I like the elegant retro look of the Sinclair watch. Much better than the japanese addiction for every button to have 15 functions & a label for each one.
Smartwatch craze is all just ONE OFF THE WRIST
Douglas Adams’ classic 1970s sci-fi satire described the Earth’s population as “so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea”. And here we are again, on the cusp - as in ‘hey, boys, check out my cusp’ or ‘ouch I fell on my cusp’ - of a new outbreak of idiocy that regards digital …
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Friday 6th September 2013 11:27 GMT Anonymous Coward
LED calculators are much nicer to use too. They just needed a DC adaptor though as they didn't last long on a battery.
If anything the smartphones of today mimic the problems of LED portables, the screen has to be off all the time and you need to keep prodding the device to see what is on the screen.
What we need is a hybrid display with a low power always on screen for simple status display and a normal OLED/LCD for the usual display.
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Friday 6th September 2013 11:42 GMT DrXym
The problem with LED watches was the power consumption was horrific so you had to push a button to tell the time and even then the power consumption was still horrific. Batteries might last a month making them a horrible proposition.
Things turn full circle with smart watches with equally horrific battery lives. At least they're rechargable but hardly convenient to use.
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Monday 9th September 2013 12:18 GMT Tom 13
Re: ...the power consumption was horrific ...
Maybe the first ones. My experience was quite different. Batteries tended to last at least a year. Granted at that point it was a PITA because I needed a jeweler to change it, but the battery life itself was quite good.
Of course, now that I almost always have a cell phone on me I've stopped wearing a watch.
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Friday 6th September 2013 13:40 GMT Simon Harris
"LED calculators are much nicer to use too."
I think the nicest pre-LCD pocket calculator displays were the green ones on Casio calculators (mine was the classic FX39), but these were actually vacuum fluorescent displays rather than LEDs. Much clearer than the tiny red LEDs under bubble magnifiers that TI calculators used at the time.
VFDs need a relatively high voltage (somewhere in the region of 20-50V) so sometimes you could hear the DC-DC converter whistling.
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Friday 6th September 2013 12:38 GMT AndrueC
Lol, I hate cheapskate design when it comes to button provision. My bluetooth headset has a single button that does everything except volume and track forward/backward. I swear it has a dozen functions all depending on how often you press it or for how long.
The manual refers to it as the MFB which I can only assume stands for Mother F*!*ing Button.
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Friday 6th September 2013 12:45 GMT Anonymous Coward
Sinclair black watch
There's one on ebay chief. Either may or may not work, currently at 65 quid.
There may or may not be more, I can't be arsed to do more research.
I'll not be investing. But I do think it's kind of cool, that may be the sinclair 'geek chic' thing it has going for it. Taken to the extreme, you could strap a zx81 to your wrist...
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Friday 6th September 2013 10:55 GMT John Riddoch
I remember a Mary Whitehouse Experience sketch from the radio lampooning the exam experience which mentioned the cacophony of hourly beeps on the hour...
The rest of that sketch was hilarious and had me choking quietly in the corner as I was listening on headphones trying not to burst out laughing. It seems to be available on MP3 here, will have to have a download later...
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Friday 6th September 2013 11:04 GMT Charles 9
Re: I remember watches
That said, there are places where external sources of time are unavailable. Casinos, for example, never show clocks on the floor because they WANT you to lose track of time. That and the big room might mean you lose your signal, so the phone won't help, and laptops would smack of cheating, so when all else fails, it falls back to a cheap quartz wristwatch.
Also handy for when you're out in the sticks, away from civilization and a cell phone signal. The wristwatch can keep chugging on its own for a couple years on a button battery or two. Don't know about anything else.
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Sunday 8th September 2013 07:42 GMT BongoJoe
Re: I remember watches
Precisely.
And if I am so far away from 'civilisation*' for so long that even the clock on my Kindle packs up then, perhaps, I am where I don't ever need to tell the time and I just need a stick in the ground to tell me what season it is.
* civilisation being wrongly defined as where one has to lock one car's door at night.because of one's civilised* neighbours.
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Friday 6th September 2013 12:15 GMT Irongut
Re: I remember watches ( Charles 9)
"the big room might mean you lose your signal, so the phone won't help"
What piece of shit phone do you own that won't work at all unless it has a signal? Every phone I have ever owned since the late 90s has shown the time whether it could get a signal or not. Some of the earlier ones wouldn't do much without a SIM but these days you can do everything except make calls.
