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Ask Slashdot: What's The Most Useful 'Nerd Watch' Today?
He's worn the same watch for two decades, but now Slashdot reader students wants a new one. For about 20 years I've used Casio Databank 150 watches. They were handy because they kept track of my schedule and the current time. They were very cheap. They required very little maintenance, since the battery lasts more than a year and the bands last even longer. Since they were waterproof, I don't even have to take them off (or remember where I put them!) They were completely immune to malicious software, surveillance, and advertising. However, their waterproof gaskets have worn out so they no longer work for me. Casio no longer makes them or any comparable product (their website is out of date).
Today's watches include everything from heart rate monitors to TV remote controls, and Casio even plans to release a new version of their Android Wear watch with a low-power GPS chip and mapping software. But what's your best suggestion? "I don't want a watch that duplicates the function of my cell phone or computer," adds the original submission -- so leave your best answers in the comments. What's the most useful nerd watch today?
Today's watches include everything from heart rate monitors to TV remote controls, and Casio even plans to release a new version of their Android Wear watch with a low-power GPS chip and mapping software. But what's your best suggestion? "I don't want a watch that duplicates the function of my cell phone or computer," adds the original submission -- so leave your best answers in the comments. What's the most useful nerd watch today?
Star Trek sites? /.?
Reddit?
Pornhub?
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
With having a cellphone, I haven't bothered to buy a watch in about 2 decades.
But I did buy a Texas Instruments eZ430-Chronos Development Tool.
It's a watch based development system for MSP430 chips.
Sort of the father of some of the wearable devices, in it's own way.
But this is the ultimate Nerd Ware. You program it to be useful. No one else did. (kidding, there are some programs peeps wrote)
Be seeing you...
Go to your local Wal-Mart (or equivalent). Buy one of their digital watches. It'll probably be in the $10-$20 range. It'll tell time just fine. It'll likely also tell the date. It's even rare to find low-end digital watches without alarm and stopwatch functionality. It'll likely be water resistant to a reasonable depth, too.
There's no need for modern "smart watches" and all of the nonsensical features they include. Why the hell would I want a step-counting watch that ends up being off by a factor of 3 to 5 times? Why would I want a watch that tracks my every move and sends it off to "the cloud", where this information probably ends up in the hands of advertisers?
It makes even less sense to spend hundreds of dollars on some fancy watch. Embedded diamonds and gold crowns don't make them tell time any better than dirt-cheap watches! Besides, then they make you a target for thieves and other petty criminals. Even in the best circumstances, wearing such a watch will often make people think you're some kind of a prick who over-charges for whatever service you provide.
The cheapest watches around are the only sensible option.
I know, I know. It makes me sound like a fanboy. But the feature that pushed me over the edge was the Auto Unlock feature. Now I have a strong password on all my computers that I don't have to type. Totally life changing.
http://gizmodo.com/5795554/peo...
I tried an Apple Watch for a while, to find out what the fuss is about (a more or less work related activity). They are useful for certain things, convenient for others, but in the end I found the bother of having to wear it (and charge it every night) to outweigh its usefulness. But that's just me. I wouldn't call them too expensive for what they do, but too expensive for their expected lifetime. If they'd commit to one or a few case form factors, sell a variety of cases ranging from cheap to luxurious, and let us swap out the electronics every few years for a modest price, then they'd make more sense financially.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Latest model has a built-in digital compass (magnetometer), barometer, thermometer, and altimeter, plus for every locale: tides, moon phases, sunrise/sunset times. It also sets itself to atomic clock radio transmissions once a day. Great fit for the outdoorsy nerd, at any rate...
I'm interested to see the results of this, too. The idea that a watch needs to be charged daily (or nearly daily) is utterly ridiculous. Like my Palm Pilot 500 which can run for weeks or months on a pair of AAA batteries, I'd rather have something simple that requires little effort than something with a thousand features which requires constant attention, software updates and charging.
The only watch I currently own is a Casio G-Shock which syncs time via WWVB and keeps the battery charged via solar. The battery still needs to be replaced every seven years or so, though. Once I can replace the battery with a supercapacitor, I'd never have to open the watch for any reason, and I'd be happy.
There should be more computing which focuses on doing certain things exceedingly well instead of trying to do everything.
The Pebble Time does pretty much all the cool things, without a fiddly touchscreen, and with a battery that lasts longer than all other smart watches I've looked at. A shame, then, that the price must have gone through the roof since the Fitbit buyout.
I use an easy to read analog watch. I don't have to press any buttons to find the time and I can do it quickly.
