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Net Work Alan Winstanley This month’s Net Work checks out what low-cost smart watches can offer, including ideas for devices that help to monitor an individual’s health and fitness. T he idea of smart watches is hardly new – horologists have long sought to add features or so-called ‘complications’ to simple clock and watch movements, to display the date, elapsed time or maybe the phase of the moon, for example. The advent in the early 1970s of the digital wristwatch brought with it solidstate reliability, continuous and precise timekeeping and electronic ‘complications’ including piezo alarms, calendar readouts and stopwatch timekeeping. Swiss watchmaker Hamilton is credited with producing the first quartz watch with a seven-segment LED display, the 1972 Hamilton Pulsar, as seen in contemporary James Bond movies. A fascinating history of them is recounted at https://pemag.au/link/abzo In the same year, the Swiss company SGT (Société des Gardes-Temps) created a digital watch movement that used a liquid crystal display (as told in Electrifying Time by M.E. Theaker BSc, Practical Electronics, May 1978). A 1972 Waltham-branded watch containing such a movement is displayed at the Science Museum website at https:// pemag.au/link/abzp The clear, always-on battery-powered digital display was a great novelty at the time. A 1976 iteration of this concept by SGT is shown on the Europastar website at https://pemag.au/link/abzq Timeless (?) fashion: a modern take on the original Hamilton Pulsar LED watch from half a century ago is still on sale. The Bulova Computron is a more affordable modern-day retro LED watch. Different case and LED colours are available. 4 Look ma, no hands! Hamilton still produces an updated and pricey ‘American Classic PSR’ that they list at https://pemag.au/link/abzr A favourite wristwatch of mine is the Bulova Computron, a more affordable remake of their classic LED digital watch from the 1970s. For UK readers, at the time of writing, online jewellers H. Samuel sells it – but hang back for discount offers. More details are at https://pemag.au/link/abzs In July 1978 Texas Instruments launched its seminal TI ‘Starburst’ LCD watch, a new kind of timepiece with ‘electronic hands’ formed from liquid crystal polygons instead of digits. I found photos of a Starburst hosted by the Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Texas at https://pemag.au/link/abzt The December 1979 issue of Practical Electronics gave readers an opportunity to own one of these new breed of technological masterpieces. Seiko’s new ‘digital analogue’ watch combined a digital LCD readout with a separate quartz analogue watch at an offer price of £79.95, or about £385 in today’s money. Then came fullfunction calculator watches that used a ‘button operating tool’ to press buttons on a tiny keypad. The quartz-powered watch was here to stay! Fast forward to the 21st century, and digital electronics, display and sensor technologies have advanced to such an extent that powerful ‘wearable’ devices such as smart watches have become universally popular. Built-in health monitors or ‘fitness trackers’ are commonplace and some high-end ones incorporate GPS as well. Using Bluetooth, smart watches also put common phone functions within easy reach on your wrist. Even my lowtech plumber glances at his smart watch to see who’s calling on his phone; he still ignores them anyway! Time to work smartly I decided to investigate what a lowcost smart watch can offer as readers may not have considered owning one before. Many smart watches retail at £30, with some even under £20. A cheap and cheerful £30 model duly dropped on the doormat and, as expected, it was typical Chinese-made fare, unbranded except for ‘Acclafit’, plus a tiny email address and very little else. It included a decent manual that pointed to the customary smartphone app (‘H Band’), which was soon installed. I declined the offer of uploading my data to a cloud server, but, unlike with some products, the privacy implications were spelled out clearly in advance. I also received a helpful response from the support email address printed on the box, so it wasn’t all bad news. I have to admit that this budget device This is the low-cost smart watch I tested, packed with fitness-tracking features. The OLED display is clear and bright. Practical Electronics | October | 2024 The rear LED array uses the PPG principle to monitor the wearer’s bloodflow for pulse rate, blood pressure readings and more. Facebook and Whatsapp messages can appear on the smart watch, and a phone dialler is also available. A Braun Pulse Oximeter uses an LED to display SpO2 oxygen saturation and pulse rate on an OLED. All good here! far exceeded my expectations, especially given the low price. The OLED display is crystal clear, colourful and viewable outdoors even in bright light. A tilt of the wrist lights the OLED screen for a short time (you can disable this automatically, eg, at night) and the waterproof strap is comfortable to wear. The smooth-edged, metallic-finish watch case is easy on the wrist as well as the eye, and the push button ‘crown wheel’ works well to fire up the display. Early impressions of the watch were very promising, with nothing to dislike about it at all. You can select different watch faces (more are available via the app) or upload a favourite photo from your phone instead, something I enjoyed. Even the weather and temperature can be shown as data is fetched from the smartphone. A ‘torch’ mode sees the display glow white, which might sometimes be better than having nothing at all. Green light is absorbed by red blood, though, controversially, this technique may be inaccurate for those with darker skin. The surprising specifications rack up, as the OLED is also a touch screen that lets you swipe in any direction to access submenus while a vibration motor generates alerts. The watch is recharged via a USB lead that clicks magnetically on the case rear. This works well enough, though you could conceivably short out the power supply accidentally with a paper clip, metal swarf or staple if you’re not careful. Commendably, despite the small size, the battery lasts several days. This particular watch will also have a go at counting steps as you target 10,000 a day, and it will check your sleep pattern, measure the wearer’s blood glucose (in mmol/L) and take blood pressure too. The smartphone app amasses three days’ worth of data in colourful graphs. You can use Microsoft’s Phone Link app to mirror your smartphone screen and view them on your Windows PC monitor as well. Some features rely on the watch being within Bluetooth range of your phone. The OLED display will then update with new