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Friday 6th September 2013 12:29 GMT Dave 126
Re: I remember watches ( Charles 9)
>What piece of shit phone do you own that won't work at all unless it has a signal?
I can't answer that. However, I don't like the fact that most Android phones can't wake themselves up for the alarm clock (so if you are low on batteries and have to wake up at certain hour the next morning you have to use Airplane mode and cross your fingers), something all my previous dumb- and feature-phones could do.
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Friday 6th September 2013 11:13 GMT Steve Todd
Re: I remember watches - @Denarius
Your point was? I've got a modern digital/analog hybrid that is powered by sunlight, glows in the dark, is waterproof to 100 meters and resets its self from the European radio atomic time base overnight. It's over 5 years old and has never needed servicing.
People get what they are prepared to pay for, not what technology is able to provide.
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Monday 9th September 2013 08:25 GMT monkeyfish
Re: I remember watches - @Denarius
Your point was? I've got a modern digital/analog hybrid that is powered by sunlight, glows in the dark, is waterproof to 100 meters and resets its self from the European radio atomic time base overnight. It's over 5 years old and has never needed servicing.
People get what they are prepared to pay for, not what technology is able to provide.
Actually that sounds like a fairly cheap casio, whereas a very expensive rolex may only tell the time and nothing else. Price has nothing to do with features.
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Monday 9th September 2013 15:05 GMT Nigel 11
Re: I remember watches - @Denarius
Depends (broadly) on whether you're talking electronics, or new antiques. Rolexes, and the whole of the expensive "classical" mechanical watch industry, are retailing new antiques.
The classic watch "user interface" is good, and auto-winding so they never stop (if worn occasionally) is also good. Electronically, you can have the same with a Citizen eco-drive (light-powered), and better timekeeping, and a longer keepalive-time while stored in a dark drawer.
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Friday 6th September 2013 21:33 GMT Infernoz
Re: I remember watches
I looked at Analogue watches, however the low maintenance ones I'd prefer are really not that good compared to well designed Digital watches in the same price range i.e. not the very dated ideas and the decades old design on display in this tragically tired, gadget fashion tarts speel.
My Casio ProTrek PRW-2000 manages itself even better than an analogue watch, I has an international radio time signal receivers (so you never need to set the time and date), has a solar panel bezel, back light, lots of environmental sensors, can go 100m deep in water or 10bar, has a tough housing (I've bumped mine plenty!), and has no moving parts apart from the buttons, so will probably never need servicing. I bought it a year ago after many years without a watch (or mobile) because my bike speedo ditched itself, so I researched watches (via Fibre Broadband), and deliberately went for functionality and style, in a low profile watch. Oh, and the hour chime can be switched on and off, but I like it on, and all 5 alarms set ;-P
LED watches use excessive power and are ugly, especially the brain dead unusable binary ones, the cheap LCD ones often look cheap and tacky, with poor readability, and the G-Shock ones are chunky over-kill, often with poor readability too.
I think the 2005 feature film of Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy, was spot on about mobile phones, they are ridiculous and getting so stupidly large (6" now WTF!) that you really do need a shiny, obese, unstylish 'smart' 'watch', and bluetooth headsets, to make them usable. Oh and you zap your cells with pulsed microwaves, often millimetres away from skin, and even close to genitles and mammaries (cancer); not smart phones at all! If you need a tablet, buy a tablet, not an overkill 'smart' phone.
I think that hand-held phones will be revealed as the last unimaginatively gasp of the old bone like land line phone design, and that a better device will arise which is less dangerous, and more useful; it would be foolish to speculate what this technology will be. Watches will probably continue to exist, because they do what is required in a time proven form factor.
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Tuesday 17th September 2013 13:16 GMT stu 4
Re: I remember watches
yup, you cannae beat a protrek.
Mine is 10 years old - original battery (solar recharging on a transparent cell ontop of the multi level screen.
Titanium, bullet proof.
I use it for flying and walking (alti), diving (just time), compass (flying).
I have a £3500 titanium breitling too, but I find 9 days out of 10 I chose the casio to wear.
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Friday 6th September 2013 15:45 GMT Steve the Cynic
Re: I remember watches
My weird memory of digital watches relates to the digital watch my grandmother had back in the 70s. Sure it was digital, in that it told the time with numbers and not hands, but it had no battery, nor a solar panel.
