Hi all! Joey here.

Good news to report: the first batch of Sensor Watch boards are about to ship! Mouser now has 384 Sensor Watch boards and 384 temperature sensor boards on hand and ready to ship to the first backers. These boards will be shipping to backers over the next couple weeks.

What’s more: as of this moment, all of our parts and panelized Sensor Watch circuit boards have been delivered to our PCBA partner, Cyber City Circuits in Augusta, Georgia, where they stand ready for final assembly.

The goal is to have 384 backer orders shipped out this month, and the remaining backer orders shipped out next month — which is all by way of saying that if you haven’t done so already, this would be a good time to check the shipping address for your order. You can do that over in your Crowd Supply account settings.

Why the staggered shipping schedule? Well, the goal is to get as many orders as possible fulfilled as quickly as possible, rather than waiting for everything to be done and shipping all at once. To that end, in consultation with Crowd Supply, we’re planning the following shipping schedule:

• The first 384 backer boards are set to go out imminently.
• As soon as boards come in from Augusta — hopefully in October — the goal will be to test and pack 280 more kits ASAP, which will fulfill all 664 Sensor Watch backer orders.
• Once all backers are fulfilled, we’ll pack and ship 250 more kits to fulfill all preorders (there are currently 236 of those).
• Finally, by late November or early December, we’ll ship the remaining 450 boards for post-campaign sales.

For the most part, these boards will go out on a first-come, first-served basis — that is to say, if you were in the first couple of hundred backers, you should for the most part expect your Sensor Watch board to come in this first batch. HOWEVER, a handful of situations could change this:

• If you ordered Sensor Watch alongside other items outside the Sensor Watch project, and you requested all items to ship together, then that order may be held until all items in your order are ready to ship.
• If there is missing or incorrect information your address, the order may be flagged for clarification before shipment. In this case, Crowd Supply will contact you for a correction; then, once it's fixed, the order will be released to ship.

All the more reason to double check your address now! If you have any other shipping or logistics related questions, you can reach out to Crowd Supply support here; or for any technical or project-oriented questions, you can grab me here.

Battery Test: 1,000 Hours Left

While the Sensor Watch campaign only launched in January of this year, it launched with an estimate of year-long battery life. Regular followers of these updates will recall that there’s been an ongoing battery life test going since last November — and as summer turns to fall, we’re closing in on that one year mark. We’ll hit that milestone at noon central on November 8, 2022: hour 8760. As I write this on day 323 of the battery test — hour 7760 — our coin cell from last November remains at 2.80 volts!

The SAM L22 at the heart of Sensor Watch can operate as low as 1.63 volts, so assuming the discharge profile (red line) remains close to our prediction (blue), this little gadget is on track to blow past the one year mark. What’s more, this November battery test was using an older, less power efficient firmware; the new, more efficient firmware (green line) is outperforming the old one in dramatic fashion.

How long can Sensor Watch last? Time will tell.

News of the Watch

We haven’t had a backer update in over two months, and there’s been a lot of progress on the Sensor Watch firmware since then:

• Thanks to contributions from Jack Bond‐Preston, the TOTP generator has gained support for multiple TOTP keys.
• Josh Berson added a new Wake Face that implements a daily alarm clock.
• And the watch has gained a little file system in the SAM L22’s 8 kilobyte EEPROM emulation area; this can be useful for storing information, logging data or, as we’re considering in one pull request, maintaining settings across reboots.

In addition to all that, there’s a brand new Sensor Watch documentation portal at sensorwatch.net! Here you’ll find detailed instructions on how to assemble and flash firmware onto Sensor Watch, details about all the clocks and complications available in Movement, and detailed documentation on how to make the most of your Temperature + GPIO Sensor Board. I put a lot of love into this website, and there’s more on the way; I hope you all find it useful as you start to make Sensor Watch your own.

As ever, thank you so much for your support in this campaign. In a year of unprecedented parts shortages and supply chain drama, I’m proud to say that we’re going to fulfill most backer orders within a month of the initial estimate, and all preorders in time for the holidays. I cannot wait to see what you all do with this hackable, low-power gadget on your wrist.

Won’t be long now!

- Joey