Case Study: Kickstarter customer Phosphor achieves breakthrough wearable performance with Softeq firmware development

7 Touchscreen Smartphone-Like Features Packed In 192 Kb Firmware

KickStarter-backed Phosphor’s Touch Time wearable needed a new real-time firmware system that could fit seven touchscreen features into just 192 KB of flash, while still delivering smooth performance and more than a year of battery life on a coin cell. The initial team had already used most of the memory after implementing only two features, so the project needed rescue from a more experienced firmware partner.

Softeq reworked the firmware, optimized algorithms, added RAM caching, switched the build system to SCons, and built a Windows device emulator to speed debugging and reduce costs. Softeq’s solution delivered up to 10x better performance and helped ship a fully featured smartwatch that supports six time styles, 70+ time zones, and more, with battery life of about one year versus roughly 10 days for typical touchscreen watches.

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