No, it was wind-up, and had the numbers written on little discks, like the ones that show the date on an "analogue" watch, and not a single quartz crystal in it.
"and the competitions with school mates about who could press the start-stop button the fastest to get the lowest elapsed time to show."
Yes, we did that, too, and the version where you competed to get as close as possible to exactly one second.
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Friday 6th September 2013 19:48 GMT Intractable Potsherd
Re: I remember watches @Omgwtfbbqtime
"Pretty much stopped wearing a watch with the advent of the mobile phone -"
I'm in the other camp - you will pry my watch from my cold, dead ... errr, wrist. I feel naked without one, and, given the option of the alarm clock, mobile, and watch on the bedside table, if I want to check the time in the middle of the night, it will be the watch I reach for.
However, I don't see me getting one of these smart-watch thingies. As others have said, I like having something that does a job for many months/years (depending on which watch) without having to worry about the battery going flat at an inconvenient time.
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Monday 9th September 2013 08:04 GMT keep-it-calm-or-more
Re: I remember watches
I still wear a watch for conditions that don't allow the usage of a touch screen smartphone. Any kind of nature activity that can get your hands dirty-sandy-bloody (e.g. fishing). Flipping the wrist is also quite handy while reeling out a big mofo fish ... and that watch is 100% mechanical, self winding, no batteries needed, ever. Maybe some lubrication in the distant future.
I think the smart watches are dead on arrival, the generation that is around 20-30 and one of the most eager spenders don't really see a use for it. As said by multiple other comments, smartphones and computers take away the need for a separate clock in a city/office environment.
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Friday 6th September 2013 11:07 GMT Steve Todd
The big thing about digital watches
was that they were MUCH more accurate than the mechanical devices of the time. You'd be lucky (or rich) if your mechanical watch kept time to better than a minute per day. They were crap to read and quartz analog, when it became available, ousted digital models but they did only need resetting weekly or monthly to stay on time. With modern watches able to keep time to better than 5 seconds/month and able to reset themselves from radio time signals or the Internet people forget about the ritual of listening for the BBC radio time pips to set their watches.
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Friday 6th September 2013 12:31 GMT Steve Todd
Re: The big thing about digital watches - @Cliff
I think that says rather more about how cheap the watch was. Even cheap quartz crystals are easily accurate to 50ppm (parts per million), or about 4.5 seconds per day. A Swiss quartz, to be certified as a chronograph, needs to get down to a little over 2 seconds per month.
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Friday 6th September 2013 13:04 GMT D@v3
oh, and one more thing
I'd quite to see a 'one more thing' moment on Tuesdays announcement, for an iWatch, coming in at around $195, 1 week+ battery and works with all iOS7 devices. I can imagine Samsung wouldn't be too happy.
Not that i'd buy one if they did, i'm quite happy with my Pebble for now
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Friday 6th September 2013 11:27 GMT auburnman
007 watch!
I had one of those too. Good times, although it did get me a detention when I accidentally set off the 007 them in the middle of English class. The cheap metal on the back did turn my wrist green though. I remember my mum fixing it by painting the back with nail varnish - pink nail varnish. I also seem to recall 'losing' the watch shortly thereafter...
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Friday 6th September 2013 14:00 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: 007 watch!
I hate you both! And that Dabbs as well!
I had to persuade my Mum to go from buying supermarket own brand crisps for school lunch to walkers, or Smiths or whoever it was. Then slowly eat our way through them until there were enough vouchers for both me and my brother. Then when we sent them off with our cash, we got a letter back saying they were out of stock! No James Bond watch for me. If it hadn't been for you 3, there would have been enough left, and I too could have been the proud owner of an Octopussy watch. Sniff, sob, sniff, sob, sniff... [weeps pathetically]
Think: Is Octopussy Watch a show with Bill Oddie and Kate Humble on the Playboy channel?
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Friday 6th September 2013 11:34 GMT magickmark
H2G2 Movie
Re the movie lambasting mobile phones, I think what they failed to understand/missed, IMHO, is that the modern smartphone is effectively the Guide as envisioned by the great DNA. In fact from the description he gave in the books it’s even smaller and sleeker than described and probably has more functionality. I remember reading the book in the late 70’s and loving the idea of a Guide, now I have it!!
Man that Douglas Adams was a hoopy frood!
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Friday 6th September 2013 12:31 GMT Ralph B
Re: H2G2 Movie
Actually, I think you will find it is the Amazon Kindle with free 3G access that is the modern implementation of The Guide, rather than mobile phones.
