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Fossil's $145 PDA Watch
Robogeek writes: "News.com reports that Fossil will launch its $145 Wrist PDA in early 2002 - "a watch that doubles as a Palm- or Pocket PC-compatible organizer." Apparently, the 190KB device will accept data imported from your PDA via infrared. But isn't this kind of redundant if you're already carrying your PDA with you? (And can't enter data directly into the watch?) Besides, what I really want is a combo phone/mp3 player/PDA watch, dammit!"
Wearable computers, wrist PDAs... At this rate, if you get past airport security, you will need a master power switch to turn yourself off and on for take-off and landings! ;-)
Your actions in life will determine your children's future.
I'll require a GPS receiver with that, the the audio portion better handle ogg vorbis. ssh access would be nice too.
Till then, I'll remain gadgetless.
The problem I have with my Palm III is tossing in in to the seat bag of my bike when I go off for an afternoon ride.
I'm often on call all day - and as long as I've got my cell phone and my palm (sycn'd to my deskptop) - I can pretty much handle anything that comes up. But I haven't found a great way to keep all of it (phone and organizer) at hand with out having my belt starting to look like the batman's.
If I could painlessly off load my schedule and my phone list to a wristwatch - and then just schlep a little phone/email/web combo doohicky - I'd be in mobile worker heaven!
And people wouldn't shake their heads and lower their eyes when I walk by - like they used to do in High School when I proudly wore my TI-55 on my belt loop... grin.
In illa quae ultra sunt
I used to have a great Casio calculator watch. It had storage for phone numbers, a calendar, and could serve as a four-function calculator. Great stuff.
Since it didn't sync with a computer, you had to input data by hand. This was at the same time a limitation and a blessing - numbers had to be typed in one by one, but you could always type something in whenever you needed to take a note.
Back to the Fossil.
- You can't type things in. This is key if someone gives you a phone number, or you stumble across something you need to remember. You come off looking like a nerd, but I'd much rather look like a nerd with a cool watch than a nerd with a cool watch and lots of paper scraps in his shirt pocket.
- It syncs your entire address book. I for one don't want every single address that's on my computer to be sent to my watch. Searching and browsing is a pain, and I'd much rather only have numbers that I need on hand. My Casio only ever had at most 40 numbers in it - important ones.
Because of its limitations, I got a Xircom Rex MiniPDA (basically a PCMCIA card with a touch-screen that does addresses, notes, calendar, and third-party apps). In the end, I threw out the Casio and got an analog watch. The Rex does everything I'd ever need a PDA to do, and it's tiny. This sounds like a product plug - must stop now.Ceci n'est pas une sig
Wow. So they've managed to make a watch with slightly more memory than the Timex Datalink that was available over 5 years ago.
The only difference seems to be the use of IR as the interface.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
I've been trying to get my dad to use some sort of electronic organizer for years. He's stuck to a plain paper date/phone book even though pages are falling out, no one is in the right order, etc. I bought him a cheap Palm a few months ago thinking that he shouldn't have a problem getting used to graffiti and entering names and phone numbers with a stylus wouldn't be that hard.
What does he do? He had my little sister put the contents of his planner that she could read in to the palm, but he doesn't take it when he goes on the road. He will forget a number, call home, and have someone look it up in the palm. With something like this, my sister could load up the watch for him and he would be set.
I know what he's getting for his birthday/Father's day gift.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
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...
My other car is a cons.
I noticed the feature list is missing a calculator. Are there other brands (e.g. Casio) that have it beside PDA? I personally don't like PDA that you carries in pockets or bags because they're big and a bit heavy.
:)
I like those black plastic Casio watch (thin one) with a simple phone book, calculator, world time, alarm clock (useless to me), timer (useless), and simple scheduler. Since I am a skinny person with thin wrists, I do not want the watch to be thick and heavy. I am still using the Casio DataBank watch from 1994 or so. It still rocks, but eventually I will need to replace it.
Thank you in advance for a reply.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Casio has had a watchws that can interface via IR with each other and with Palms for months now. Take a look. List Price: US$130
You could get a really really ugly watch for less than half the price. With a 102 x 64 screen you aren't going to get much usable info on the screen and the size and looks of the watch make it a poor choice. The Timex/MS watch from a couple of years ago looked a lot better and while only really scrolled a single line of text was usable. Some thing like the REX in my pocket and a normal watch seems like a much better deal than this. The REX 6000 from Xircom had a touch screen 512KB (IIRC) and very limited scroll to you get the letter you want input but it had a readable screen and multiple apps, if you could download apps it would have been killer, but only palm has seemed to figure that out. If the digital paper stuff from Digital Ink or Xerox ever gets out the door such that you could roll up the screen and the batteries , memory and processor fit inside a small module with the screen rapping arround I'd by one of those in a second probably as small or smaller than lipstick (or chapstick for the guys) would be really useful and probably could get 640x480, thats what I'm waiting for!!!!
