My Sony Watchman Project

I collect Sony Watchman portable TVs. They no longer work for receiving broadcasts since the FCC killed analog TV in the US. #SonyWatchman

I like to tinker with them. Here I have tapped into the coax input of the Watchman and have used the small monochrome screen as a monitor on my Silver Watchman.

Raspberry pi desktop - keystone and all.

For my white Watchman, I accidentally let out the white smoke. I decided to gut it and make it play commercials, news and videos from the 80s and early 90s.

I did this with a raspberry pi and a pimoroni square screen (4 inches). I created a custom bezel for it. I crammed the battery pack and everything inside with hot glue. I will ad pics of the inside if I ever pull it apart.

Now it plays 80’s TV with audio through a tiny Bluetooth speaker inside. I lack the skills to have it share the same battery power supply as the power-hungry pi so I have to turn them on sequentially. It isn’t pretty but I’m out of my element with all of the GPIO pins being hogged by the pimoroni screen.

The videos are often car ads.

The power supply and SD card are in the back battery area so everything is accessible. The headphone jack works, too. I can’t really write scripts so I have to use a tiny little Bluetooth keyboard to turn the system on, navigate to videos, play the videos and then switch to full screen.

I have a 1981 VW Rabbit so this just makes it a little more rad. I intend to leave it playing at car shows. Eventually I’d like to make more of these as gifts for retro car enthusiasts.

Here’s my Rabbit. I have a variety of retro restomodded accessories for it including a Motorola Dynatac that has been converted to a Bluetooth handset. I’ll add photos of that sometime, too.

OG means Originally Grandma’s.

I also have my yellow Sports Watchman. I listen to church services and baseball games on the built in radio while I eat and work.