Facebook and Whatsapp messages, which proves handy if I’m busy working. The watch vibrates when the phone rings, and it can store favourite contacts, with a keypad being available for dialling out. Overall, the makers have packed in many features that can complement the way you work, or help if you want to check some fitness factors without constantly grappling with a smartphone or a medical device. It’s well-made and feature-packed, but the big question is: how accurate is a cheap smart watch like this? One can’t expect laboratory standards, but it’s probably on a par with many budget priced cuff-type sphygmomanometers (blood pressure mea- surement devices), some of which cost two or three times more but can be extremely difficult to use. In my case, the smart watch displayed a BP reading of 124/82 mmHg (not bad, despite everything!). Out of interest, I compared it against a Braun iCheck 7, an inflatable cuff-type blood pressure monitor that records data on an app stored on my tablet. Two readings taken using the iCheck 7 were 116/77 and 122/81, both pretty close to the watch’s readings. When values vary wildly, medical experts recommend settling down and taking an average of multiple readings, allowing a minute or two in between. There’s more choice than ever of electronic devices that keep track of our health and fitness, including a Braun Pulse Oximeter that clips onto a fingertip and displays both oxygen saturation (SpO2) and heart rate on a colour OLED screen. You can track body weight with, for example, the Etekcity-brand Smart Bathroom Weighscales (£20+) which record BMI, visceral fat and many other factors. I use one with an app on a tablet to track my weight management. Well that’s a long word! The fitness fun continues, aided by the watch’s built-in monitoring features. On the underside, several small LEDs in snug contact with the skin are used to sense the wearer’s blood flow. Photoplethysmography, or PPG, involves shining green and red/infrared light into the skin and using the reflections to measure changes in volumes of your blood circulation as the heart pumps blood. One’s heart rate and blood oxygen levels can then be estimated. A USB charging lead simply clicks onto the case rear using magnets. Practical Electronics | October | 2024 The Microsoft Phone Link app lets you operate and view your Android or iOS smartphone from a Windows PC. 5 By capturing results over time, these kinds of devices can assist in generally gauging trends in one’s health and fitness. A wide variety of them is available on the usual web sites. A low-cost smart watch could be a surprisingly useful accessory that’s worth experimenting with, especially at these meagre prices. Cazoo goes under There was a time when buying a motor car meant trawling around showrooms, taking test drives, haggling over trade-ins and drooling over glossy brochures back at home. My dad did it all the time! More recently, Britain’s car sales sector hit on the idea of selling cars directly to customers using virtual showrooms instead, showcasing shiny used cars online almost as if they were new vehicles. Simply click to buy online and one will be delivered on a trailer to your door, along with a money-back guarantee! Personally, I never believed anybody would want to make such a huge investment without seeing a car in the flesh or taking it for a spin. Reality has finally prevailed, and online trader Cazoo – once valued at $5 billion and whose TV car sales ads (eg, https://pemag.au/link/ abzu) reached saturation level at one point – has gone out of business and filed for administration, after they finally ran out of road and hit a brick wall. Chinese-owned MG Cars continues its upwards sales trajectory buoyed by its range of keenly-priced electric cars, as highlighted extensively in earlier articles. UK consumer group Which? recently reported serious issues with MG4 cars, when they claimed lanekeeping and lane departure systems twice pulled their test MG4 onto the wrong side of the road. Which? reported the MG4 also steered towards an oncoming vehicle on a country lane. According to Which?, some MG4 owners have even Colette Brownrigg Long-time readers will recall the classic style of Everyday Practical Electronics throughout the 1990s, when every article carried a sketch alongside the heading. They were drawn by Colette Brownrigg, part of our team and a gifted designer and freelance artist whom I knew for 30 years. In July, I received the sad news that Colette had passed away very suddenly, just three weeks after her husband, whom she had been caring for, had also passed away after a long illness. A dear friend and confidante, Colette will be greatly missed by her many friends and former co-workers, and we extend our sincerest condolences to her daughter and family. handed their cars back, but MG said that a software update was being developed and reckoned the problem was ‘not a safety issue’, before refusing to comment any further. You can read the consumer body’s report and decide for yourself at https:// pemag.au/link/abzv Britain’s car sales network was recently polled by trade magazine Car Dealer for their views about working with their particular vehicle franchise. In the Car Dealer Power 2024 survey, coming 25th at the bottom of the list was... MG Cars. It seems the honeymoon might be over as, according to the survey, traders criticised MG’s aftersales, forward planning, accessibility to senior management and (whisper) sales bonus structure. Top of the list was Suzuki. The full survey is at https://pemag.au/link/abzw Space update At the time of writing, Boeing’s Starliner capsule remains long overdue for returning to Earth, having docked for a brief visit at the International Space Station in early June. Further tests, simulations and inspections on flight systems are being carried out before the capsule can undock and return its two occupants safely, “when a date is chosen”, Boeing says. In July, four NASA scientists successfully completed a year-long simulation of what life on Mars might really be like for humans living in the confines of a Martian-like habitat. The CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog) mission is the first of three such simulations, and you can see how the first mission was constructed and ran – 3Dprinted buildings and all - at https:// pemag.au/link/abzx Lastly, the November issue will mark 60 years of Practical Electronics magazine, so in the next issue I’ll look back at the story of PE and how Internet connectivity has shaped our world since those early days of ‘dial up’. There’s PE plenty to look forward to! 1556 FR ABS IP54 enclosures Learn more: hammondmfg.com/1556 uksales<at>hammondmfg.com • 01256 812812 6 Practical Electronics | October | 2024