You can also find NATO straps in some James Bond movies!
Has Zak replied at all?
Yes. Had been waiting on Zak’s permission to share his reply:
“I have zero involvement with watchX, other than being the guy who originally designed and made the N|Watch as a personal project which they’ve stolen. They promised some compensation, but of course I’ve not seen a penny.”
"Yeah I gave them the list of emails I had from people who wanted to be notified about availability of the original N|Watch kits that I was selling (probably wasn’t the best idea to give them that list, really).
Sure, you can share with others what I’ve said."
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I can only say they’re foolish not to make a deal with him. Seeing how all the source code is glued together and supplying incorrect technical details. They cleary don’t have the technical expertise they need.
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This is Mustafa, Co-Founder and CEO of watchX. Please ask your questions. I am here to reply em all.
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Hello uXe,
The design is completely ours. There is no design similarities, you can compare the hardware pictures. This is our Insta page: https://www.instagram.com/watchx_official/ . Please keep in mind that, Zak did a DIY project. watchX is a product. Making an Arduino watch can’t belong to anyone.
We originally going to make a deal with Zak. We were planning to ship watchX with Zak’s code. Then we invested on changing the MCU and canceled the shipping with Zak’s code. watchX is a development board. Some of our customer from Japan did an amazing job to port Zak’s code. That’s all. Also we have the technical expertise no worries:)
You can understand though how even if your hardware/software is now unique, that you cant argue that originally it wasn’t based off of someone else’s work. Plus having the original author accuse watchX of misappropriating his work is quite serious. That alone brings into question your business practices, which may or may not be true. A bit of advice, pointing to hardware pictures alone aren’t enough to clear those questions, schematics and source code will. Finally, necroing a thread that is months old by this point is also an odd thing to do. I know you want to clear the allegations against your company, but clearly making amends with Zak and the fragmentation in your community should be your higher concerns.
And yours isn’t? don’t you have to assemble it and print your own 3D case?
Changing from one AVR MCU to another AVR MCU isn’t a big change in software and it still has Zaks look and feel. Besides that there is another issue to address.You are still advertising using the original ATMEGA328P based design and hardware specifications so you are misleading consumers. That’s doesn’t sound very trustworthy
Really? Ending with a link to promote your sales?
I hope a moderator wil agree that that’s inappropriate and removes your spam link.
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I also thought that it was in poor taste, flagged the link comment for spam. Didn’t agree with the way he tried to displace blame but that was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me.
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I don’t know why you go hard on?
I ment watchX is a product, NWatch is a project.
Take a look at THIS project, they call it watchy, that one also has the Zak’s look and feel? If you type arduino watch on google you can find thousands of attempt to make an arduino watch. Does it all carry the Zak’s look and feel? watchX is an open platform where you can install and develop many different firmwares, Zak’s code is just one of them! You can’t blame a product because it runs someone elses code. In terms of the Arduino328p, we are a start up with limitted human source and lot’s of tasks. We are reneving all of our media kit and update the website soon, thank you for pointing out.
I removed the link no worries:)
I am not displacing any blame:) Just here to comment on things that not clear. By the way I removed the link, no problem;)
Thank you for such a vice approach. I was very happy to read all the comments. I can truelly understand it create concerns about Zak’s work. We were working on an arduino watch for over 4 years but never focused on it because of our paid work. We loved the Zak’s code and initially want to ship watchX with his code. I kindly approached him and get his will as well. To honor his credit we inclueded him in Team section as well. Later on we changed our mind and did not wantted to ship with Zak’s code.
watchX is an open platform in which you can upload any firmware or develop your own. Zak’s code and watchX is not related, it’s not a watch with Zak’s code. watchX is a wearable development board.
In terms of schematic, Zak’s project only consist of an OLED, RTC, Buzzer and Atmega328P. watchX has, Atmega32u4, BLE, MPU6050, BMP280P, MAG3110 besides a RTC, BUZZER and OLED. watchX is a 4 layer design while Nwatch is a 2 Layer board. They are different.
We made a lot of attempt to make ZAK a part of watchX but he declined all the time because of his busy schedule, I would love to see him on board.
I’m not here to take sides based on what each person supposedly said or reconcile between you and Zak, I can only give my opinion and advice based on my past experience as an electronics and firmware design consultant and fellow entrepreneur. In the end, here is what I think: whether the hardware is similar or not, whether there are a ton of sensors or not isn’t very important for a development platform.
It is the software support, libraries, and tutorials that are the core of the product you should be pushing, the hardware is just ancillary to achieve that end. Just look at the raspberry pi versus the countless of other single board computers. In terms of hardware the pi is similar if not actually worse than other SBCs out there. The thing that levels its competitors is the stellar tutorial, software support, and educational aspects. Even looking at the arduboy you see the hardware is pedestrian, but the value of the arduboy library and software tools provided by talented members of this community in these forums is the core of what the arduboy is.
