UNA Watch, ø40mm repairable open source GPS watch. (P)review

Just stumpled upon the existence of this, and immediately ordered!!

By 14.4mm It is a standard smart-watch thickness, but far thicker than I prefer, but the repairability and GPS might well outweigh this!
Ordered it, and will make this into a review once I get it, for now it is just a preview with some praise of the whole idea. Note that it to a large extend is even open source.

Had I known that the ‘middle layer of the case of the middle one was grey and not black, I would likely have chosen the teal one.

I love that the basic concept is repairability and open source, It is so silly that practically all electronic devices are made with the opposite design “planned obsolescence” where they plan a device device to fail and be too costly to repair, so people buy a new one. This is especially seen by crooks like aPple, Samsung and Google even locking to a particular sect/system to lure people into ‘brand-loyalty’. The UNA goes in the other direction. And CERTAINLY deserves a lot of praise for that!

 

The MIP display is a mere 1.2″ so only 57% screen coverage, and 5mm bezels are certainly not impressive in 2026. But at the least it is not just a black wasteland but they print on it:

the ø40.25mm (and ~43.6mm long including band attachment) should make it suitable for a minor wrist, if you can accept it sticking up. It is a bit like two T8ultra or H06 on top of each others, so the GPS, repairability and open source comes at a cost! BUT this is quite common for smartwatches to be ‘designed’ more like a divers watch than a proper watch, so this should not specifically take a beating for this. And the repairability is partly to blame, as it certainly is easier to just glue or melt things into a block.

 

The state that it git an IPX5 rating, so this means that if you are lucky limited amounts of plain water should not cause issue, but I would strongly warn against wearing it during any showering or hand wash with soap.

 

(Obviously no conclusion yet)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *