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Interesting Wrist Watches?
brobak asks: "I've always been interested in interesting, wearable timepieces, and lately I've been wanting to start my own collection. They needn't be wiz-bang, high tech gizmo's, so much as interesting ways of displaying the time. What are some unique, or interesting time pieces that Slashdot readers own? Where should I start my collection?"
There's the selection of binary watches at ThinkGeek. I personally prefer simple classic analog timepieces, though.
This guy's the limit!
Ever since my watch battery ran out and I didnt get another, Ive found Im really good at knowing the time without one, clocks are everywhere so you can recalibrate when you enter a building etc, also when I used to work outside, I became very adept at knowing the time by the position of the sun, (the one thing that Daylight savings fucks up when the time changes, I bet farmers are pissed too).
Anyways, im not knocking your habit of collecting time telling devices, just saying you already have a fairly accurate one built in.
There is truth in humor.
When I get a job, I will be finding myself a nice old red LED watch. These old watches are the defacto standard for fine programmers everywhere. LED watch == fine programmer.
...
You still think digital wristwatches are a pretty neat idea? How primitive.
I have a neat watch from Mondaine (makers of Swiss Railways watches) that only has one hand, and little hashmarks that show the minutes in 5 min increments. It's very minimalist - after all, if you have a good enough eye, one hand is all you need - and it never fails to confuse people when they see it. (Someone has it on ebay.)
sulli
RTFJ.
First I'd take a look at getting at least one mechanical automatic in your collection. You can get brand new mechanical Seikos using their 7S26 movement (a real workhorse) off eBay for around $50. These usually have glass backs so you can see the movement and the hairspring ticking. Another option is a skeletonized automatic - Swiss versions of these are quite expensive, but recently there have been a lot of lower-cost mechanical automatics available.
Another good option is an ana-digi - i.e. a watch with hands over an LCD dial - the LCD dial can show the time digitally while the hands show it as analog.
It's sort of embarassing to say this, but if you have the ShopNBC channel on your lineup, you might want to look for their watch shows. The guy who runs them (Jim Skelton) is knowledgeable about watches, and they often have interesting watches available. If you're looking for "funky", watch out for shows with Android Watches. Often they will have inexpensive (relatively - note that in the watch world anything under $1000 is considered a "poor man's watch") skeletonized automatics ($100 - $500 depending on the complications and the quality of the decoration on the movement.)
Of course, if you want really funky and price is no object, take a look at either the Ulysse Nardin Freak or the Harry Winston Opus V.
Higuchi is a great place for Japanese watches, BTW. They ship to USA.
Frankly, I think watches are kinda old hat.
Cell phones have clocks on them, why would you want to carry two time pieces on you?
Some say he is made with ascii, others that he is eyeballed daily by millions. All we know is, he is known as the Sig
I have a "Minstrel Copper" from Milieris' Watchcraft. Very cool stuff in their catalogue.
The Rolex Blackface Oyster is coveted worldwide.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
I've bought several interesting / alternative watches from TokyoFlash My favorites have been the Equalizer, Pimp, and Twelve 5-9 B. When I was in China and Thailand, I bought some by brands called ODM and Thix, a few of which are carried / were carried by TokyoFlash as well. You'll see many of the same models on ebay too, although often around the same price.
I did have to send back my Equalizer due to it being extremely dim, even with a new battery, and TokyoFlash turned it around pretty quick and paid me back for my shipping to them. As far as readability of those funky designs, I find the Twelve 5-9 to be the quickest / easiest, with the Equalizer a bit behind the Pimp.
I really like atomic clock sync-age. It lets my watch agree with my NTP time on my computer. But it has a battery...
Today, for $50-60 US, you can get an atomic clock sync'd watch which recharges with solar power. That will be my next watch, but probably after it cheapens a little....
To me, watches are mainly functional. Nothing keeps better time than my watch, but lots of things cost more...
Casio has (surprisingly) pretty good non-dorky looking atomic watches. I love mine.
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
http://www.tokyoflash.com/
If you're serious, travel to Hong Kong, Bangkok, or any other major Asian city with a lax view of copyrights.
You'll be able to start a large collection of many different styles for not very much money. And on top of that you will have traveled around and have a story for all of your watches. The story really makes the watch.
Other than that, try a
Casio Waveceptor (note, doesn't work in New England)
Fossil PDA Watch
USB Watch
YES watch
MP3 watch
Sleep Tracker Watch (too bad it is so ugly)
Tokyo Flash
Nike Watches (always something interesting)
Also, consider pocketwatches. They're rare enough that you get immediate oddball points for using one, but they're common enough that you can find interesting ones.
The ______ Agenda
Not geeky, no gizmos or doodads, but Storm watches look the coolest (and are fairly cheap, too).
I have two Storms, one Diesel and a beautiful St. Moritz for scubadiving. Am always on the lookout for nicely designed watches.
Omega Speedmaster Pro - only watch worn on the moon
HP-001 - only RPN calculator watch
Nixie Watch - only watch based on vacuum tubes
If I were to wear an analog watch, I would definitely consider this one:
Swatch analog watch with visible gears (zoom in to see detail)
There's something about watching moving parts that inspires the engineer in me.
Why would you need a watch to display the phase of the moon? Surely you know that already from Nethack.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
-B
I'm not much of a collector but being a driving enthusiast the watch I would hunt down would be the old Gruen Ristside Curvex. It's the only watch I know of that was ever designed to be worn with the watch face on the side of your wrist instead of the top.
Link here: http://www.pixelp.com/gruen/1929.html (about halfway down the page)
I'm not sure why this concept never caught on but I wish some designer would start making such watches again. Maybe it died when clocks started showing up on dashboards...but i still want one anyway!
I'd send it back - obviously they sent you the EBCDIC model by mistake.
I have two. They're lighter than the Fossil branded variants.
http://www.abacuswatches.com/
Tiger Direct is selling them for $49.95 plus shipping right now, and all kinds of folks are selling them on eBay for around US$50 (with shipping).
Not bad for a very portable B&W PalmOS 4.1 device, IMO...
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Unfortunately I can't seem to find any pictures of it on the internet, but Fossil made a great watch which had Chinese/Japanese numerals for both the hours (printed on the face; not that hard to find) and the seconds (digital!). Sets you back about Y8500 in Japan. Mine has a deep blue face and always gets attention.
The men's version is big and heavy, and the LCDs forming the numbers aren't the rectangular ones we're used to. Rather, they crafted the shapes of them so that the numerals look like they're written with a brush or pen. There are a couple of kludges -- the "1", which is normally a horizontal line through the center, reuses the bottom of the "3" so it's a single horizontal line at the base, and rather than use the perfectly-circular kanji zero, they used the 10 sign instead (looks like a big plus sign if you're unfamiliar with Chinese). So it counts '57, 58, 59, 60, 01, 02...'
The problem is that when I wear it in the US, people inevitably say, "Oh, that's right; you live in Japan. Of course you'd have an all-Japanese watch."
To which I have to reply, "No, this thing is special and rare and you can't find it just anywhere. This is the first-ever watch with digital kanji numerals. See? Look at... hey, wait, come back here!"
I found Nooka watches (www.nooka.com) to be a perfect combination of cool (unique looks), geeky (linear time) and stylish (beautiful finishes and straps).
cat