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Maybe where you live, but I wear a Timex Ironman Triathlon and I receive complements all the time.

I know what you're getting at (the analog/digital bit), but as it happens Timex does make some mechanical watches. I happen to be wearing one almost identical to this one right now. I have a few different watches - I wanted one with a power reserve complication and this happened to be very affordable.

Mechanical watch complications, by the way, are what I would imagine would appeal the most to a geek.

Do people still wear watches?

I have a Timex clip watch (sort of like this) that is handy for travel (especially if I'm some where my cell phone doesn't work), and for timing when I'm running.

Pretty much never wear a wrist watch anymore, just clip this on my belt loop sometimes, or for fancy dress a pocketwatch.

I almost bought a Timex perpetual calendar which has this feature, and a seven year battery --- but the thing is _huge_ --- glad I tried one on at a local store:

http://www.timex.com/perpetual/

For the querent, Casio did an MP3 watch a while back, which seemed kind of nicely done (though also large).

William
(who wound up with a Timex Expedition in stainless steel --- should've ordered the same watch with the nifty Ingersoll face/brand though)

If you take a look at Timex you will see the new line of speedpass enabled watches. This means that when I mug someone I can just get their watches - (which gives me the credit card and spedpass for US gas stations!!!)
Rock On!!

Granted Speedpass isn't accepted everywhere by any means but gas and nowadays many McDonalds and a few supermarkets (in certain areas.)

The standard unit is small enough to just ditch the keychain and tuck the bead in my wallet; in fact with a bit of crazy glue I'm sure I could turn anything into a credit card of sorts. Since Mobil gives them away free (no fees, just a draw to their places) the tech must be cheap as hell- little more than an inductor/antenna and a simple IC with a serial number... it's basically less circuitry than a typical disposable camera, and far less than a digital watch.

Bingo.

It seems that this one is cheaper and better.

A quick google search shows it can be found for $179

Damn, these things are getting cheap. I am seriously considering buying one. Any advices ?

I found the Garmin GPS systems, like that in the Garmin Forerunner 201 and Timex Bodylink (which also uses Garmin's GPS technology) to be unsatisfactorily inaccurate at speed and distance measurement.

Just recently, I had the opportunity to field test the Forerunner 201 (fully charged) vs. the FitSense FS-1 Speedometer at an outdoor 12K run across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The Forerunner repeatedly kept losing satellite signal, and in the end had over calculated the travelled distance by well over a quarter of a mile. On the other hand, literally, the FitSense watch was right on the mark, off by only 0.01 miles.

If the Forerunner or Bodylink don't have the luxury of a perfectly clear and cloudless day, with abosolutely no tree coverage or tall buildings near by, they're excellent. But that's not a realistic surrounding for most runners. The FitSense uses advanced pedometer technology instead of relying on a GPS signal and throughout my testing has proven to be a much more accurate device. Other noteworthy advanced speed distance monitors include the sleek Nike Triax Elite, it's predecessor the Nike Triax SDM 100, and the ultra lightweight SportBrain pod.

Is this the line you're talking about? Do you happen to know how much they run?

Heart rate is really important to getting a good aerobic workout. I've been running for almost a year now, and a lot of the people I run with use heart rate monitors, so when my mom wanted to get in shape I got her one. It's really helped her to stay motivated because she knows when she's hitting the sweet spot without hurting herself and regretting it later. She recently join a gym call Curves for full figured women and they have their participents use excersize machines for 30 second intervals, then switch, and in the middle of the switch everyone takes their pulse rate and shouts it out. It keeps every one motivated to have a good heart rate, plus the trainers can monitor that everyone is in a healthy range.

PS - one of the coolest geek toys for running is Timex Bodylink. It combines heart rate monitor, gps tracking, and data recorder which all display wirlessly on your wristwatch which keeps track of your miles, split times, and distance. I run with someone who has it. My only compliant is that it sucks for checking your current pace, it'll give you an average, and try to get your current pace, but usually is too far off to be useful, so you can just use the gps to locate your mile marker and time your splits.

Screw that, my watch is within a second or so (my personal one is always a second fast, my friend's isn't) of the correct time and it can recieve alphanumeric pages! Of course, it has an email gateway, so I can use procmail on my primary address and...