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Monday 9th September 2013 06:07 GMT Ralph B
Re: H2G2 Movie @ HolyFreakinGhost
You're missing a fact: An Amazon Kindle with free 3G has free 3G coverage and will let you access Wikipedia from anywhere (with coverage) for free. I provided a link to a popular online comic strip that explains this in a humorous fashion. Maybe you could take a quick look at it.
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Friday 6th September 2013 11:39 GMT xperroni
You were holding it wrong
I once was the proud owner of a Casio G-Shock. From when my father gave it to me to the day it was robbed (in the middle of the street, under threat of a gun and all) almost ten years later, I never had one complaint to rise against it. Besides the alarm function (without which I doubt I would ever in my life wake up before lunch), both progressive and regressive chronometers were jolly useful. And I don't remember ever getting in any trouble due to the hourly chime, which I very well knew how to turn off, but kept on of my own accord.
Sorry Alistair, but surely whatever problem you had with the wristwatches of your time was doubtless your own fault. Perhaps you were holding them wrong?
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Friday 6th September 2013 19:22 GMT Tikimon
Re: You were holding it wrong
Second that. "Just a watch"? Hardly! Multiple alarms, chronograph functions, countdown timers, BACKLIGHT, no winding. Regular watches had none of that. My favorites had an analog face with a digital display bar across the top or bottom - decently stylish plus the functions. As far as accuracy, any quartz watch had to be adjusted properly, analog or digital.
Agreed that the hourly chime was a bad idea. I actually FIXED these things for a year, and the daily runs of chimes and alarms from dozens of them were horrifying. A popular Armitron model played "Dixie", which we heard at least 20 times a day. Brrr..
It's unfair to rip on the early LED watches. That's like damning the Messerschmitt 262 for not being an F-16. The first of anything tends to be too large, clunky and gobble power.
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Friday 6th September 2013 11:46 GMT Andrew Garrard
So long as it's a good watch...
I had, and used, that Casio data bank watch. If the alternative for looking up a phone number was a FiloFax, actually it had merits. Also, I'd been known to use the calculator. I always wanted a Seiko RC watch, but never persuaded my parents to buy me one.
I've since been through a series of Timex DataLink watches, which could have done with a better interface, but remained a perfectly good digital watch. I occasionally programmed them to do something interesting, like tell me where to go next on a pub crawl and record whether I was ahead or behind schedule compared with previous years. I never got around to converting to more programmable devices but worse watches, like the Fossil Palm watch or the Ruputer.
I do have (and am currently charging, for amusement value) an OLED watch that plays "MP4" video. It's awful - you have to press a button to get it to tell the time, it runs down in a day, it's huge, plastic, and fogs up if you get sweaty. It also came with the wrong driver CD (unless there's a Motorola modem in there as well). However, for its intended purpose - winding up a colleague on a circuit board design team who was complaining about fitting things into a phone-sized form factor - it worked perfectly.
For the last year or so I've been wearing a non-programmable watch, costing me about £10 from Argos. It had a horrible user interface - most notably going into "tell me what angle the sun is" mode whenever I bent my left wrist and accidentally pressed a button, which could only be reverted from by pressing a specific one of the other five buttons, so it was rarely actually telling the time - and I'd have fixed that if I'd had a programmable option.
As of a week ago (because of the waiting list), what's on my wrist is a Pebble. It's a vastly better watch than the previous thing, and much easier to program than the Timex (no more 6809 assembler). I'd prefer not to have to charge it every few days, but at least it tells the time faultlessly and doesn't need charging more frequently than I'm asleep. I've no intention of using it for phone notifications, but there are some cases for which having something programmable on the wrist is more useful than fishing in your pocket.
Would a Google Glass (or your choice of similar wearable headset) be even better for always-on access? Possibly, but a watch is a lot less intrusive, and everyone seems too concerned about Glass wearers looking stupid for that to be an option. Supposedly women, especially, are now carting around two phones, one dainty and pocket sized and one with a huge screen for web surfing (men may do this as well, but those with flabby thighs like mine have less problem fitting a large phone in a pocket). So, for now, watches are as good as any option for some scenarios. Esoteric ones, maybe, but don't make life harder for those of us who want to make life easier for ourselves. Otherwise we'll have to resort to Glass, and you will be assimilated.
