Fossil/Palm PDA Watch Reviewed

SLiK812 writes "Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal has a pretty good review of Palm's and Fossil's new wrist PDA. We all knew some time ago that this was coming out, and was initially covered last November and briefly last month. This is the first review I've seen, and Mossberg does bring up some interesting points, both good and bad. Definitely worth the read before buying it."

Comments

I can't imagine

[leifm]

that this thing is going to sell very well. It doesn't even look like it would be easy to use. And as I recall the battery only lasts like 48 hours. I wonder how they ever got this idea to market...

Not sure how needed it is

[falcon5768]

In terms of coolness factor its a 10, But looking at all the pictures I have seen I am not sure how usable this really is. Sure it has all of the Palm features but its so small, my blind eyes would probably have trouble reading anything without stairing. More impotantly for the price, I would rather have a refurb Handspring Edge and get one of those wallets that has room for my palm if I really needed to keep my palm with me all the time (which is infact how my current setup is. I would rather the USB watch anyday over this one

Just a little too small

[rice_web]

It's a great idea, but it's just too small. I hate the cell phones that attempt to cram so much into such a small space, or the laptops that cram a 1600x1200 resolution into a 15" monitor. With only 2MB of memory and an extremely small screen in a relatively bulky enclosure, I just don't see this as a great product.

It definitely has its uses, but many would be well suited with a larger Palm Pilot or PocketPC.

Meh.

[American AC in Paris]

Y'know, some combinations make sense, but aren't really meant to be.

Traditional PDA screens are about as small as you can go while still retaining a reasonable degree of usability. Get a watch that's too large, and it's no longer anything that you want to wear on your wrist.

While the entire concept of being able to wear your gadgets on your wrist is cool, it takes more than simply saying "I'll meet you halfway" to design such a device. Simply put, the PDA is too small, and the watch is too big for most people to be interested in this device.

Unless you're dealing with a very limited input style--think at most four or five buttons and maybe some form of roller switch--it's going to be nearly impossible to develop a viable wrist-worn device that relies on tactile input. Data storage, sure. Even limited data output is doable--an iPod-esque control system could be adapted to a wristwatch, and one can create relatively unobtrusive displays for a watch (without too great of expectations for resolution, readability, or volume.) But trying to drop a PDA into a watch--that's just too much fine motor control and tactile interaction in too small a space to be practical.

Re:Meh.

[plover]

The way I interpreted the article was this:

Rather than be put off by the "lack of Palmness" and expectations that it will be a substitute PDA, consider it a watch that happens to run Palm OS.

Now, if you don't expect to perform input on a watch, then don't. Instead, you can write a Palm OS program and download it to the watch to have as your watch "face." You want a Matrix-like falling digit clock? Write it. You want a port of the Dali clock, with constantly morphing digits? Port it. You want to write a Tetris clock-game, where the falling blocks are shaped like numbers? Cool. You can even push the buttons on the side to play a little game. Thne, when you want to run OmniRemote to change the channels on the TV in the bar, fine. It runs, it's Palm OS.

Just don't expect it to be your be-all/end-all PDA and it won't disappoint you.

DISCLAIMER: I work for a company who has a retail division that sells Fossil watches. However, I am not trying to shill these watches in order to get you to buy one; I'm just pointing out that they are not as useless as they look as long as you lower your expectations. I personally won't buy one for the same reason I won't buy a PalmOS / cellphone combo: they are two different devices serving two different functions using two different human interfaces that only share a common need for internet connectivity. Viva la Bluetooth!

What about lefties?

[clarencek]

I'm left handed, and I wear my watch on my left wrist... so am I supposed to change which wrist I wear my watch on after 20 years?
Should I try graffiti with my right hand? I have a hard enough time with my left.

My Grandma once said...

[Esion Modnar]

"Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

Well, I think she was referring mostly to posted speed limits, and how she would commonly drive 5-10 mph under the limit, but...

...this also applies to PDA's worn on the wrist.

Crazy Interface Idea

[Dark Paladin]

Part of the problem, as people have mentioned, is that the screen is simply too fscking small. Too small to do really look at data (address books, etc), too small for input (stylis or not) - just too small.

It almost seems to me that we need to wait until we have an interface that can be built on the fly - say, a hologram idea.

Now, let's pretend that this actually works, and, a la Star Trek style, ignore the science: you have a flat pane of the watch that normally tells time. At the touch of a button, an interface appears over the watch that is about the same size of a standard PDA screen. It is able to sense the location of objects moving over it, so you could "touch" the images with your fingers, "scroll" through the address book, read an e-book (though you might want to move the watch for that to make it more comfortable, etc). You would have to allow the user to shift the display (so if you're driving, you can make it stay "upright" as you look into your address book before smacking into the car ahead of you because you didn't have your eyes on the road).

If you wanted to be really cool, you could let the user lay the watch flat, and "expand" the interface into a whole desktop complete with "keyboard" so they could type, use their fingers as pointer devices, etc. (We are of course pretending that the watch's electronics are so small and heat efficient they don't burn a hole in your wrist/desk to compute all of this information).

This technology I'm sure is about 15-20 years off, but I think that's what you would need to allow something that small to have an interface worth using.

Of course, this is just a "pull the idea out of my ass" concept - I could be totally wrong as to whether this would be useful or not.

And as per usual,

[Chunky Kibbles]

There's no left-handed variant. A normal watch you learn to deal with; one windy button you use once-in-a-while is OK... But when there're a load of buttons on one side of the watch, and no easy alternative, it's completely unusable by lefties.

I mean, the normal palm is bad at times with the scrollbar on the wrong side of the screen [don't tell me about lefthack; it breaks Eudora]

Experiment: Put your watch on your right wrist. Now change the time. Now imagine you need to do this with far more dexterity.

Bah. They're only losing about 10-15% of the market by doing that, so no great loss, I guess...

Gary (-;