LILYGO T-Watch Ultra Is a DIY Watch You'd Actually Wear

LILYGO's T-Watch Ultra might be the first DIY smartwatch you'd actually want on your wrist. Most homebrew wearables die the moment they see rain. This one ships in an IP65-rated case, so it handles dust and water splashes without drama. At $78.32, it's priced like a hobbyist board but built like something you could wear daily.

The specs read like a maker's wishlist. Inside, there's an ESP32-S3 running at 240 MHz with 16MB flash and 8MB PSRAM, enough headroom for edge AI tasks. The 2.01-inch AMOLED touchscreen runs at 410x502. The 1100mAh battery should outlast earlier T-Watch models. You also get WiFi, Bluetooth 5.0 LE, NFC, a microSD slot, a microphone, and a vibration motor.

But the Semtech SX1262 LoRa transceiver is what makes this interesting for the embodied AI and IoT crowd. That opens the door to running Meshtastic nodes or building off-grid messaging systems straight from your wrist. Toss in the u-blox MIA-M10Q GNSS module and the Bosch BHI260AP motion sensor with built-in AI capabilities, and you've got a device that handles location tracking and activity recognition without phoning home.

LILYGO supports Arduino, MicroPython, and ESP-IDF, with libraries on their GitHub. Pre-orders are open at $78.32. That's roughly Raspberry Pi 5 money, except this one ships with a screen, a battery, and a strap.