Palm OS Wristwatch

countach writes "Amazon are taking orders for a new Palm OS Wrist Watch. It has an infra-red port, touch screen, back-light, stylus and 2MB of RAM. Price is $US 295.00." Because sometimes you don't look nerdy enough ;)

Comments

Cool idea, lousy implementation

[dschuetz]

While I'm usually an all-out advocate of PalmOS and am generally happy to see new and different offerings, I can't help but think that this is a bad idea.

First, the reviews I've seen (based on earlier versions) showed this to be really big and clunky. I know it can be hip to be square, but this might be pushing the limits a bit.

It's pretty expensive, especially considering what you can get in a full-out PDA for the price.

It will take a little getting used to for regular Palm users, as it deviates a little bit from some of the standard interface widgets (no icons for "home," for example -- you just "back out" of whatever program you're in). Plus, it'll be tough to do many things on such a small screen (but, again, this is a new approach).

Finally, from what I've read (including on the Fossil site), it won't synchronize directly with a computer. You have to load up special software on an existing Palm, and then use that software to sync selected data from your handheld to the watch (via IR). I suppose that someone might be able to hack together a CPU-based IR sync system, but that should be standard equipment.

I'll be interested to see where this goes, but I'm frankly a little disappointed, especially with regards to synchronization -- I think that'll be the biggest complaint (right before how big the thing is).

Re:Cool idea, lousy implementation

[Mr. McGibby]

Finally, from what I've read (including on the Fossil site), it won't synchronize directly with a computer. You have to load up special software on an existing Palm, and then use that software to sync selected data from your handheld to the watch (via IR). I suppose that someone might be able to hack together a CPU-based IR sync system, but that should be standard equipment.

WRONG (from amazon):

How do I synchronize a Wrist PDA with a PC?
Included with the Wrist PDA is the HotSync Pod, which enables you to synchronize information between your Wrist PDA and your PC. Connect the cable from the HotSync Pod to the port on the back of the watch when recharging, or to perform a HotSync operation. You will initially need to install some software.

cheaper version of the same watch for $179

[Giant Killer]

Fossil licensed this technology, but Abacus makes a cheaper version for $179. Not quite as cool looking, but quite a bit less money to shell out.

Re:Precarious?

[beee]

This was exactly my reaction too -- I'm very interested to see how Palm handled this, if they handled it at all.

I've had a part in developing a few touchscreen devices and this was a problem our group ran to as well (our hardware was going to be situated in high-traffic areas and geared towards kids, who would no doubt put it through the ringer).

Touchscreens work by sensing not only your "x" and "y" position on the screen, but most of them now also have what's called the "z-loc" (or z-pin depending on the hardware manufac.), and it's basically a way to sense where someone has gently pushed their finger onto the surface. It's calculated using the same sensors, but it reports many less false-positives because it only detects when someone makes a motion "downwards" towards the screen.

The problem I can see is that when the surface of the monitor (or in this case, watch) becomes irregular, the z-pin stuff has trouble picking up actual signals, and sometimes sits there reporting signals constantly. It relies on the regularity of the surface of the device. Considering watches' ability to become scratched up (ever tried doing hardware upgrades on a Compaq desktop machine with a watch on? ;), I'm very interested to see how Palm prevented this from happening. If they haven't accounted for it, you could see a massive return-rate because your watch thinks you're opening your address book 24/7.