Surely you have heard that your smartphone has more computing power than the computers that sent the Apollo mission to the Moon. Well, a full 55 years after the spaceflight that landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the lunar surface, a company managed to shorten the Apollo computer in another way. British start Instruments of Apollo made a wristwatch that imitated the Apollo Guidance Computer.
The DSKY (short for “Display and Keyboard”) Moonwatch, shared the same interface as the briefcase-sized computers that were on the Apollo program modules. The creators involved in the project tapped the original design specs from the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory to shrink the panel and create a wearable replica.
The original AGCs were used by astronauts for guidance and navigation, which you can’t do with a watch—and no offense, but you can without a spacecraft. But it works in its own way. The watch has a built-in GPS, digital display, and working keyboard. It is also programmable, built on top of an open source framework compatible with many coding environments including Arduino and Python. So if you have any features you want to run, it’s open to input.
The watch also has an 8-channel digital I/O port, which opens up the possibility of using the watch to control or interact with “breadboard interfaces, development enclosures, and robotic devices,” according to Apollo’s product description Instruments. The company says it will push software updates in the future and work with community contributions, so if someone else comes up with a cool feature, you should be able to install it on your own device.
Finally, the DSKY Moonwatch is a novelty. And priced at £649 (about $812), it’s certainly not cheap. But it at least brings a fun interface and the potential to expand functionality in unique ways. Sure, it won’t bring you all the features of your usual smartwatch, and it won’t change for the same reasons as an expensive timepiece. But at the very least, it’s probably the only cool calculator watch and a decent conversation starter. So that’s one thing.
The DSKY Moonwatch will be pre-order from Apollo Instruments with a £240 ($300) deposit. The company says it expects to begin shipping the final product in the first quarter of 2025. And, just for your own safety, familiarize yourself with potential risk of contributing to crowdfunding campaigns before jumping.








