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Watches for UberGeeks?
eyefish asks: "My trusty old watch recently gave up on me, and now I want to buy a new one. This time though I want something a bit more functional that my simple analog-digital watch. If you were to buy a new watch, and you are the geek type, which one would you buy? I'm interested in anything from watches with built-in GPS to built-in video or MP3 players and calculators. Or simply anything that looks really cool, or is really light, or syncs with my palm pilot. You get the drift." A watch that could sync via GPS? Never have the wrong time again! But seriously, what nifty new technologies have had the shrinking ray applied to them so that they fit nice and comfy on the wrist?
reminds me of a sig I saw round here :
"beware of programmers who carry screwdrivers"
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I just recently got The Matrix Binary Watch, a great combination of different and inexpensive. This has been mentioned here before here and here.
The ordering process is now pretty normal. The watch itself is a bit chunky, and appears to be well made. The included band is leather, but not quite big enough for me (not unusual). The watch band is a less common size (19mm) so it took several different stores/malls, but eventually I found an extra long band.
"But actually trying to use m4 as a general-purpose langage would be deeply perverse" --ESR
Dirk
I am thinking of buying a yeswatch myself - see www.yeswatch.com
It features a single hand plate (hand does one round in 24 hours); shows you day/night time where ever you are on this planet; moon phase and some more.
"We'll reach that bridge when we find it" - Suzy Romer, prime minister Netherlands Antilles '98-'99
Timex Ironman. Heavy-duty. It's cheap(~40USD). It's tough. It's waterproof. It tells time, has a timer, and the backlite rules.
If you want an MP3 player, buy one. Get the right tool for the right job.
"If you were to buy a new watch, and you are the geek type, which one would you buy?"
I'd buy a decent $20 watch, and donate the other $100-200 to some worthy charity. If donating to mundane run of the mill "feed-the-starving-cure-the-sick" charities is too pedestrian for you, you could always donate to the EFF.
The conspicuous consumption of the geek crowd is amazing.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Personally, I find bulky watches with millions of features and complex digital displays cumbersome and outright dorky. Yes, we are nerds here, but we can have a LITTLE style, right?
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:)
The perfect watch, as far as I'm concerned, is the Junghans Atomic Solar line. The styling speaks for itself, and technically they're a marvel. Since they're solar powered and sync to the NIST WWVB radio station, all you have to do set your time zone once - and never do anything ever again. No batteries to change, no daylight saving to worry about, no time drifting ever. Junghans, being a German company, also makes watches that can sync to European time standard stations.
Check 'em out here and here. Unfortunately, at just under $1000, they certainly aren't for everyone.
I certainly can't afford one (yet), so I have to be content with my trusty Timex for now.
Ian
Makes people think you are rough outdoorishy type :)
And they look cool (Execpt that GPS type, looks like a piece of dung on your wrist). Mine is the first watch I am really happy with. Analog, with clever in-glass LCD.
I agree. I didn't get a Seiko, but I did get this watch. I like not having to buy batteries or remember to wind it up. I've had a few people comment that it was a cool watch because one can watch the gears and pendulum move.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
It is a watch from Timex that receives pages (and Yahoo! instant messages). Works via skytel. My main problem is that I hate carrying around my pager, and I don't necessarily have it with me when it goes off. If I had a pager that was a wrist-watch, it would have that problem.
See this picture and this list of features.
Go get yourself a hunter case Waltham, Hamilton, or similar. You can generally get a pretty pristine early 20th century gold filled pocket watch and a decent pocket chain for under a couple hundred bucks..
Myself, if I were just starting in them, I'd get what they called $10 watches; A sturdy, plain watch they mass produced for the common fellow..
I started instead with a expensive open-face in solid gold, and I cursed myself everythime I cracked a $120 crystal.
.sig: Now legally binding!
I've got a Casio PC Unite HBX 100. It's essentially a data bank with an IrDA port to allow syncing with your PC. It's a little on the chunky side, but still within acceptable limits for me, which most of the geeky watches aren't.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
When I am out and about, finally away from those stupid timepieces everywhere telling me to rush to and from here and there, the last thing I need to know is how many minutes have gone by since the last time I looked at my watch.
People seem to be in too much of a hurry these days. If you are going someplace, remember that you will get there when you get there, no matter how many times you look at your watch, and often hurrying will only slow you down (a car accident is much more time-consuming than stopping at a yellow light). Also, hurrying is no fun. You don't enjoy yourself along the way (mmm, stress), and you fail to pay attention to all of the neat stuff you would otherwise notice - you can really enjoy yourself on the train ride to work if you are not stressing about whether the boss will notice that you came in 5 min. late.
In other news, it seems to me that a 'geek' would spend more time thinking about what he or she needs, and buy it when it is really time. The true geeks run their old computer untill there is a real need to upgrade, thereby saving LOTS of money without taking a performance hit.
You seem to just want a really expensive watch with a bunch of useless crap on it. You don't seem to care which features it has - it is not like you have identified some vacancy in your life which needs to be fulfilled with device X or Y (except maybe, "I don't feel smart enough - I need a watch that makes me look like a geek"). To me, that is not geeky, it is just wastefull and vain. In fact, given that you will probably end up wasting a whole bunch of money that you could use to get some usefull technology for which you have actually identified a need (or at least a more substantial desire), it is downright anti-geeky.
There is a constant stream of input/stimulus coming in from the outside world. I think that a lot of these devices are just there to keep us entertained because we have forgotten how to look out the window without getting bored. Do we really need to be constantly entertained by our mp3 player (ever hear a bird singing?), or always in touch with our social circle (maybe we could make new friends if we weren't always on the cell phone) or in touch with our job which is so much more important than our sanity or health.
For me, objects which are only usefull if you carry them around constantly (like PDA's, beepers, etc.) are not worth it. My wallet is already enough crap for me to carry around. If I want to remember someone's phone number, I write it on a paper phone list I keep in my wallet. When I get home, I enter it into a text file and re-print it when I need to (no issues of compatibility - I don't ever have to re-type my address book into another program).
And in the meantime, I can walk around relatively unencumbered. I never have to worry about breaking my PDA by sitting on it, or dropping my cell phone into a toilet. I don't even have to make sure I have battery power before I leave the house.
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
catapult watch !!
Also, Fossil used to make a replica of the original LED watch. Looked terrible, with those blocky red calculator numbers. I loved it. I wonder if they still make it. Anyone have a link?
Got Rhinos?
How about hands that glow brightly enough to actually be useful, and a calendar that's perpetual, and also visible from some angle besides 19 degrees to the right. Oh well.
But wait! The Eco-Drive starts at over $200. Isn't that expensive?
No, it's not. Consider the cost of buying a new battery every couple years. Yeah, the battery itself is just a few buck. But unless you have the tools and the touch, there's also the hassle of finding somebody to change the battery for you, plus the risk that doing so will damage the watch. (Actually, it always destroys the water-resistence of the watch, unless you go to a special jeweler who will charge more than the watch is worth.) A lot of hassle. I suspect most people just buy a new watch when their battery dies.
But if the Eco-Drive lasts you ten years, you more or less break even, and save yourself some hassle.
Also, if you're a tree-hugger -- or just think toxic metals in the groundwater is uncool -- you should consider what happens to all those used batteries.