Now I'll have to wear two watches! I mean, how could any body survive without a Timex Internet Messenger. Oh well, I guess it doesn't look too nerdy to wear two watches, right? Hey! I could have two timers then! Or 6 alarms! Or 4 timezones! The possibilities are endless.

But the timex USB datalink is neither. Fully open platform complete with downloadable documentation and compiler. Although the compiler is closed source...

Hacking together a timekeeper with an arbitrary length day would be cake. It could even be an alternate timezone so your watch could tell time on both planets!

Timex is selling a device called the Bodylink that does all this: GPS + Data Recorder + Heart Rate Monitor.

Foo: What about security? ... And this doesn't even begin to cover eavesdropping.
Bar: From the description, this thing works just like Esso Speedpass dongles, in that, the thing needs to be within around 2 cm ( 1 inch ) for it to trigger and transmit the needed data/

However, when Mobil first introduced the Speedpass, they also had a "Car Tag" version (still mentioned in the FAQ). It was larger, and mounted on the back window near the fuel cap. All you had to do was pull up to the pump, and an antenna above the pump would do the work. That implies an active distance of 6-10 feet, with a greatly increased vulnerability to eavesdropping.

I haven't seen the antennas lately, and this page implies that they stopped deploying the car tag after the Mobil/Exxon merger -- except in New Jersey, where mandatory full service would reduce the problem of tag spoofing.

The only way anyone could eavesdrop on or steal your CC number using this system is if he has his hands in your pants.

True with the keychain dongle, not true with the Car Tag version. And even if I were willing to use a Speedpass, I'd steer clear of the new Speedpass-enabled Timex Watch! Like the song says:
Beware, beware of the handshake / That hides the snake...

Timex Bodylink
o Speed + Distance with Garmin GPS
o Digital Heart Rate Sensor
o Ironman Triathlon Bodylink Performance Monitor
and a Timex Data Recorder which connects to a PC and uploads all the above data for 2 second intervals.

Ah, I missed that part (that's what I get for not reading the article, I guess). Presumably, then, it would work like the speedpass system that is used at gas stations. You have a RFID tag of your own on your keychain, or built into your watch. I'm guessing there would be a special lane for "speedpass" people.

Whatcha think the first man to step on Mars will be wearing?

A perfectly colour co-ordinated, colour calibrated Armani space suit with a Timex custom sundial (no batteries required, totally solar) set far MarsTime.

And probably drinking colour calibrated Coca-Cola.

You mean like this one from Casio, or this unit from Timex (Warning: annoying flash)?

If you're going to be storing files on your watch, you might as well listen to music at the same time with one of these.

You can buy one for the low price of $129.99 USD at your local Radioshack.

Not only does it function as a watch, it also plays mp3 files (4 hours of play time on one AAA battery) and stores data (by way of usb mass storage device).

You get a choice of wearing it on the GripClip cradle, wriststrap, or lanyard. Much more convenient than just a watch.

It works without drivers in winXP (or newer, when we get newer) and MacOSX.
Best of all. Because it acts as a USB mass storage device it works under linux. Simply compile in the usb drivers, usb mass storage drivers, FAT files system drivers, and scsi generic drivers and your ready to go (after a simple mount =)

It even includes the AAA battery =)

Sooner than I thought.

actualy Timex has had a USB watch for a while. Since Win2k / XP won't let them talk directly to the video card any more, they had to come up with some other way to get the data to the watch.

Like this only less useful?

"No reaching for your wallet, or fumbling with change. Speedpass is accepted at over 7,700 Exxon and Mobil stations nationwide and at over 440 participating McDonald's restaurants in Chicago and Northwest Indiana"

http://www.timex.com/speedpass/

http://www.speedpass.com

"He now spends two-thirds of his time working on products...a line of futuristic watches unveiled last month ...."

Does anyone know anything about these watches?

I like the idea behind Timex's pager watch but they are a pain in the a$$ to use. I wonder if it's possible for Microsoft to actually improve something.

Why not get a Timex Pager Watch?

It's hard to say. The news clip doesn't say much.

My watch (see it here) can send and receive pages, although typing on it involves a whole lot of keystrokes(!).

