Bricked the Bangle

I installed the latest Bangle firmware espruino_2v05_banglejs.zip from the official repo and reinstalled my apps from the app-store. Everything was fine for a few hours... But now its display is messed up. I'm not saying this caused it, but the last thing I did, was disable Bluetooth on the mobile phone, while the watch was connected to Gadgetbridge.

I have since gone through the steps of wiping all apps, reinstalling the firmware etc as per http://www.espruino.com/Bangle.js#deleti­ng-all-code but its still the same.

I have never opened up the watch physically.

See the image to see the watch state.

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Wow, that's exciting - never seen that before! Is the watch still working, but just the display is messed up? Can you connect via the Web IDE?

How did you install the Bangle.js firmware? Using nRF Connect?

And what happens when you reboot to the bootloader, is the screen still messed up?

It's possible the LCD has just got really confused. If so one option might be to just leave it with the screen on (eg bootloader) until the battery dies and then it might come back and work fine.

Hi @Gordon. Yes I think the watch is still fully functional. The screen is updating, but with pretty random patterns in a small section of the display, but as its twitching every second, i presume its functioning fine behind the screen.. :-)

Yes i installed the firmware with nRF Connect on Android. It did work initially too, which makes it even more interesting!

Rebooting to the boot loader is achievable, but i have to do the sequence 'blind' as the display is garbled. All very exciting.

Okay ill let the battery drain over the next few days and report back!

And forgot to say, yes I can still connect and execute JS through the web-ide on the Bangle. I think you are right that the display is confused, it seems to think its now 1/2 of its original size, as this is the area everything is drawn in to ¯_(ツ)_/¯

You could try connecting with the IDE and doing:

Bangle.setLCDPower(0);
Bangle.ioWr(0x40, 0);
Bangle.ioWr(0x40, 1);
Bangle.setLCDPower(1);
reset();

That'll toggle the reset line... Might work? not sure...

Hi @Gordon

I let the battery drain and installed the firmware again. No luck in afraid. I tried the commands you suggested and not much changed. Any idea on what I could try next?

Cheers

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Wow, thanks for giving that a try. That's amazingly screwed up, I've never seen anything like it! Honestly, all I can think is the display itself is broken.

Any chance you could send it back and I'll send you a replacement? Email me if you need the address.

If you could remove the straps first by poking the pins out (https://www.espruino.com/Bangle.js+Disas­sembly) then you could just dump it in a jiffy bag and send it as a large letter (which is quick & easy and won't require a trip to the post office).