Goodbye To the SPOT Watch

Starturtle sends along an Engadget article on the demise of the Microsoft SPOT Watch. We've discussed related devices a few times in the past; here's a picture of one. "After a long, painful, nearly anonymous ride on the wrists of a select few uber-geeks, Microsoft's finally throwing in the towel on one of its longstanding pet projects: the SPOT watch. The writing's been on the wall for some time; the applications and content available to the watches haven't been updated in ages, and indeed, the entire line of Abacus Smart Watch 2006 models — the only type being recently offered — has been discontinued and out of stock for a few months. For what it's worth, MSN Direct's program manager is quick to note that the underlying technology most certainly isn't going away."

Comments

It was a dumb concept

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a pay service for your watch when one's cell phone does most those features and more.

Re:It was a dumb concept

[archkittens]

i dont know, i think it'd be convenient to have some features on a watch. the only thing i'd have to have, really, was the watch and the phone to talk to each other and keep in sync.

you can look at your watch any time, but pulling out a cellphone willy nilly is rude.

Re:It was a dumb concept

[iamsamed]

It was a pay service for your watch when one's cell phone does most those features and more.

Which touches on another thing: watches as a time keeping device are in decline. People are using other devices for time. And considering that just about everything these days has a clock on it, what's the point of a watch other than as jewelry.

Re:It was a dumb concept

[BenBenBen]

I have a SonyEricsson Bluetooth watch (MBW-100) that does CallerID, silences then rejects incoming calls, lets me know when SMS or email arrives and plays/pauses/track advances music. Oh, and does time and date too :)

Never used to wear a watch, wouldn't be without one now.

PAN for the win :)

Re:It was a dumb concept

[RiotingPacifist]

What exactly is it? it seams to me it never got anywhere, i didnt even know what they were and after wikipedia and RTFA, when i have to goggle a product line to even get a clue what it is, youve failed!
It seams to me the only feature it offered over my a satellite based weather watch was, instant messaging, but as i have a phone that's not really that useful.
Unless people REALLY care about stock prices in the US ?

Re:It was a dumb concept

[calebt3]

People are using other devices for time. I use a watch. And because of that, I am the "other device" people refer to.

Re:It was a dumb concept

[MikTheUser]

iWatch Apple would probably decide that didn't sound cool enough. I think they would go with iTime. iAgree

Re:It was a dumb concept

[FrozenFOXX]

I'd still have to call it the iProduct.

That's not a SPOT watch.

[Yaztromo]

Sorry, but that isn't a SPOT watch in the link, but a Fossil watch running PalmOS. Similar idea, but most certainly not from Microsoft.

Yaz.

Pulp Fiction

[Ilan Volow]

If they had billed it as "a watch so awesome you'll want to hide it up your ass for your descendants" they might have gotten better sales.

Re:Pulp Fiction

[BenBenBen]

I think you've tapped into an under-used metric for reviews - would certainly put the iPod Shuffle ahead of the Zune, at any rate.

Good for Microsoft

[Rik Sweeney]

They must have found a really good exfoliant or concealer.

Idea = Good... implementation = bad

[JCSoRocks]

I'd always thought that this was sort of a fun idea, but it always seemed like it cost a lot, the watches were huge, and the feature set was never that amazing. Ultimately... if you have a cell phone on you 24/7 that's capable of doing everything the watch can - why buy the watch? I've stopped wearing a watch for this very reason.

Re:Idea = Good... implementation = bad

[bluemonq]

If you have a large phone, it can be a minor hassle getting it out of your bag or pocket everytime you want to check the time. Also, clocks are a little harder to come by when you're out and about. On my campus at least, there are a considerable number of classrooms without clocks; that, or they're positioned in a really awkward location (meant more for the professor's use).

Anyways, I picked up a Swatch-made SPOT watch for $15 on ebay a few weeks ago. Basic service is free, and even if they end that, it still makes for a decent cheap watch.

Just Like the DataLink

[MrLogic17]

Reminds me of the classic Timex Datalink watchs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Datalink
I had the original model, the one with the "Listen to the light" printed on binary on the wrist strap.

Both had the problem of good technology with way to small of an interface. Some day watch designers will realize that a watch size is about big enough for an interface for... a watch. And not much more.

Digital Watches...

[GogglesPisano]

Douglas Adams said it best:

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

I'll stick with my analog watch, thanks.
 
...and get those kids off my lawn!

And what exactly is a SPOT watch?

[tobiasly]

This post demonstrates one of the most annoying habits of Slashdot, which is its tendency to assume that everyone already knows what the hell the article is referring to in the first place. WTF is a SPOT watch? Has it been discussed on Slashdot before? Sure, it's easy to Google it but would it kill the editors to add a link to a description or a prior article?

Internet Ring

[lobiusmoop]

How tiny is that screen? I think it is tending towards the infamous Dilbert 'Internet Ring' - an ultra-portable PDA that would let you surf the internet - one character at a time.

What The Hell?

[His Shadow]

Someone was still making those? That's like finding out that Microsoft Bob was still on store shelves. Or the same way I felt when I found out that Palm had stores.

Another option

[SCHecklerX]

Not a full-blown PDA, but I've found that for managing some simple calendar things, occassions, alarms, etc, you can't beat the Timex Datalink USB watches.

I may or may not have a cell phone or PDA with me at any given time. I always have my watch, though, and all of my contacts, schedule, etc are on it.

Too Bad

[RonMcMahon]

I own one of those watches as well, and I will be sad to see the technology go away. These watches had four significant shortcomings;

1) Coverage - SPOTty coverage outside of major cities. They need to be something that is as universal as a pager.

2) Watch quality - The watch that I own is the third one after the first two died a very premature death. Microsoft should have had Casio and Timex on board with devices not the likes of Fossil.

3) Price - Even though the cost was minimal, there WAS an annual fee to be paid. This should have been an ad-based service as I doubt that it would be difficult to cover the costs of the system with ads that are delivered to a user's wrist.

4) Lack of a hack - when techno users can easily hack and improve a system (especially something as geek-oriented as a SPOT Watch) the more likely they are to take it up with enthusiasm.

Well, here's to SPOT...may he live on and come back better, stronger, smaller and more accessible in 2.0

Where's the evolved idea of this?

[schweini]

What i'd really love to have is a wristwatch that simply 'speaks' bluetooth, and lets me remote-control any compliant cell phone i have in my pocket. Additionaly, (and that's the catch), it would have to relay the phone's display onto it's own display, so i could use it to rudimentary surf the web, read SMS, use J2ME apps, etc. I wonder when this kind of interchangeable modularization will at last happen: the cell-phone will be the computing and communications module, the watch (or a micro-tablet-pc-like-thing) the display module, the headset the audio module, etc. It really doesn't sound so hard to implement (although i dont know of a bluetooth profile that could forward the display in an efficient manner), and this would IMHO really revolutionize the way that people could use mobile tech.