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Friday 6th September 2013 12:00 GMT Tim 11
nothing wrong with digital watches
Although uptake of the first ever digital watches (and the latest smart watches) was/is doubtless based partly on fashion, I think Dabbs has got it completely arse about face with regards to digital watches in general.
I have always worn a digital watch, they're cheap, reliable, more accurate than analog, easier to use, and have the option of various features should you choose. The fact that analog watches are the norm nowadays has more to do with fashion than practicality. about the only advantage of analog watches is that you can get a self-winding mechanism and not have to go through the inconvenience of changing the battery once every 5 years.
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Friday 6th September 2013 12:18 GMT Captain Hogwash
Re: nothing wrong with digital watches
I agree with most of this. However, an advantage of analogue watches is that it is easier to quickly see how much time you have left up to some later time. If I have to meet someone at noon and it's now 11:37, it's much easier to see that I need to leave in about 20 minutes without having to do the subtraction.
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Friday 6th September 2013 12:43 GMT Dave 126
Re: nothing wrong with digital watches
Er, most analogue watches are as accurate as 'digital' watches... the quartz timekeeping mechanism is the same in both types. Most mechanical watches are analogue, but not all analogue watches are mechanical.
I wear a quartz analogue watch, and find the rotating bezel a far quicker and easier way of noting a set time (ie when my parking ticket expires, or when I put a pie in the oven) than fiddling with my phone's countdown time. The benefit of wearing the watch (always having quick access to time) might be low, but the cost of wearing the watch is also low (it's small, tough, isn't shabby-looking and only requires attention every few years) is even lower.
Functions, that used to be on my digital watches (chiefly alarms, perpetual calender) I use my phone for, becuase it does them better .
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Friday 6th September 2013 20:06 GMT Intractable Potsherd
Re: nothing wrong with digital watches
Interesting comments re: accuracy. I have a cheap quartz digital, and a more expensive quartz analogue with digital extras, such as a second time display. The cheap digital keeps very good (<1 second per month) time. The analogue drifts by 5-6 seconds per month on the fingers, and 3-4 seconds on the digital display.
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Friday 6th September 2013 12:01 GMT SirDigalot
I gave up
On digital watches, I used to have one of the temperature world time things was supposedly water proof to 100 meters had a countdown, stopwatch, 5 alarms ( I mean who really needs 5 alarms!) not that the alarms ever woke me up. the battery lasted maybe a year ( my smartphone should be so lucky *LOL*). They did help me with 24hour time though when I was younger, still my preferred time format
In the end I bought a nice tag heuer for a start, it fitted on my wrist without looking like a cartoon sundial, secondly the battery lasted 5 years, I needed to set it twice a year ( oh ok and wind the occasional month forward from 30 - the 1st) but to be honest it was perfect, water proof, went with pretty much anything I was wearing, I did not need to charge it or worry the battery was going to die, it was inconspicuous (since no one really cared about people wearing watches) SILENT and allowed me to be on time pretty much all the time.
I sent it off to be serviced recently ( it being 15 or so years old I thought it was about time)
haven't seen it since *LOL*
oh well
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Friday 6th September 2013 12:04 GMT Captain Hogwash
Oh, Mr Dabbs!
You remember all that and you think it was crap? No nostalgic yearning at all? I recently bought an LCD from Casio's Retro range and a TX8 (see link)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/LED-Watch-Vintage-Digital-function/dp/B001Q2J07U/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1378468722&sr=8-7&keywords=TX8
because I remembered how much fun all this stuff was when I was a kid. I'm starting to suspect that you have no soul.
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Friday 6th September 2013 12:13 GMT The Man Himself
Casio Jogging watch
The best watch i ever had as a young 'un was the Casio Jogging watch (c.1981). It looked like a calculator watch (and it was) but it also had a load of functions to help out runners, such as pedometer and more-sophisticated-that-the-norm stopwatch. How I *loved* that watch....
Nowadays, my main watch is mechanical automatic...waterproof, reliable, glow-in-the dark, even has a separate 24 hour hand to allow viewing of multiple time zones. And the nice thing about it is that it actually increases in value each year, which is something I've never been able to say about any silicon-based watch I've ever owned.
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Friday 6th September 2013 15:18 GMT Arthur Jackson
Re: Casio Jogging watch
So, It was you you bastard. I remember running marathons in the 80's and some plonkers insisted on having the pace set on his Casio so it BEEPED every stride.
