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Hacking with Claude on a $27 smart watch

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Why This Matters

This article highlights how affordable and open-source devices like the Pine Time can be creatively hacked and customized using AI tools like Claude, empowering enthusiasts to develop personalized features and watch faces. Such innovations demonstrate the potential for accessible, DIY tech modifications to drive innovation and user engagement in wearable technology.

Key Takeaways

19 Aug 2026

The Pine Time is a $27 smart watch that runs open source firmware. I’ve had one sitting in the back of a drawer for a year or two. When I saw @steveruizok’s Tweet about hacking on ESP32 devices with Claude, I found some inspiration to pull my PineTime out of the drawer and see what Claude might be capable of!

if you know what a "coding agent" is then go buy this or something very similar (not sponsored but they're on amazon, pi hut, ali, all over) pic.twitter.com/iPvHxBiltf — Steve Ruiz (@steveruizok) July 25, 2026

I knew I wanted to start by building a watch face because the default watch faces that come with the watch are pretty plain and boring. I’d also recently seen @levelsio’s Tweet about building a custom Casio watch face for is Apple Watch.

⌚ Made a CASIO watch face for my Apple Watch

You can import the 2nd pic into Widgy to install it to your Apple Watchhttps://t.co/KGWBTBBzRB pic.twitter.com/BBf1iZo9kV — @levelsio (@levelsio) April 15, 2023

I wondered if I could build something similar for the PineTime (with a little help from Claude). As it turns out, the PineTime is a great watch for hacking with Claude!

It’s cheap ($27).

It runs open source firmware (InfiniTime, or any other RTOS you want).

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