitude less insane, is still cool.

This is actually a pretty nifty business idea. All of these unsupported watches just going to landfills could be recycled into analogue movements. I have a series 3 that Apple no longer supports just sitting around. I don't have the time or patience to do what the OP did, but I'd gladly pay $50 to not chuck it in the trash.

"One of them even worked in the end, it just took a couple hours to update!"

To the annoyance of every watch owner out there.

Obligatory link to this wonderful interactive site explaining the inner workings of mechanical watches: https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/

That is superb, thank you!

Fantastic hack, I love repurposing junked stuff. Question (which I don't doubt has crossed your mind but I can't figure it out): why not rotate the movement, rotate the dial back (it has no complications so that shouldn't be a real issue) and then use a flex shaft for the crown?

Is it tacky that I want to do this with the guts of a Casio F91W or the CA-53W? Perhaps.

https://www.casio.com/us/watches/casio/product.CA-53W-1/

The world is still waiting for a CA-53W backlight mod. Some rdditor seems to be working on it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/casio/comments/12qplk8/ca53w_leds_m...

I had an F91W strap break on me. I replaced it with an A168 and printed a handlebar mount for my motorcycle (which didn't come with a clock in the dash):

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2935032

If you don't know how mechanical watches work, this is a very good article that has been posted before in HN :D https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/

Wish this was for sale... shut up and take my money!

If you have more money than you know what to do with, there’s always this: https://www.exquisitetimepieces.com/watch-brands/h-moser/swi...

Good lord, $26.4K. Yeah not quite car-level worth it to me, although I'm sure they are very nice. Was thinking like $250-300, for a sort of anti-tech punk thing at tech parties.

I've had a lot of people asking...

> I have been constructing a fully functional mechanical Apple Watch! A dumb watch if you will! chuckles at own joke

Can someone... explain the joke? I don't know if it's a pun I'm missing :l

As in opposite to smartwatch

Really cool! Fun fact - the apple watch was designed based on inspiration from a mechanical watch brand, ikepod. Jonathan Ive recruited Marc Newsom who created ikepod(with another watch maker) and Newsom took alot of the design elements from ikepod watches to come up with the apple watches unique look. So I guess its going full circle again.

https://www.design-drivel.com/articles1/ikepod-applewatch

If you only want the casing and wristband of an Apple Watch there are cheap knockoffs on Aliexpress that have a quite solid hardware (and a crappy software).

I can never get tired of this sort of juxtaposition of old/new tech. Really cool project.

I think the correct candidate for a pocket watch would be an old school iPod.

Oh damn, people are actually reading to the end of the write-up? My first thought was actually an iPod touch because that's what I grew up with. I think an iPod is definitely the right call

It makes me wonder why mechanical over something with a XO, given it wouldn't have the status-symbol associated with mech watches. (Or maybe it would?)

On the other hand, if you're gonna do it at all, why not go whole hog?

But mechanical watches are so much more fun to...watch

They really are. I wear a watch daily, and have been collecting them for some years.

Originally I had a bunch of themed-watches "This is the watch for swimming", "this is the watch for going to sauna with", "this is the watch for posh events", "this is the watch for photography", etc.

Nowadays I have too many, so it's more a case of choosing which watch I feel like wearing in the morning. Sometimes I swap every day, sometimes I wear the same one for 3-4 days, but no longer than that really.

My collection includes a lot of vintage (read "bought second-hand for peanuts") Soviet watches, high end Swiss pieces, and a single Casio F-91-W-1 for when I'm feeling like a kid from the 80s.

It wouldn't have been anywhere near as funny to me or enjoyable for me to wear. Literally the only reasons. Mechanical movements are strictly worse

Love to send this person my Apple Watch to convert it in a mechanical watch. so much better and cheaper than a H.Moser

Combining worst of both worlds, nice.

This is really cool. Great gift for grand parents who struggle to use Smart watch.

Hey, my 81-year-old mother actually absolutely loves her Apple Watch (although I had to show her the setting so she could have the crown on the opposite side because she wears it on her right wrist).

the energy used to salvage the e-waste may have been a bit excessive relative to the e-waste. really cool project! Also incredibly impractical while the barrier to entry isn't exactly low.

Cool, but ugly. I won't wear it, but I'm glad it exists.

H. Moser et Cie do a decent mechanical "Apple Watch"

i wonder what the list of functions that can be done mechanicaly would look like. Can one say measure heart rate or say log something, can it do radio? etc

MacBook cases make great notebook covers too.

You cant polish a turd... Hold my beer.

That's really cool :D

Want! #TakeMyMoneyGifGoesHere

Epic meme sir. Updoots.

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