Weathergotchi – an open-source climate Tamagotchi

world2vec•about 2 hours ago

The YouTube video [0] is quite funny, I like when someone doesn't take themselves too seriously.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I44iGj7gLGA

eltercero•15 minutes ago

I have no idea what he's talking about most of the time but I can't stop watching.

voidUpdate•about 2 hours ago

I get the weather- part, but I don't get the -gotchi part... Do you have to keep the device alive by... seeing new types of weather?

neom•about 1 hour ago

Uotchi is the Japanese word for watch. Tamago (egg) and Uotchi (watch) - so here they're implying "Weather Watch", it should probably be Weatherotchi or something, but still works fine imo. Korea and Japan love smashing words together to make new words, for example in Korea "Chimaek" is Chikin (치킨 - fried chicken) + Maekju (맥주 - beer), something Koreans often ask if you'd like to go out for.

xd1936•about 1 hour ago

I think it's evoking "this little smiley face guy on a small monochrome screen", and not implying interactivity.

mghackerlady•about 1 hour ago

It's dumb anyway. Iirc the -gotchi part comes from the Japanese transliteration of the english word "watch". Unless your program's a pocket watch of some kind as well as a virtual pet, it's just a tama

Waterluvian•about 2 hours ago

I’ve been wanting to do some projects like this from the software side. I want an e-ink display + ESP32 inside a case. But I don’t want to do that myself for the nth time as it doesn’t feel novel or interesting. Is there any decent hardware option that begins fully open?

Also: If I take very good care of my Weathergotchi, do I get to change the weather?

lode•about 2 hours ago

M5Stack has black & white (https://shop.m5stack.com/products/m5stack-esp32-core-ink-dev...) and color (https://shop.m5stack.com/products/m5paper-color-esp32s3-dev-...) development kits that look like exactly what you're looking for.

Waterluvian•about 2 hours ago

This looks exactly like what I’m seeking! Thank you.

mghackerlady•about 1 hour ago

Adafruit has a pretty cool esp32 based board with a circular touchscreen and dial

zenith605•34 minutes ago

This is charming. E-paper is such a good fit for ambient data like this — always visible, no glow, basically no power. How often do you refresh the display, and does partial refresh ghosting become a problem over time?

latexr•about 2 hours ago

Calling this a tamagotchi is silly. The only thing this and tamagotchis have in common is that they’re small electronic devices with a screen (and even that tech is different).

When you compare a project to something that it isn’t, you’re doing it a disservice. The people who are intrigued by the tamagotchi angle are disappointed, while the people who are uninterested in it (but might still like the project) won’t even give it a change. Everybody loses.

swingboy•about 2 hours ago

This doesn’t look as fun as a Tamagotchi.

Weathergotchi – an open-source climate Tamagotchi

⚡ Community Insights

Discussion (13 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews