Nordic Semi nRF52832 Powered PineTime Dev Kit is Now Available for $24.99

PineTime was announced as a $25 smartwatch & companion for PinePhone Linux smartphone which itself sells for $150.

PineTime specifications are still not frozen, but we do know it will be based on  Nordic Semi nRF52832 or nRF52840 wireless SoC, come with a 1.3″ 240×240 capacitive touch display, and support a variety of operating systems such as ZephyrOS, FreeRTOS, Arm Mbed or NuttX depending on community involvement.

So far it was not available for purchase, but in Pine64’s December update about their various projects, Lukasz Erecinski announced the PineTime dev kit is now available for pre-order for $24.99.

PineTime Dev Kit specifications:

• WiSoC – Nordic Semiconductor nRF52832 ARM Cortex-M4F @ 64 MHz with 512KB Flash, 64KB RAM, Bluetooth 5.0 LE connectivity
• Storage – 4 MB SPI NOR Flash
• Display – 1.3″ 240×240 IPS capacitive touchscreen with 65K colors
• Sensors – Accelerometer, PPG Heart Rate Sensor
• Actuator – Vibrator
• Battery
  • Built-in 170-180 mAh LiPo battery
  • Charging via 2-pogo pin @ 5V/500mA
• Dimensions – 37.5 x 40 x 11mm (Zinc Alloy and Plastic)
• Weight – 38 grams

The watch comes with a set of silicone straps, a charging dock, and a cable for debugging and programming. It should be noted the development kit is solely for development purposes, and if you buy this as a end-user you’ll be disappointed as the firmware is not quite ready. Instead, the kit is intended for developers who will work on OS development for the PineTime.

Firmware & software support for PineTime will entirely be dependent on community efforts, and as such there aren’t any schedule or ETA. If you want to follow the development and/or join the fun, PineTime development group on Telegram currently had 100 members. Lup Yuen Lee got an early development kit sample to port Apache Mynewt OS and Embedded Rust to the watch, but he also found out it’s a good tool to teach IoT and wrote about his initial experience on Medium.

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