Kind of got off track there, but my point is if you believe that the sole merit of watchX is that it has a lot of sensors and a fancy 4 layer board and that alone will differentiate it from the countless diy watches you yourself have pointed out and if you don’t intend to provide extensive software support and worse yet think the consumers will make all that software support themselves to self sustain the product in the future, then I am afraid you may be in for a difficult future. I have seen so many products in the development/educational device sector make this same mistake. And who knows, maybe you do have all of this planned out and ready to roll out in the near future, in which case good job, but from what I have seen and what you have written I have not seen it yet.
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Such a great post Thank you! It’s totally clear that it comes from an experienced one. You are %100 right, and we totally agree with you. All of the things you pointed out is on our check list for the near future and we are aware of our missing points.
We got great interest on our Crowdfunding Campaign and fullfilling all orders was our top priority after the campaign period is over. We did not let anyone down who supported us. As I mentioned we are a group of 4 who are working overloaded. We are now in a funding round and hope to tick that missing points by increasing our work force.
I tried my best to clear all the topics related to watchX, I won’t be posting anymore:) I am sorry for those who felt offended.
OK, I honestly have no desire to debate / argue the point, and this community is absolutely not the place for such a discussion. But this flat denial / ‘fake-news’ / post-truth attitude upsets me, and here is why - the only reason I even heard of the watchX crowd-funding campaign is because I was signed up to Zak’s mailing list to receive updates on his N|Watch project, a list which he says he shared with you, and just over a year ago in September 2017 I received this E-Mail (subject line “Remember N|Watch? Meet it’s successor watchX!”):
Zak did release all of the hardware and software files under a GPL-3.0 license, which allows for commercial use, so it is not like you’ve even done anything ‘wrong’:
But it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth to deny any connection at all? Look at the numbers you list on your website under ‘Power consumption’ - it’s a direct cut & paste from the ‘Power consumption’ section on Zak’s website??
It just left me feeling guilty after the fact that I had somehow done wrong by one maker, by inadvertently supporting a different group of makers - please note though, I purposefully did not share any of this over on the watchX ‘community’ on reddit. Whatever happened between watchX and N|Watch is not my fight to get in the middle of… not my circus, not my monkeys, not my problem! 
(PS. I still have not received my ‘spare battery gift’ promised in the above E-Mail)
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*moderator hat on*
I am currently undecided as to what to do about this discussion.
On the one hand, I do not think the Arduboy forums are the appropriate place to be discussing the issues relating to the N|Watch and the watchX.
On the other hand, I don’t wish to hide any of the conversation that has occured as I dislike censorship, and it is understandable that some forum members would be interested in this issue - Arduino-based watches are the sort of thing people who like the Arduboy are likely to be interested in.
As a moderator, I did in fact agree.
Had a regular forum member posted it it wouldn’t have been an issue,
but as @mtulu is a member of argeX (the company that develops the watchX),
I have decided that posting a link to a place where a watchX can be bought constitutes ‘advertising’ (in my opinion).
Hence I have decided to pre-empt the deletion timer and remove the post manually.
I can confirm that the link had been marked for deletion prior to my manual deletion.
*moderator hat off*
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…for better or worse, there is another campaign running:
Not sure if @bateske wants to have a word with them around the use of the Arduboy name as part of it?
It’s a bit of a conundrum.
On the one hand it might be possible to say
“you can’t use the name ‘Arduboy’ in your advertisement because the name is trademarked”,
but on the other hand I think that could earn the Arduboy an adversary or two,
so I’m not sure it would be the wisest move.
If watchX were to be asked to remove the Arduboy name from their advertisements then there would have to be a public announcement explaining why to help mitigate rumour spreading.
The two possible reasons would be “We believe ArgeX’s use of Zach Kemble’s work is unethical/immoral” and/or “ArgeX did not ask permission to use Arduboy Inc’s trademarkes in a commercial advertisement”.
Naturally both run the risk of being argued about or viewed negatively,
so whether or not it’s worth it depends on how strongly people feel about the situation.
Ultimately this is a question of ethics rather than legality.
On another point, I’d like to know what their current library is like.
The last time I checked they weren’t following the rules of the GPL.
(In particular the ‘documentation’ and ‘date marking’ restrictions.)
If that’s still the case, then that most certainly is a legal issue because they’d be in breach of licence.
(My opinions are my own, I can’t speak for Arduboy Inc - I’m a voluntary moderator, not an employee.)
“watchX becomes fully Arduboy compatible.”
So that gamepad holder uses Arduboy layout.
“Thanks to great Arduboy Community, you can start programming games right away.”
At least they give us some credit 
Too bad they still don’t include a case.