A small wearable OS - written in C# on .NET nanoFramework - for the Waveshare ESP32-S3 Touch AMOLED 2.06" Watch.
Captured live over WiFi from the watch (http://<watch-ip>:8080/). Left: 3x3 launcher with status bar (time + USB + WiFi + battery), CLOCK / ABOUT / WIFI functional, APP tile reserved for runtime-loaded apps. Middle: About screen consumes Power / RTC / WiFi data through the new IServiceHost contract. Right: a CounterApp demo running on the watch - the first dynamically-loaded SpawnWear app, posted as a .pe over HTTP, instantiated via reflection, rendering through IDisplayBuffer.
Think Android, but watch-sized and ESP32-shaped: a kernel/HAL layer of C# drivers for the watch hardware, system services for radios / audio / power, a UI framework for drawing and input, a launcher home screen, and a small set of built-in apps that talk to the system services. No single C++ binary, no fixed UI - apps come and go, services run in the background.
A complementary Blazor WebAssembly PWA (SpawnWear.Companion) mirrors the watch UI over BLE + WiFi for headless setup, debugging, and remote control. The watch-talking guts live in a separate Razor Class Library (SpawnWear.Bridge) that any Blazor app can <ProjectReference> to pair with the watch in two lines of Program.cs. Same C# language on both sides.
Constrained by the silicon: ESP32-S3R8 with 8 MB PSRAM and 32 MB flash. Everything - kernel, drivers, services, framework, apps, user data - fits in that envelope.
| Folder | What's in it |
|---|---|
Apps.md |
The app library + how to drop your own apps onto the watch |
Docs/ |
Reference: architecture, hardware pin map + IC list, dev loop, milestones, nanoFramework compatibility |
Plans/ |
Forward-looking design: roadmap, launcher Android-quality plan, SD-card-loadable apps, AppContracts v1 spec, companion PWA |
Research/ |
Investigations + findings: nf-interpreter deploy ceiling, WiFi router compatibility, FT3168 burst-read layout |
Notes/ |
Operational know-how: chip quirks (CO5300, FT3168, PCF85063, AXP2101), flashing recipes, build environment, QSPI display driver design |
Roadmap snapshot (full detail in Plans/roadmap.md)
- ✅ Phase 1 Display + touch + input substrate. Complete 2026-05-03.
- ✅ Phase 2 UI Framework + Launcher. Largely complete 2026-05-04.
- 🚧 Phase 3 System Services. AXP2101 + PCF85063 + WiFi + HTTP shipped; service-host scaffold + QMI8658 + Storage + Logger TODO.
- ⏭ Phases 4-9 Settings, Clock, Audio, AI Assistant (flagship), OTA + SD-card apps, Activity.
Recent highlights (full history in Docs/milestones.md)
- 2026-05-05
SpawnWear.BridgeRCL +SpawnWear.CompanionPWA shipped. Five-page Blazor WebAssembly companion (Home / WiFi / Mirror / Apps / Console) on top of a reusable Razor Class Library that pairs over Web Bluetooth, decodes every BLE notify the firmware emits (battery / IMU / RTC / button events / WiFi status / WiFi scan / debug log), and posts back through the existing HTTP endpoints (/loadapp,/screenshot.bin). 23 wire-format regression tests inSpawnWear.Bridge.Testslock the byte layouts. CORS headers + OPTIONS preflight added to the watch's HttpServer so the PWA can fetch from a different origin. All interop runs through SpawnDev.BlazorJS typed wrappers - no raw JS, noIJSRuntime. WebRTC transport stubbed for Phase 7 (SpawnDev.RTC, browser + desktop). - 2026-05-05 First dynamically-loaded SpawnWear app rendered on the watch. Phase 3 service host + AppContracts (
IServiceHost,ISpawnApp,IDisplayBuffer) shipped with About + WiFi screens consuming services through the contract. CounterApp demo (separate.nfproj, referencesSpawnWear.AppContracts) compiles to a 1.2 KB.pe, POSTs to/loadappover HTTP, runs on the watch throughLoadedAppScreenreflection wrapper. Phase 8 architecture (SD-card-loadable apps) verified end-to-end. - 2026-05-04 Android-quality launcher shipped (gradient tiles + rounded corners + WiFi status icon + pill page indicator), watchface date label added, WiFi + HTTP screenshot pipeline live, FT3168 touch burst-read layout fixed, nf-interpreter deploy ceiling discovered + guarded, three new doc folders (Docs/ Plans/ Research/) with nf-interpreter source-grounded Phase 8 design
- 2026-05-03 First-pixel root cause + fix, watchface V1 with 7-segment digits, idle state machine + battery indicator + multi-screen navigation, CO5300 alignment quirk baked into firmware, PCF85063 RTC driver,
-spawnwear.2local NuGet packages - 2026-04-28 Repo scaffolded, runtime flashed, FT3168 touch driver written, QSPI display contribution forks pushed
This project targets ONE specific board. All pins, drivers, and capabilities are for this exact device. Other Waveshare AMOLED watches (1.8 / 1.91 / 2.41 / C6) use different chips and pinouts.