In one race I was running in a group with a guy having his watch BEEPING every stride and one, at the time well known lady runner asking " are you going to switch that fucking thing off or do you expect us to listen to it all the way round"
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Friday 6th September 2013 12:18 GMT WillThisWor
Orly?
You have to be kidding?
Casio watches - cheap, robust, highly accurate (much more so than my current Omega), the battery lasted for years and a back-light so much better than the crappy non-radioactive luminous paint we are stuck with. What's not to like?
Also good for diving - 200m water resistant is good enough for any recreational diving and the cheapest backup option by far to a second dive computer.
A 7 quid watch might not be high fashion but the fact they're still making them demonstrates their utility.
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Friday 6th September 2013 12:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
casio databank watch
I had one of those casio databank watches when I was a student in the early 90s. The calculator was handy dividing up restaurant bills to the exact penny (students!). And having storage for phone numbers was genuinely useful - nobody had mobiles back then, the phone meant a payphone 50 yards down the street.
I presently have a Suunto Observer which I've had over 10 years now. It's a great watch, titanium, waterproof, nice big numbers, good light for night viewing. More than anything, the analogue watches I've had all broke eventually, but solid state stuff goes forever. The battery lasts over a year too.
As for this Samsung watch, it looks rubbish, and I don't see the point if it just connects to my phone.
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Friday 6th September 2013 12:45 GMT Alister
these companies are only doing what we ask: come up with stupid products that the cretinous will buy in their millions on the back of seeing inexplicably popular celebutards wear one.
Alistair, aren't you a little young to be exhibiting "Grumpy old man" syndrome?
That said, thanks, great article.
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Friday 6th September 2013 14:03 GMT Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse
Nicely written Alistair...
I especially like the way you have managed to keep your own opinion to yourself and presented nicely the pro's and cons of digital watches. The first couple of paragraphs especially should be held up as a model of balanced journalism. So just for you, your Casio FX25GPS-Gyro-Multi-Alarmicon is in the post - I believe it does tell the time as well...
Now, where is my Electric Monk...
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Monday 9th September 2013 13:23 GMT OrsonX
Re: Nicely written Alistair...
Disagree, as he failed to understand DNA's line about digital watches.
DNA wasn't saying digital watches are a bad idea (as interpreted by the article author) he was saying that we are currently in the stone age as we thought they were a good idea, when in reality they were a very primitive tech concept, that is, in the future our smart watches would be infinitely better (e.g., IMB's terminal). DNA wasn't saying he thought digital watches per se were a bad idea.
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Friday 6th September 2013 14:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
Why not have both?
My watch has both hands and a digital display, best of both worlds.
It seems that either I only look at the digital readout or use the minute hand to see where we are within the hour - because after the last GMT/BST change it took me about a fortnight to realise that I'd forgotten to change the hour hand :)
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Friday 6th September 2013 15:00 GMT Dr Lecter
Jealousy lasts a lifetime!
Ha, its pretty clear to me that Dabbs wasn't allowed a digital watch as a kid, he probably had overbearing parents who made him have an old analogue timepiece that he was secretly ashamed of. What a pity his jealousy has lasted all this time....get over it man.......buy yourself one!!
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Friday 6th September 2013 15:06 GMT Fnurp
I never wear a watch. I did for maybe a few months, decades ago, but I have never much liked the idea of wearing one. It's perhaps a consequence of this is that I have a very good sense of what time it is at any given moment. I'm rarely more than two minutes out, which is sufficiently accurate, given that I always tend to be either early or unbothered about my arrival time.
One less item to lose, remove, remember, damage or repair.
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Friday 6th September 2013 15:10 GMT Ian Michael Gumby
What's the purpose of a watch these days?
A while back, I was talking to my nephew and he made a point that no one really wears a watch these days. You want to know what time it was, you pulled out your phone....
And that's true. The phone, when on, gets a clock signal from the telco and will always have the correct regional time and there is of course an app to set up world clocks...
And when I'm working, I hate the weight of a watch on my arm, so I take it off when doing some serious coding....
But I love watches. I have one 'beater' watch which is an electric COLT Breitling. (I call it a beater watch because it stands up to my daily abuse.) I have other more expensive watches too. One Manual and two automatics. I'd collect more, except that I'm married and the wife seems to find more ways to spend it... ;-)
To me, a watch, a real watch with moving pieces is a work of mechanical art. Its also a man's jewelry. A watch says a lot about the character and personality of the person.