I know I'm bordering on almost an ad here, but I think the watch is really a great deal. $50, includes one year of skytel service, and a voicemail box.

Once you get it, go to mobile.yahoo.com, and click on the alerts tab. It's pretty easy to customize it for weather, stock, news, and sports alerts. I normally don't like dinner interruptions, but 15 seconds to read the Illini score at half-time is well worth it. I suppose there are non-entertainment purposes for the pager too, but I haven't used them yet!

If you're a bargain shopper, you might want to wait. The regular price on these has been as low as $40 before, and I got mine for $32.50 using a coupon code (which is now expired). Watch your favorite bargain hunting page for new coupon codes.

I just got a Timex Internet Messenger watch that can receive pages and short emails. In the process of setting it up, the SkyTel customer service representative put me on hold for a few minutes. During that time, I received 3 pages from Yahoo! before I received the system test page to confirm my account was active. I have had the pager for three days and I receive at least one Yahoo! page every 4 hours, and another Yahoo! page at the same time I receive a real page.

My question is - Do they actually think that spamming my watch is going to get me to go to Yahoo!'s site? Holy fsck, this is so annoying!

Whoa, back up a moment ... you have a watch that receives SMS or pages? That is so cool! In a geekish kind of way.

Is this what you were talking about?

http://www.timex.com/html/watch_finder_adv_prod. ht ml#tim

That's totally rad. I am such a nerd. That is totally rad.

Timex has a watch that has flash, it tells time, it plays mp3s. But its also go room for a AAA battery . So its kinda large.

Timex has a watch that has flash, it tells time, it plays mp3s. But its also go room for a AAA battery . So its kinda large.

I bought a timex expedition watch on sale for $9.20 at target last fall. Has a digital compass and works fine! Don't see the point of spending $600 for this thing.

Regards

Timex has this item

Only real differences are... this links up to your monitor via flashes on your screen, while the fossil links to you PDA by IR...

AND

the Fossil has lots more memory...

AND

the Timex has that INDIGLO back lite display.

Timex has this item

Only real differences are... this links up to your monitor via flashes on your screen, while the fossil links to you PDA by IR...

AND

the Fossil has lots more memory...

AND

the Timex has that INDIGLO back lite display.

anyone here remember the timex datalink? the little guy had a motorola 6805 in it, and 48k or so of memory... in other words about as powerful as an 8-bit atari or c64, except the form factor is much more portable. :) but the really interesting feature was the solution they used to download information from the host computer - the sender program flashed info on the screen like a barcode, and the watch synchronised with the monitor's refresh rate and read the barcode with a photocell. that was quite an interesting toy. :)

but having the pda on the wrist is really convenient. plus, if it has a similar programmable interface as the timex, and can connect to my laptop via infrared, i'll be seriously tempted...

First of all I'm really impressed by the display in particular. I would like to be able to have a watch that could use lcd4linux. Cross that and a timex pager watch and then we'd have something. While I don't see XWindows or a command line shell real practical for a watch, I do think it would be great to customize what is displayed. It would be hella nicer than using pagercodes and errorcodes to do the same thing. By the way, anyone using the timex care to share thier experiences? I really want to toss the old soapbar.

I would like it to work with Timex Datalink

Their Data Link Page
My Model 150S

Their Data Link Page
My Model 150S

You can find the software here

-----

I've owned 2 of them and it works quite well (cept that I use WIN2K at work and they don't mix) with CRT screens or a notebook adapter that costs more than I'm willing to spend. It's handy for those of us cheap skates without cellphones or pagers or PDAs.

Despite having a "Microsoft Windows Compatible" logo on it, my original watch managed not to crash until it accidentally flew a couple dozen yards in front of me, then found the side of a cliff. Spare us the "Windows crashes all the time, Linux does not" mantra, too. The Data Link is Windows only, and in the two years I have been using NT4 and W2K, my rig has been rock stable.

Anyway, there are people like ME are interested in wristwatch computers. We don't want the bulk and maintenance of Palms, not to mention their expense. Maybe Linux is not doing anything spectacular on a wrist watch right now, but down the road, I think it would be very intersting to have a watch with retinal projection and virtual keyboard capabilities. It would certainly beat using Grafitti.