This DIY project turned an old smartwatch into a motorcycle sat nav

If you’re not the kind of smartphone user to always trade your old phone in towards credit on a new one, you’ve probably thought more than once about what to do with your old handset. Maybe it gets passed down to a younger family member, or saved as a backup device, but there are also a lot of cool DIY projects you can do with old hardware, like repurposing it as a security camera. What about wearables, though? We just checked out how one smartwatch user turned an old model into a fancy gearshift for their car, and today we’ve got another vehicle-related smartwatch project to share.

Cars may feature expansive dashboards that are perfect for large, screen-based systems like Android Auto, but that situation could not be more different than when it comes to motorcycles. You’re often lucky if you have anything beyond just a speedometer and a tach, and adding aftermarket screens can involve a lot of awkwardly fastening attachments to crowded handlebars. Over on Reddit’s Galaxy Watch sub, however, user someones427 shows off the clever way they’ve repurposed a Galaxy Watch 4 to add a mini sat nav screen to their bike.

On the hardware side, we’re really not looking at much here: just some 3D-printed enclosures to add a little bit of protection and stability. To get it to actually stick to the bike, someones427 says they’re using the magnet base of the charger itself, which you can see at the beginning of the video.

Having the charger in there is important to keep the Galaxy Watch’s screen active, to say nothing of making sure it doesn’t die before the end of your ride. But even with that bit sorted, there are apparently still a few lingering problems with this build, like unexpected lag making the Watch 4’s map display get out of sync with the connected phone. There are also issues with auto-rotate causing the image on the screen to flip around at inopportune times.

We’re hopeful that someone’s able to resolve a few of those remaining headaches (readers have already chimed in with some suggestions of their own) and get this working really stable, because it’s a neat idea that looks pretty nice on this bike — and we imagine would look just as slick on a lot of others, too. The unobtrusive size and round shape just feel perfect for matching the aesthetic of many motorcycle instrument clusters.

What else can you think of using a smartwatch for, after you’re done wearing it as a wristwatch? Share your ideas down in the comments.