Tag: watch

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Fixing a Watch Band (Again!)

Remember when I fixed my watch band? Well, it didn’t last. The replacement (from my old Fitbit) lasted a few weeks, but it also broke, so I went back to using rubber bands, until…

I thought to myself, just 3D print one! And I thought about doing it with TPU. But then I got lazy and just made one with PLA. I figured I would give that a try first, and… it does work!

I think I was convinced it needed to be soft and flexible but the PLA one has been under daily testing for over a week now and it might be just fine. The tricky part is I needed to make it just a little bit larger that the piece of metal it needs to slide over to get onto the band. But I didn’t want to make it too much larger. The size is a little annoying because I wish it were smaller, but without the flex of rubber or silicone or whatever, that isn’t happening. (And TPU probably wouldn’t have much stretch anyway.)

Just in case you need to do this too see the Watch Band Holder files in my OpenSCAD repository. Cheers!

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Fixing a Watch Band

Back in 2023 I got an OtterBox All Day Band for Apple Watch and after two years it broke. Not the whole thing, just the little gray part that holds the excess strap. Bummer!

It’s not great to wear a watch like this since the excess strap just… hangs loose. So I was going to order another one but the colors I was okay with were out of stock. So I decided to try to fix it, and then decided if I could fix it I would not order a new one. I’m trying to buy less and just sort of consume less. Fix things, don’t throw them away, and all that.

So I have a bunch of these tiny rubber bands, maybe two dozen of them. It’s the kind of thing I save because you never know when you’ll need it.

Hey, it works! It’s a tight fit, and getting the strap into it wasn’t easy, but it’s a thing I do one or maybe twice per day, so I could live with it.

It looks okay! The only issue is that the rubber bands only last a few weeks or so and then wear out and break. This was annoying, but got me through another two months using the watch band.

Then one day I found my old Fitbit in a drawer. The screen pretty much stopped working years ago, which is why I ended up getting an Apple Watch. Anyway, I slid off the little band thing and got it to slide onto my watch band!

I did have to snip the little nub on the inside, as it was a bit too large to fit the holes in the OtterBox watch band. This was easy to do with a micro cutter.

Hopefully I can get a few more years out of this watch band. I like everything about it except for the fact that the little piece broke. And hey, if you do stop using an old watch band consider saving it for parts!

Update: It broke. I found a new solution.

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Apple Watch

Apple Watch

I presented a video piece at Maker Faire Milwaukee I called “Apple Watch” which consisted of a Raspberry Pi Model B connected to an Apple Monochrome Monitor from 1988.

The power of component video was harnessed to make a 2012 computer talk to a display that is 27 years old. (Also, Apple used to make solid hardware that lasted a long time!)

The video that plays (after the Raspberry Pi boots up Linux) is the old black & white wristwatch from early versions of the Apple Operating System. The video loops forever and just shows the cursor with the watch hands spinning around infinitely.

You can wait for something else to happen, but it won’t. You can imagine this would fit on your wrist, but it won’t. If the power goes out and comes back on, the Apple Watch will just start up and attempt to run (forever) again. That’s all it does. Really.

Wiring

Raspberry Pi

1988

Apple Watch