ESP32 Connecting - touch wearable with live data

Stay connected to loved ones across the globe with this heartfelt Friends & Family weather display kit! Touch conductive fabric shapes representing distant locations — cities, hometowns, vacation spots — to instantly fetch and display live weather conditions on the OLED screen. Housed in a stylish 3D-printed pocket watch case, it’s emotional tech that brings faraway places and the people there closer with every tap.

This is the Friends & Family Pack — a project I created because I wanted to feel closer to people who are far away. We all have friends and family in other countries or places, and this project stemmed from that. It would be nice to check their location while you’re thinking of them.

It’s a fun intermediate project that connects to the internet to get live weather data displayed on an OLED screen. Conductive fabric shapes represent locations — when you touch a shape, it checks the current weather at that location.

You’ll use an ESP32 for Wi-Fi connectivity and capacitive touch sensing, with the result displayed on an OLED display inside a 3D-printed pocket watch housing. Comes packed in a reusable swish tin (silver / black / other).

Also see the book The Ultimate Guide to Informed Wearables for more ESP32 project ideas.

What’s Included

• ESP32 dev board
• OLED display
• Vibration motor
• Silicone wire — 1 m × 4 colours
• Conductive fabric (for making touch buttons/shapes)
• 3D-printed holder for the OLED
• Instructions & code

You will need to provide your own battery source and conductive thread for sewing your location shapes into gloves, scarves, or wall hangings.

⚠️To replicate this exact project you’ll also need a free API account for live weather data — a tutorial and starter code are included to get you going.

👉🏻 There are 5 code examples for this project - as iterations before you complete the whole project. https://github.com/cmoz/Ultimate/tree/main/C7 for this project's code examples.