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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."
It was a pay service for your watch when one's cell phone does most those features and more.
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.
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.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
They must have found a really good exfoliant or concealer.
Summation 2
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.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
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.
I'll stick with my analog watch, thanks.
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?
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.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
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.
Fiat Homos et Pereat Theos
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
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.