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Caller ID Watches
kbielefe writes "On Thursday, Sony Ericsson and Fossil Inc. announced a line of bluetooth watches that vibrate when a call comes in on your cell phone, display the number of the caller, and allow you to press a button to send the call to voicemail. No more digging around in your pocket or purse before deciding if the call is important enough to interrupt a meeting."
That watch is butt ugly.
You'd think Fossil could come up with better looking packaging than that, especially given the launch of this new technology.
My phone won't attach to more than one bluetooth device at a time. Which means that if you use this watch, you can't use other BT doodads.
I've been in the market for a new geek watch for about 8 months now, but nothing really strikes me as something I want to wear.
The watches themselves look ok, and I like the idea of having caller ID on my wrist and not having to fuss with the phone... but only supporting Sony/Ericsson phones? I won't buy Sony shit, and I Ericsson phones are notorious pieces of shit.
It's BLUETOOTH for gods sake... it's an open standard. Why won't it support generic Bluetooth phones?
Screw that... I'll buy from another company that actually has support for some of the more common phones out there. I can't think of anyone with an Ericsson phone off the top of my head.
My Grandfather was a watchmaker, a good one. When I was about 6 or 7 my father bought a digital watch, it was well over $800 a hefty sum in the early 70's but it was gold with a thin black (red) slit that when the button on the side was pushed the time lit up in the little red-dot LED displays similar to first gen digital calculators.
We sat down at the kitchen table and as my dad leaned over to show my grandfather the watch, he pushed the button and the time displayed. My grandfather never one to show much emotion shook his head and looked at my dad.
He said, "I dont understand, how can they call that progress when NOW it takes 2 hands to tell time ?" as he show a quick glance at his favorite self winding chronograph.
My dads bubble was visibly burst, I never saw him wear the watch again, it sits still in his jewelry box.....
I LOVE the Idea of the Caller ID Watch as I have refused to carry a cell until about 4 months ago , it drives me nuts and spends most of its time in the car, but I could live with something like this.....BUT PLEASE OMIT THe function requireing me to PRESS A GODDAM BUTTON !
What's the big deal? You probably already recharge your phone every 1 - 2 days. The same with your Bluetooth headset. Maybe once a week for your PDA. What's one more device added to the mix? Aside from maybe having to purchase a new powerstrip to have room for all of your devices, I don't see where it would be a big deal to remember to plug one more device in every night.
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
Sounds like a really useful concept. I would love to buy one! Oh, except that they've fallen into the usual corporate trap of taking an open standard and locking it down so it's not useful with anything but the products of the companies they've partnered with, it's way way too expensive, and Oh Lord is it FUGLY!
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
I don't think that's the biggest problem.
The very target market for this type of thing is probably the market that's abandoning the use of watches. Especially that thing. I heard of a poll last week that said that the "young adult" market generally isn't using watches to tell time anymore. The only upside is that they will get watches as a fashion accessory. I really don't think that Fossil qualifies. If it looked fashionable, metal with decent gold or silver plating, then maybe it would have had a better chance.
Let me get this straight, you want to use the modern technology when it comes to read-out, but you categorically exclude all watches made from the modern technology material (plastic)? You want a metal or wooden digital watch? But those materials were invented well over 500 years ago.
I have a nice plastic digital watch water resistent to 100m. It's a chronograph (stop watch / running watch) and relatively cheap, you can spend lots more on plastic digital watches with altimeters, heart rate monitors, integrated GPS, thermometers, compasses, etc. All modern tecnology when it comes to watches, including the material.
XML causes global warming.
I don't see where it would be a big deal to remember to plug one more device in every night.
You keep saying that long enough and you won't be able to get any sleep between all the plugging and unplugging you will be doing.
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You can read the time of an analog watch a lot faster than of a digital one. Assuming you have been trained in reading them of course.
What I find incredibly hard though is finding an analog watch that at least uses a minimum of modern technology to keep track of date, summer time and such.
Maybe not for people that want a status symbol, but if you want a reliable watch that looks like a real watch, is durable, and doesn't require a second mortgage for tank metal, fossil definitely works.
People claim that prices are going up on everything and go into debt for things that have little improvement for the value. My brother's 2000 dollar movado doesn't really look 1980 dollars better than my fossil (I actually only paid 16 dollars cuz I worked at a department store at the time) and with the savings I got not paying the extra 1980 to look 10 cents cooler I could easily buy something more useful with my money.
Truly rich people waste money on things they don't need because it doesn't matter to them, everyone else breaks themselves to look rich when they really aren't, and wind up being unable to pay their bills in the process. It's a sickness.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
It does not easily shatter like ceramics or glass.
It is more flexible than wood and some metals.
It does not chip or have wood grain which weakens the material.
It does not rust like some metals.
It is light weight.
Plastic is used on all sorts of applications, including bullet proof transparent shields where cost is the least concern.
In fact, some plastics are more expensive than glass.
The major fault I find in most plastics is the tendency to harden in time due to solar exposure and moisture. Something from which leather also suffers, but seemingly less so. Leather also seems softer and nicer on touch to me, but I guess that is a subjective feeling.
I have thrown all my Casio plastic watches away because they were out of style, but never had one fail on me for some 10 years each. The plastic wristbands actually lasted longer than the leatherbands I tried. I have tried using metallic bands, which either rip out my arm hairs (what can I say, I am a hairy guy) or the chains disintegrate into pieces.
I suspect the best wristband for me would be something made of artificial fibres. Metal looks nice and is ok for the main piece even if its heavier.
I still own a leather wallet though. I find those to last longer than the plastic equivalents. So called surfer wallets IMO suck. Never had one last more than 6 months. My leather wallet has lasted for over 4 years now.
Spoken like a non-engineer. Sometimes cheaper is part of better. Discounting that, many more times that you want to admit ....
Plastic is rarely a better material for any application; it's only cheaper. And for anything that may take some abuse (like something strapped to your wrist)
Such absolutes! You are obviously a very opinionated person. Lots of materials are known to break. In fact, just about all of them are.
Lastly, why are you so concerned with how something looks? Yes, I wear synthetic fabrics to include polyester, rayon, goretex, blends, etc. You seem to be stuck in the 70's or something. Synthetic materials are absolutely indispensible in many types of clothing. Let's see if this parallel but opposite argument works on you: "do you wear a leather ski jacket? Metal rain shoes? Wooden contact lenses? Then why would you wear a leather/metal/wood watch"? Not very effective, huh?
PS. you can't just back out of your outrageous claims by throwing in a random "cheap" qualifier on your description of plastic. "Cheap", for whatever that is worth (clearly much to you), is largely orthogonal to material. You didn't compare "cheap" plastic watches with "cheap" metal watches, after all.
XML causes global warming.