After more than five years of prototyping, developer Ewan Wills has turned the EWatch into a fully programmable smartwatch with open-source drivers covering the display, touch interface, IMU, Bluetooth LE, charging system, and sleep modes. Built on the ESP32-S3, the watch supports development in C, C++, Python, and Rust through standard toolchains like Arduino IDE, PlatformIO, and ESP-IDF, offering multiple entry points for firmware development depending on preferred language and workflow.

The hardware pairs a compact 34 x 28 mm (1.3 x 1.1 inch) two-layer PCB with a 4.3 cm (1.69-inch) color touchscreen, 350 mAh battery, vibration motor, and USB-C for charging and data. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy handle wireless connectivity, while exposed I2C and UART interfaces allow access to custom peripherals. The complete watch ships with a standard 20 mm replaceable strap, and the power management design includes battery-level monitoring, a latching power circuit for software-controlled shutdown, and timekeeping that persists while the main system is powered down.

Wills has also demonstrated using an LLM to generate watch applications directly from the existing driver codebase, and a planned browser-based environment called EWatch Cloud aims to let developers write, compile, and flash firmware without installing a local toolchain. The project sits alongside a growing ecosystem of open-source ESP32 smartwatches including the Open-Smartwatch and Watchy, though EWatch sets itself apart with multi-language firmware support and a pre-assembled option for those who would rather skip the soldering iron.

EWatch is available for pre-order in three configurations: a bare PCB with touchscreen for £59, roughly $80 (€70), a self-assembly kit adding the battery, vibration motor, enclosure CAD files, and magnetic strap for £99, roughly $130 (€115), and a fully assembled, pre-flashed watch for £129, roughly $170 (€150). Beta testing is ongoing, with Wills noting remaining work on display connectors, enclosure tolerances, and onboarding documentation.