Why yes, yes indeed. We’ve shown you some interesting ones (such as this one from Division Furtive), and many of the projects you see have some pretty unique twists. Well, today is really taking an e-ink display and running far, far away.
Most of (unfulfilled) promise that we’ve seen for e-ink are thin, flexible displays. Some prior e-ink watches have made tentative steps in that direction, but this Kickstarter project (seen here) from Central Standard Timing really is setting the high-water mark. How are they going to do it?
First, they start off by etching a single piece of steel with a 0.5mm thin pocket to hold all of the components. Once everything is assembled, the thing weighs less than five(!) pennies. Of course, with things that thin and light, you’d be tempted to call it a design mockup, as there are no controls on the watch.
Those, instead, are found on a base station, which also serves as a charging source for the watch. The charge itself should last for a month (low power display for the win), will charge in 10 minutes, and the cell holding the juice can go through over 10,000 charge cycles. In other words, so long as you don’t take a hammer to the watch, it should last a good long time.
Purely in terms of function, this is a fairly simple watch. In terms of design and engineering, however, you’re in a whole different ballgame. I’m glad to see that they’ve already passed their funding goal with more than a month yet to go on the project. If you’d like to get in on the action with this lightweight piece, head on over to the project page and pledge your support.
