One Year In — A Summer Update from Ollee Watch

Hey everyone! I hope you’ve been having a good summer. It’s been over one year since the launch of the Ollee Watch, and I wanted to take a moment to show my appreciation for everyone’s support on this project. It’s come a long way since launch — not just in what feels like a rich and ever-growing feature set, but also in the amazing community of enthusiasts who keep finding unique ways to use the Ollee Watch, sharing incredible builds and mods, and sending in ideas. I hope you feel like your feedback is heard, because I truly appreciate it and am grateful for it. This watch was designed to have a little something for everyone, and so far I feel like that’s held true. That will continue to be the mission of the product.

While we keep fulfilling orders and working on some exciting new features, August has been intentionally dialed down a bit so we can take a breather. There are a few interesting updates on the project — and on the market in general — so I figured a little summer newsletter was due.

Limited operations until end of August

For the last two weeks of the month (August 17–28), operations will be limited due to our holiday shutdown. Some orders will still be fulfilled, but if you place an order during this period, please expect it to ship the week of August 31st. The team is taking a holiday break, and we’re also receiving a big inventory restock while we’re out.

A158WEA-1 (Gold) now available

The watch that started this whole journey for me is now available with the Ollee Watch One modification pre-installed. The A158W with the gold dial was my daily driver for six years before I kicked off this project. It’s one of my favorite Casio watches (along with the F-94W). We’re keeping a limited stock of these in the store — once it’s exhausted, the webstore won’t let you order it. So if this is a piece you’re interested in, or one you’ve been waiting for with the Ollee Watch mod, now’s your chance.

F-B100W vs. Ollee Watch

Casio unveiled their resin-based successor to the ABL-100W smartwatch several months ago — the F-B100W — and they now appear to be rolling out availability globally. We get asked a lot of questions about this. Isn’t this exactly what you’re trying to build? What does it mean for Ollee Watch?

What's interesting is that the ABL-100W launched right in the middle of Ollee Watch's development, while we were still in stealth mode. My first instinct was to sweat a little — to rethink whether the project was still worth it, and wonder whether Casio had just shipped the smartwatch I'd been chasing. On paper, the ABL-100W does cover the basics, plus step counting and some connectivity features. However I set out to build a dream watch for me — one that has a bunch of utility features, and also packed with customization options and personality. Reframing the position was easy: if Casio is chasing a similar vision with a retro-style smartwatch, that's fantastic market validation. No sleep was lost.

Ollee Watch will never be in a position to compete with Casio; it's a much more niche play. Their designs are purpose-built for a mass market, striking the right balance of features, design, and battery life. If you want a no-fuss, retro-style digital watch with a step counter, the F-B100W might be your best option. What Ollee Watch will do is keep building out the platform, take much bigger risks, and keep pushing the envelope of what's possible on the watches we already own and love. So if anything, the launch of the F-B100W was motivation. Seeing Casio move in this direction is a signal we're onto something — and it pushes us to move faster, get bolder, and keep exploring the ideas a mass-market product could never justify. That's the space Ollee Watch gets to play in, and it's exactly where the fun is. More on that below.

Updated Roadmap

The last feature roadmap for Ollee Watch was published in October 2025. It’s been a pretty hard grind to stick to that plan — I’d say about 75% of it held true, which isn’t too bad. As new features (and sometimes bugs) pop up, the roadmap has to be updated and re-prioritized. So far everything is still in scope, just shifted around a bit. The big three buckets of work currently planned are - improving and expanding the step counter and fitness-tracking features, notifications, and third-party app support. These are still very much locked in — you can read more about the plan in the Reddit post here, and a lot of work has already gone into some of it. I’m really excited to get these out the door, but I ask for your patience, as it’s still a small and nimble team doing a lot of work.

Big announcement in September

We’ve been cooking up something big for September 2026. I was hoping it would be ready for July to line up with the one-year anniversary of the Ollee Watch launch, but — small team, big ambitions. That’s all I can say for now, but I hope it brings a smile to a lot of folks out there. More details to follow, and thanks again for tagging along on this ride.

— Gregor (Ollee Watch founder)