Bluetooth Watch.

[Ferret-Simpson]

If not the iMX31, then there's always the 21!

I just think that the old CPU's aren't powerful enough to do the WPZ credit.

Not to mention the fact that they're older technology, and therefore presumably, watts/hertz, the iMX chips are better.

[Ferret-Simpson]

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/p...rH311432973ZrDR

iMX21s Applications processor.

Has a camera interface, USBOTG, connectivity for SD (mini-SD), TFT and the usual. NAND

It DOESN'T have:

DDR - It has PC133 Sdram only. ^^
GPU - No 3d for me, means again, less power usage.
533MHZ - 266: Less heat, less battery etc. . n'est pas?

What do we need for the WPZ?

TFT, Touch, Camera Interface, NAND (OS), 1x mSD (Data). USB Client (Flashing), Vibrator (Notification), BTUART for Serial Bluetooth.

With the aditon of as low-power an Audio chip as we can get, the 21s can meet all of those. It also has an intelligent speed switch, should save us a bit of battery, PCMCIA - In case the Bluetooth needs to go on PCMCIA for speed reasons. . . an 8x8 keypad interface, and a couple of other interface odds and ends.
Therefore, my proposed specification. . .

Freescale iMX21S 266mhz CPU
32MB mobile SDRam - 133mhz
16MB RW NAND flash for OS (Seriously. .  Who gives a dog about flash security on a watch?)
APU for interface of Touchpanel, Battery ADC line, Vibrator.
Mini-SD slot for additional memory expansion
160x160 Monochrome TFT with Touchpanel - Stolen from Abacus?
Rechargeable Battery, charged from USBOTG port - Stolen from Abacus?
1.3MegaPixel Colour Camera - Only running in 320x240 for Video Conferencing over PPZ
Vibrating Alert

Aluminium Case like PPZ


I can't think of any more tech you could fit into, or need in, a Linux Wristwatch. An Accelerometer? Meh. I prefer buttons and the Touchpanel.

Who's up for it? Wearable wireless companion to the PocketPenguin-Zero.

Vibrates and flashes on incoming call, displays CallerID, and you can choose to accept or reject onscreen. If you accept, the call will be routed to your Bluetooth headset, or to Loudspeaker-Handsfree.

Note to DB - Do you think the iMX21s can boot from SD directly? If so. . . You could lose the USBOTG and put the Bluetooth on it, and charge via a Nokia plug or something. You could also then lose the internal flash, which would save a bit of power.

[Da_Blitz]

Why do we need a sound chip when we can use one IO pin and do a BTC thingy (http://www.romanblack.com/picsound.htm) it uses over sampling to get better sound quality or bump it up to 2 io pins, of course we will need a darlington array to protect the IO pins but thats easy to do and means a SMD chip can be replaced with 2 transistors and a cap/resitor

i dont think it could boot from SD however it would be posible to boot strap the thing from flash onto NFS over bluetooth or mini SD. good point about the power, at this size every chip i can iump will be required, that said prhaps we should get one with on board flash as this would give us a bit in the way of power saving

if we are willing to drop usb host and only have usb client (firmware updating and charging) then the iMX chip looks better, it only goes up to 100Mhz but it has everything we need including SPI which we can use to talk to the miniSD card (one bit @ 25Mhz max = 25Mbit)

i assume the "APU" is an 8 bit micro to control everything, if it is i would rather drop it and spend the extra 1ma somewhere else. the camera for expmle will be the highest on my list of things to drop as they are more power hungry than most people relise, but thats only if we run out of room

we need to work out case size and what type of battery will power this thing, that gives me a rough power budget to work with and means i should be able to tell you how long it will run under full load and how long when its idle

the accelerometer or a tilt senseor can be used to save power by turning everything off except when you are looking at it

[Ferret-Simpson]

APU = Audio Processing Unit - Another name for a sound chip.

If we don't need it for ADC, that's great. XD

I thought the 21S was better because it has a dedicated camera input, which would save us alot of hassle in linking up the camera. . . After all, the three main functions I see for this are to read SMS messages on the fly, instead of having to frell around with getting the PDA out, To announce incoming calls and allow you to answer them over bluetooth headset (And possibly to call numbers, using an onscreen dialler. . . CallerID is also I think feasible, by scrolling down through an addressbook), and in the case of Videophone calls. . on the wristwatch, and for that reason exactly, to be a more practical videophone.

In terms of SDRAM and FLASH, I was thinking the same as I am for the PPZ phone ROM,

http://www.handhelds.org/moin/moin.cgi/Uni...et=hardware.png

Something along the lines of the Top left chip on that image of the Universal. .  a 32MB NAND and 32MB SDRAM combined chip. The camera, because of my main use for this, is one of the things I'm least willing to drop, although I'm happy to sacrifice alot of quality to go for a lower power-consuming Camera, after all. . . The bluetooth connection will only allow about 160x160 monocolour each way anyway. . .

I was also planning on having this thing keep the TFT active, although not the backlight, and like the Fossil Abacus. . call a program once a minute to update the screen with the new time. After all, it IS a watch.

 The iMX versus iMX21S

There's a comparison table for this, and only the 150mhz iMXL has the camera interface, and the iMX21S is the lowest power device to have the Keypad, the dedicated SD, NAND support, and the Smart Speed switch to save power.

I'm getting a suspicious feeling you want me to dismantle my watch again. . . .

[Da_Blitz]

APU is not really correct because most dont do any audio processing, thats why we refer to the as CODECs as they COde and DECode from digital to analg and analog to digital

to an extent the RPU is doing the same thing except we are putting the high level stuff on it aswell to make it look like a modem (MOdulator DEModulator, same sort of thing)

yeah those all in one chips are nice, hadent thoght about thet but it does make sense. but do we need miniSD on the thing i fail to see why its useful as i see this more as a thin client type of thing where the heavy lifting is done by the PPC but it is still capable of operating independently (as most thin clients can now days with intergrated web browsers)

i know a trick or two for getting more than that over bluetooth (we will be using EDR dont forget) you dont update the entire screen. nice and easy, hell put an X Server on the device and have the X client on the PP connect to it. that would save on bandwidth

i just worked out you ment for video calls, in that case remeber that most are 10 fps anyway (approx) and we may be able to decode on the watch if we need to

the turn off the screen thing is somthing i have seen in new watches, when you tilt it at a certin angle it turns on the backlight, we can do the same but with the screen as well and make it that a button push turns the screen on

cant we just chuck the camera on SPI and forget about a dedicated camera interface also the SD can go on  ethier on its own SPI interface or share the SPI interface (SPI can do that) i am not sure about the nand, i assume that means it would be a glueless interface, if it does then we would want it but depending on the chip we might be able to easily work around it

basically we only need SPI and perhaps a nand interface, we dont need keypad scanning circitry as we dont have that many buttons (we can just use the IO pins)

if you pull apart the watch can you tell me haw many mili amps the battery is and how long it lasts between charges

[Ferret-Simpson]

Last about 2 days between charges, but I don't remember a mention of product name or mAh on it. . .

Ah, ok. FOund it.

PD3032

http://www.powercellkorea.com/eng/product/model_spec.php

180mAh but we could fit a 3535 instead which would give us 320mAh. . .

X server is what I was planning, SD was basically a way to add expansion and backup capability.

If we go to the 200mhz iMX1s (Which can also be run at 150mhz) We should still have enough CPU power to handle the Kernel, X server and the comms. We'd also still have USB client support to flash. Not to mention that model still has a camera interface, though not as powerful as the other models.

The most basic of the iMX's is barely more than the old 68k. . Not really worth the bother, since it wouldn't be fast enough.

[wsuetholz]

Maybe you should add the finger print scanner?  With the ability to communicate the scanned fingerprint to the PPZ.

Bill

[Ferret-Simpson]

Hmmm. . . That's not actually a bad idea. The only problem is, it would need to be encrypted. . . If someone just lifted the image over the bluetooth connection, they then have an image to feed over bluetooth to access it.

I think a requirement of that would be. .  If you log in on the WPZ, you'd have to swipe AGAIN on the PPZ to use it from the PPZ's end. Swiping on the WPZ only gives Access from the WPZ.

[Da_Blitz]

no i dont like the idea of that, it is more complex than you think in terms of authentication unless you want to run kerberos on your wirst watch (ok perhaps it is a good idea then)

i have a problem or two with the finger print scanner, mainly if someone logs in as you and it gets to the fingerprint stage and they leave it until you swipe your finger then they can get in. SO we would have to make it have a time out on the pom module and have an LED indicator to indicate the authentication state. perhaps also make it for local logins as well (really goes without saying but i know a hack or two that could get around it)

but we can leave that till latter

speed i dont belive is that important, power is. the power budget for this thingy is alot tricker than your standard PDA

[Ferret-Simpson]

Naturally.

I don't think we're going to be able to go lower than the iMX1s, becasue to use a camera, and CODECS, you need a certain amount of hardware overhead.

Another point on the 21s is that the SDRAM is 133, but 96 on the 1s. . . Is that a problem for using standard mobile SDRAM on the iMX1s?

[Da_Blitz]

not really, you can even run 133Mhz ram slower if you wanted too

i dont see the performance of the chip as a limiting factor at the moment, i think that most tasks (inciluding the camera stuff) 5Mhz should be fine.

[Ferret-Simpson]

FIVE???

[Da_Blitz]

should have been 50Mhz, but 5 will suffice  most of the time it should be at 0Mhz anyway (DC/sleep/idle)

it al depends on how well written the software is

[Ferret-Simpson]

Right, so we go for the iMX1S then.

[Da_Blitz]

looks like there are a couple of plaforms out there that do this now, non are hackable as far as i have seen but this thing is promising

http://www.freymartin.de/en/projects/jitwa...watch_prototype