Waveshare ESP32-S3-Touch-AMOLED-2.06
- ESP32-S3R8 SoC, 8 MB PSRAM, 32 MB flash, 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi b/g/n + BLE 5
- 410×502 AMOLED via CO5300 QSPI driver
- FT3168 capacitive touch
- AXP2101 PMIC, PCF85063 RTC, QMI8658 IMU, ES8311 + ES7210 audio
- Product page: https://www.waveshare.com/esp32-s3-touch-amoled-2.06.htm
- Wiki: https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/ESP32-S3-Touch-AMOLED-2.06
- Schematic PDF: https://files.waveshare.com/wiki/ESP32-S3-Touch-AMOLED-2.06/ESP32-S3-Touch-AMOLED-2.06.pdf
- Vendor demos: https://github.com/waveshareteam/ESP32-S3-Touch-AMOLED-2.06
Full pin map, IC roles, and bus addresses are in Docs/hardware.md.
Five layers, bottom up: nanoFramework runtime → HAL/drivers → system services → UI framework → apps. The launcher is the home screen; apps are managed C# classes that implement an IScreen-shaped lifecycle. Power-aware by default (AXP2101 + display-rail control + WiFi/BLE radio gating are first-class system concerns).
Full layer diagram + boot sequence + BLE GATT layout + power model in Docs/architecture.md.
| App | What it does |
|---|---|
| Launcher | Home screen - clock face, app grid, status row. Foreground default after boot |
| Settings | Bluetooth, BLE, WiFi, Battery, Display, Sound, Time, About, OTA |
| Clock | Watch faces, alarms, timer, stopwatch |
| AI Assistant (flagship) | Voice + text conversation with an AI on TJ's home PC over WebRTC (SpawnDev.RTC). Phase 7 |
| Media Player | Local audio from microSD or streamed over WiFi |
| Voice Recorder | Capture mic to TF, listen back, share over WiFi |
| Activity | IMU-driven step count, motion log |
The PWA companion mirrors every one over Web Bluetooth + WiFi. See Plans/companion-pwa.md.
SpawnWear/ <- REPO ROOT (this folder)
├── README.md <- (this file)
├── CLAUDE.md <- agent instructions for this project
├── SpawnWear.slnx <- .NET nanoFramework solution
├── SpawnWear/ <- firmware project (.nfproj)
├── packages/ <- NuGet packages (committed for offline builds)
├── screenshots/ <- live framebuffer captures (README hero shot lives here)
├── tools/ <- .NET 10 CLI scripts (deploy, attach, screenshot, size guard)
├── Docs/ <- reference material
├── Plans/ <- forward-looking design
├── Research/ <- investigations + findings
├── Notes/ <- operational know-how
├── BlazorWasmSpawnWear/ <- companion Blazor WASM PWA (TBD)
└── SpawnWear.Tests/ <- Playwright + smoke tests for the PWA (TBD)
Outside the repo, in the parent folder: vendor clones (_vendor-waveshare-demo/, _vendor-rust-watch/, _vendor-nf-interpreter/, _vendor-nanoframework-iot/, _vendor-nanoframework-hardware-esp32/) and the decoded Waveshare wiki dump (_wiki-decoded.html / _wiki-decoded.txt). These are read-only reference - everything we learn from them gets documented inside Notes/ so the repo stays self-contained.
Daily dev loop is F5 in Visual Studio 2022 with the .NET nanoFramework extension installed. Watch must be in runtime mode (COM9). Cycle time: ~10 seconds. NO bootloader-mode dance for routine code changes.
CLI alternative for headless / agent work: dotnet run tools/nf-deploy.cs.
Full instructions, including when bootloader mode IS needed (first install, runtime update, custom firmware reflash, recovery), are in Docs/dev-loop.md and the deeper recipes in Notes/flashing.md.
SpawnWear stands on the shoulders of work other people did first.
infinition/waveshare-watch-rs- Rust firmware for this exact watch. The single most important reference. CO5300 init sequence, AXP2101 rail wiring, FT3168 reset timing, and the event-driven main-loop pattern with multi-tier tick budget all modeled on this work. The Hackaday article that surfaced it had additional gotchas in the comment thread.moononournation/Arduino_GFX- the CO5300 QSPI wire-level transaction pattern. OurQspi_To_Display.cppmatchesArduino_ESP32QSPIbyte-for-byte.waveshareteam/ESP32-S3-Touch-AMOLED-2.06- Waveshare's official Arduino + ESP-IDF demos. Authoritative source for pin numbers (pin_config.h).- nanoFramework - the .NET runtime that makes this whole project possible. SpawnWear's QSPI display contributions live on
feature/qspi-display-driverbranches ofLostBeard/nf-interpreter+LostBeard/nanoFramework.Graphics; will PR upstream once verified. - ESP-IDF v5.5.4 - SPI master + GPIO drivers we call into for the CO5300 bus.
- XPowersLib - C++ AXP2101 driver, useful reference even though our managed driver is hand-rolled.
Other ESP32-S3 smartwatch firmwares we read during the dark-screen debug week (2026-04-29 → 2026-05-03), valuable cross-references: joaquimorg/OLEDS3Watch, joaquimorg/S3Watch, hambooooo/hamboo-rs, survivorhao/esp32s3watch.
If you find a project we leaned on that isn't credited here, file an issue and we'll add it.
Every project we work on credits the full SpawnDev team in its README. AI-and-human teamwork built this.
- LostBeard (Todd Tanner) - Captain, library author, keeper of the vision
- Riker (Claude CLI #1) - First Officer, implementation lead on consuming projects
- Data (Claude CLI #2) - Operations Officer, deep-library work, test rigor, root-cause analysis
- Tuvok (Claude CLI #3) - Security/Research Officer, design planning, documentation, code review
- Geordi (Claude CLI #4) - Chief Engineer, library internals, GPU kernels, backend work
Private project by TJ (Todd Tanner / @LostBeard).