If you want something that is cool and creative... when you can fit an atomic clock and its power source in to a pocket watch sized case, or even a large wristwatch, sign me up. Now that would be cool.
But I'll stick to my phone in my pocket because I need something I can use as a phone first, PDA second.
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Friday 6th September 2013 16:12 GMT Mike Moyle
Ah... the Casio Data Bank...!
...Reminds me of my days working for a (then) Fortune-400 computer manufacturer in the '80s. I had a DB and kept my phone numbers and schedule on it. If you didn't want to risk forgetting/losing your address book/scheduler, the Data Bank was (IMO) the best option available at the time. It could also be great fun, in certain circumstances.
I was a senior illustrator in the publications department at the aforementioned computer company and spent a fair amount of time attending Project Management Team meetings. (Before I got stuck doing that I felt that I was being paid an obscene amount of money to pursue my hobby; once I got roped into PMT meetings I felt that the amount I was paid was STILL an obscenity, just in the opposite direction... But I digress...)
The last item on the agenda of any PMT meeting is, of course, the scheduling of the next meeting. The documentation editor (who generally chaired the meetings, since everyone ALREADY hates editors) would study her Day Planner™ book and suggest, e.g., "How about Tuesday the 8th at 10 AM...?" The Writer would look at har Day Planner (denim, with leather corners) "That's fine." The Engineer would look at his Day Planner (larger, and with the leather cover) "Um... Yes, that works." The Marketing Rep would look at HIS Day Planner (the BIG leather one with the zipper around the side to hold in all the post-it notes sticking out from various pages that showed anyone who looked how busy and important he was) "Hmmmmm... No; I've got another meeting, then... Can we make it 11:00?" Everyone confirms 11:00...
...and looks over at the Dumb Artist.
Dumb Artist is so low on the social scale that he doesn't HAVE a Day Planner. He just has a pad of graph paper on which he's been doodling and occasionally scribbling cryptic notes throughout the meeting.
Dumb Artist looks at his wristwatch. *tap* *tap* "Tuesday at 11...?" *tap* *tap*... *tap* *tap* *tap* "Got it!"
It was always amusing to see the engineering and marketing reps of a computer company realize that the Dumb Artist was techie-er than they were. (Tackier, too, probably; but that's a whole 'nother issue!)
Granted that it's not particularly aesthetic-looking but, as a backup for contacts, etc., the Casio Data Bank was (and still is) a useful piece of kit.
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Friday 6th September 2013 22:18 GMT Jan 0
Re: "If it requires you to pull up a huge telescopic aerial, all the better."
Too right Alistair. This is not the technology we are looking for.
I don't need a better watch when the one I have works fine. My 'phone/pocket computer works fine without a watchlike extension.
Perhaps I could be tempted by a wearable nanofactory (with a huge pull out aerial, of course:).
Actually the hitech gizmo that I'd really heap spondulics on would be autofocusing spectacles. How hard would that be Panasonic/Sony/Apple/Google/etc?
I'm also still waiting for the micro gas turbine powered alternator so that I can run my <insert gizmo of choice> for days with a squirt of methanol, instead of hours spent tethered to chargers.
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Saturday 7th September 2013 04:04 GMT Schultz
You miss the point
Wearing a device strapped on your arm, whether analog or digital, is not in itself smart or stupid, chic or ugly. It's just a tool and if it turns out to be useful, then we'll appreciate it (and will attach aesthetic value to it as well).
The problem with smart watches is the interface. If the interface works, they may become useful tools and we'll all want one. To get some useful interface onto a small wristband is hard: any screen will be tiny and there is not much room for buttons. Maybe there will be smart ideas using the camera on the new Samsung watch, at least it should be able to discreetly scan a bar-code in a store and then tell me the corresponding price on Amazon.
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Saturday 7th September 2013 13:12 GMT zb
The most annoying thing
Nobody mentioned the most annoying thing about digtal watches: they are too accurate.
Ask a someone what the time is and they come back with 3.32 and 15 seconds. Glance at a digital clock and you will see 3:32:15pm This is too much information. All I need to know is "just after 3.30" or "nearly 25 to".
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Monday 9th September 2013 19:23 GMT Daedalus
Put one on each wrist and go jogging
In 1978 or so HP announced a gold calculator wristwatch. It had a keyboard that required a fiddly gold stylus, which conveniently stored in a groove in the case.
The whole assemblage cost the obligatory bras et jambe, and weighed 8 oz. (grams hadn't been invented yet).