>Besides, what I really want is a combo phone/mp3 player/PDA watch, dammit
You forgot video cam and playback with Mpeg4 hardware chip.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
It's a nice idea, it shows that they are thinking, but I can't see needing it more than my 3"x6" spiral notebook. At least with that I can input on the fly. The real downside to it is that a lot of people are going to have to buy it or these folks aren't going to make a second-generation, actually useful version of it.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
I can think of others later.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
First, it's not really supposed to be a PDA. It just provides your contact list and schedule as transfered to from your real PDA.
Second while this one isn't really my style, I take exception to your comment about fossil watches in general. I happen to like my fossil watch. It's like this one except with a carbon fiber face.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
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.
Money cannot buy happiness, but can buy something soo darn close, that you can't really tell the difference
If this were such a good idea then what ever became of the "TV" watches, radio watches, calculator watches etc... Heck I even had one of those cool calculator watches I won in a spelling bee in grade school. The problem here is functional size, no one has finger small enough to actually realistically operate one of these things, additionaly a PDA screen the size of a nickel would quickly destroy the 20/20 vision of most PDA users who already spend half their days straining their necks and eyes looking at glaring CRT tubes.
This one is a dead horse, and I'm not being pessimistic.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
Fossil's new "watch" really makes me wonder how long we will revel in gagetry like this before reality kicks in. The simple fact of the matter is, that once the "boys with toys" effect has worn off, functionality becomes an issue. To be brutally honest, wearing a computer on my wrist makes precious little sense if I can't read the screen. If I can't enter information comfortably and quickly (which I don't see happening here: it's the size of a wristwatch) then what's the use? And if transfering information on and off of it is a problem, I'm not sure how much use it really is. In PDAs, use of styluses and infrared ports have helped make convenience actually convenient, overcoming these obstacles to some extent, but in a wristwatch its simply not possible. I'll save my $145.
What's in a Sig?
I currently wear a 23-jewel Poljot chronograph made in the Russian Federation. All it does is give the time and date, as well as providing me with a built-in two button stopwatch and tachymeter. True, it has to be wound up daily, but what the hell--it's very precise and reliable.
It's time to ask yourselves--do you really NEED all this hi-tech stuff? A watch is to tell time, nothing more. Get over it.
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http://www.onhandpc.com
I would like to get one of these if it wasn't so damn expensive!!
US $299, ie AUS$600+
That is some friggin dough for a cool watch....
I wonder if they'll swap it for a family member.
just have something like Casio's databank watches with an added IR link.
I know the sentiment has been echoed here before, but I own CASIO's PC-Unite, which syncs with the PC via an infrared connection. Since it does not have a keypad, it's [almost] utterly useless for entering stuff on the fly.
Are the marketing people at CASIO and Fossil so dense that they do not see the need for a databank/PDA type of watch with an IR link AND a keypad???
It seems that the unit itself is not running PalmOS or Windows CE, you can just transfer data from a PDA to it. And the 190K of RAM are miniscule. IIRC, Microsoft promoted such a gadget a few years ago. It even didn't need infrared data transfer, you could use your PC monitor.
(BTW, the browser check on the Fossil web site fails for me. Sigh.)
However, it is quite chunky. This could be obviated by the use of an OLED display once they are cheap enough to use. These use less power, and will be usable in the dark.
A flip-up screen cover could reveal a touch-sensitive screen area, ideal for simple apps like a calculator or simple game. The format of this device means that more advanced applications are not feasible.
What would be sensible would be for this device to become part of a cell-phone. The display is the same size, the cell-phone has a bigger battery and faster CPU, and more memory as well. The device could sync your cell-phone data with your PDA/Desktop. The cellphone will have an IR link built-into it, or bluetooth next year.
In fact, this could be a good thing for "low-end" cell-phones (i.e., not PocketPC/Symbian ones) to incorporate into them. It would give them a market differentiation for not much cost. And leave your wrist free for teling the time. And a cell phone has buttons and all that on it, making applications much more accessible.
As I look down at my left wrist, I see a large onHand PC looking back at me. 2 MB of memory, all kinds of PIM goodies and games, and it syncs up with my PC. Battery life is better than what is promised for the Fossil. My wife bought it for me two years ago. It's the US version of the Japanese Ruputer, which is almost four years old. So tell me again how this 8-bit wonder from Fossil can possibly be considered "News?"
Prior to the onHand, I wore a Casio Databank. I like the little keys and the availability of the instant calculator. It makes short work of the usual arguments around the restaurant table.
My ideal watch would combine the ease of calculator input and battery life of the Casio with the Calendar/Phonebook/Notepad features of the onHand. While I'm dreaming, I'd like a built-in cell phone and a date with Sarah Alexander...
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