Don’t like today’s smartwatches? Just build your own

Smartwatches are tough. Not only does the technology have to be functional on the inside, but it needs to work as a fashion statement, too, since it’s something that you wear all the time. You could go and compare products, or you could do what product designer Samson March did, and just build your own entirely from scratch, via Engadget.

And better yet, March has provided an incredibly detailed look at his process and all his files for the build, meaning that with a little (okay, fine, a lot of) work, you can build your own smartwatch, too.

To be clear, though — this isn’t something for the faint of heart. Even with March’s instructions, you’ll still have to 3D print the case (March’s is made out of a 3D-printable wood / plastic blend), source the parts, assemble a circuit board, put it all together, and get the software up and running. Plus, March didn’t just stop at a watch, either: he also built a charging dock for recharging the watch, too.

Considering the overall size of the finished product, and the fact that March literally built it all from scratch, it’s an incredibly impressive achievement. The finished product apparently gets up to seven days of battery life, can display notifications from his phone, and recharges in about two and a half hours — better specs than some full-fledged commercial smartwatches can manage.

Want to try to build your own? All the technical details can be found on March’s Github repository here.