
ChatGPT, the large language model from OpenAI, has been seemingly everywhere since its debut late last year. Now, the YouTube channel MayLabs has come up with a way for you to actually use it anywhere, without a phone or PC. Instead, the channel has gone the maker route and whipped up a DIY smartwatch that answers spoken questions with short responses from ChatGPT. Take that, Siri and Google Assistant.
In the video, a maker going by the alias "Frumtha Fewchure" develops the watch with processing from a Raspberry Pi 4B (it appears, at least from the kit MayLabs uses is in its video link, that it's an 8GB model). The Pi sits in a case that clips to a belt, along with an external battery to power it. From there, wires go through a jacket sleeve tether to a 3D-printed gauntlet on his forearm.
The video's creator tells us that they "think it will work with a less powerful [P]i," but that a Raspberry Pi Zero might be too much, as the speech recognition might crash the least powerful single-board computers.
The watch portion features LED lights (to let you know when the mic is on), several buttons, a 0.96-inch, two-color OLED screen and mounts for two Apple Watch straps. The buttons are 6 x 6 x 4.3 mm tactiles. Frumtha Fewchure told Tom's Hardware that a "secret" LED mentioned in the video is for use as an IR emitter so that the watch can be used as a universal remote in eventual updates.
Let's not pretend that the watch looks attractive. But MayLabs claims that this smartwatch is the first of its time, so perhaps there will be later, less janky iterations down the road.