Wearing Productivity on Your Sleeve: How I Built a Wi-Fi-Enabled To-Do List Cuff
Have you ever found yourself completely losing track of your daily tasks, only to look down at your smart watch and get distracted by an avalanche of text messages and news alerts? I wanted something different: a dedicated, beautiful jewellery piece that serves exactly one purpose—keeping me focused on my daily goals without the digital noise.
Because your wrist absolutely needed Wi-Fi, I created the Fashionably on Task Smart Bracelet!
This project blends sculptural brass work with micro-electronics, giving you a tri-color screen that stays crisp, clear, and perfectly readable, even when the power is completely disconnected.
Check out the full construction workflow and see it in action on my YouTube channel:
📺 Watch the Project Build:
I Built a Wearable To-Do List and Now I Can't Live Without It (ESP32)
The Core Components
If you want to recreate this exact build, here is the component breakdown we used to keep the form factor incredibly sleek and wearable:
- The Display: A gorgeous tri-color e-Paper screen — we used the WeAct 2.13 Inch E-Paper Module (Black, White & Red). E-paper is an absolute winner for wearables because it only pulls power when changing states—meaning your list stays permanently on screen without draining your battery!
- The Brains: An ESP32-C3 SuperMini Development Board (Pink). I chose a bright pink board because why not? It packs full Wi-Fi capabilities into a footprint smaller than a postage stamp.
- Power Management: A tiny Lithium Battery Charging Board to manage recharging safely on the go.
Behind the Design: Brass, Jigs, & Enamel Wire
To make this a true statement piece of jewellery rather than just a strapped-on circuit board, we took a sculptural approach to the chassis.
-
CAD Modeling & The Jig: We designed the bracelet form factor in CAD software first. This allowed us to mill out a precise custom wooden jig on a CNC router. Having a physical jig is essential—it holds the raw brass rods perfectly in place while you form the structural curves.
-
Sculptural Soldering: Using a standard soldering iron (though a high-heat jeweler's torch would be fantastic for future iterations), the brass structural elements were joined directly inside the jig lines. Make sure to sand down any rough edges that will rest against your skin!
-
The Invisible Traces: Instead of using bulky plastic-coated wire hookups or a standard ribbon cable, we used two different gauges of enamel-coated copper wire. Enamel wire features a microscopic insulating layer, meaning you can wrap and weave the traces directly around the brass frame with zero risk of a short circuit.
- Direct Pin-Mapping: We bypassed the standard e-paper breakout connector entirely. We scraped the protective insulation off the tips of our enamel wires and soldered them directly to the numbered pads on the back of the e-paper panel, anchoring the lines through structural holes to keep it rugged.
How the Software Syncs
The beauty of the ESP32-C3 SuperMini is its built-in Wi-Fi stack. The code initializes a highly lightweight local web server directly on the chip.
When you want to change your tasks, you don't need to plug your bracelet into a computer. You simply open up a bookmark on your smartphone, type your new items into the custom embedded HTML interface, and press update. The screen refreshes, flashes its signature e-ink transition, and locks your new list in place.
Best of all? The layout uses a clean, embedded CSS stylesheet. If you want a completely different background color, font layout, or border style to match your personal wardrobe aesthetic, you have full control over the code.
Ready to jump in? You can find step-by-step code assembly and circuit schematics in my detailed guide over on Instructables: Fashionably on Task.
What would you put on your daily top-five list? Grab a pink ESP32-C3 SuperMini, a tri-color e-paper display, and a LiPo charging board, start bending some brass, and build your own!