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

[calebt3]

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

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.

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.