Developing this product was a real deep dive into how electroluminescent technology works. We looked at a few different approaches, but it quickly became clear that EL is a pretty niche technology. To light up the panel, the Ollee Watch EL generates an analog waveform of over 100 volts, from a coin cell battery. That's a lot of voltage in a very small space, and the panel itself creates a lot of electrical noise in the system. The EL isn't fully immune to that noise, so there are two things to be aware of.
1. EL and Bluetooth don't mix. When the backlight is on, it interferes with the Bluetooth connection to your phone. To protect the connection, the backlight is disabled whenever the app is actively connected to the watch (for example, during a sync or while you're changing settings). This behavior is called EL Bluetooth Safe Mode, and you can turn it off in Settings > Device Settings.
With Safe Mode off, you can use the backlight at any time, but the watch will disconnect from your phone while it's lit.
Once the light turns off, the watch automatically re-enables Bluetooth for one minute, so you can reconnect right away without having to turn Bluetooth back on manually.
2. EL and audio don't mix either. The panel generates enough noise to interfere with the audio chimes, so sound is muted while the backlight is on. Don't worry about missing anything important, though: if an alarm or timer goes off while the backlight is on, it takes priority and the panel switches off so you hear it.
Everything above is also covered in the User Manual in the app under Settings > User Manual > Backlight.
That's it! A couple of corner cases, but after months of beta testing, they didn't get in the way of day-to-day use for any of our testers.
Download the Update
Download the updated Ollee Watch app from the App Store (iOS) or Play Store (Android). Version 1.0.7 is the new release. The update will be live the week of October 5. Some regions may get it before others, so please allow a few days for it to roll out globally.
Firmware Upgrade
This update requires a firmware upgrade to the Ollee Watch. Please see the video below before you do the upgrade.
A small number of iPhone users on iOS 26 may still run into issues during the firmware update. It's rare, but it can be a nuisance. If it happens to you, check the relevant section of the Troubleshooting Guide.