I've found that analog watches give me a spatial representation of time. Seeing the minute hand on the 10, for example gives me a gut fell regarding how long it'll be when the hour is reached. I don't get that from digital time pieces.
Keep it simple.
I'm already carrying it, and there's absolutely nothing of value that a watch will do that it doesn't. Bonus- no wearing something uncomfortable on your wrist that's just prone to hit things and pull out your arm hair. I threw mine out the day I bought my first dumbphone, and I wouldn't wear a new one if you bought it and paid me.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
You shouldn't have any trouble finding a watchmaker to repair your existing watch. A waterproof gasket is an easy fix. I wouldn't suggest doing it yourself only because tiny parts tend to fall out when you don't know how to open it.
I suppose telling the time without ferreting about in your pockets and hitching up your overcoat while your hands freeze because you had to take your gloves off isn't a function then.
Wristwatches replaced pocket watches for a reason, kiddo.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Casio G-SHOCK GWM5610-1
http://www.shopcasio.com/produ...
Multi-Band Atomic Timekeeping (US, UK, Germany, Japan, China)
Receives time calibration radio signals which keep the displayed time accurate
Auto receive function (up to 6 times per day/up to 5 times per day for China)
Manual receive function
Signal: US WWVB, UK MSF, Germany DCF77, Japan JJY40/JJY60, China BPC Frequency: US 60kHz, UK 60kHz, Germany 77.5kHz, Japan 40/60kHz, China BPC 68.5kHz
Tough Solar Power
Shock Resistant
200M Water Resistant
Full Auto EL Backlight with Afterglow
World Time
29 times zones (48 cities + UTC), city code display, daylight saving on/off
4 Daily alarms and 1 Snooze Alarm
Hourly time signal
1/100 second stopwatch
Measuring capacity: 23:59'59.99"
Measuring mode: Elapsed time, split time, 1st-2nd place times
Countdown Timer
Measuring unit: 1 second
Input range: 1 minute to 24 hours (1-minute incremants and 1-hour increments)
Full auto-calendar (pre-programmed until the year 2099)
12/24 hour formats
Button operation tone on/off
Accuracy: +/- 15 seconds per month (with no signal calibration)
Battery power indicator
Power-saving function
Storage battery: Solar rechargeable battery
Approx. battery life: 10 months on full charge (without further exposure to light)
Module: 3159
Size of case/total weight
GWM5610 46.7 x 43.2 x 12.7mm/51.7g
Is that like DistroWatch, but where people track and rank nerds?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
^ That. Pebble does all the things people *actually* do with other super-powered battery-hog smartwatches (notifications, canned replies, a couple apps), but you get what you paid for (in money and charging worries). It doesn't duplicate smartphone functions - instead, it uses the smartphone's GPS, internet access and powerful CPU to do the heavy-lifting - the best apps are often "terminal-style" accessors for the powerful devices we have at our pockets but can't usually reach when wearing gloves, riding a bike or only having a split-second.
Unfortunately not an option anymore, unless Fitbit decides to launch a compatible device - after all, they *also* favor battery time and focus over feature-load. Who knows?
I use:
http://www.ringclock.net/
It just tells time. I wear it as a thing of beauty. It is expensive, but it attracts attention. People I am with have literally grabbed my hand and said "What is that?"
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
So, this is a bit of a repeat, but I'll answer as I did last time. I have a Citizen Eco-Drive Skyhawk:
https://www.amazon.com/Citizen...
Mine's a little different as I bought it as Service Merchandise which closed in 2002. I think I got it the year that they closed and paid $300 or $400 for it. It's still my watch.
It doesn't run Android or anything. But it has a slide rule around the bezel and is actually made for making some aviation calculations simple. It also handles all time zones, shows utc on the face at all times, has a couple of alarms, a countdown timer, and a stopwatch. It's solar powered and I've never replaced the battery. It's also water-resistant. I've never had trouble with the watch. I just now realized that it's 15+ years old, and has lasted far longer than any other watch that I've owned.
I know there are some amazing computerized watches out there, but a slide rule is the ultimate nerd accessory, right? Also, show me your second generation Apple Watch in 15 years.
Do you have ESP?
I have an Apple Watch and love it, but won't try to convince anyone here that it's the best (which I wouldn't know) but rather want to share how I use it:
- I bought it because I work at cafes and was tired of taking my phone out of my pocket to check notifications. It serves that purpose rather well.
- I use it a lot to set reminders with Siri. "Hey Siri, remind me to hang the clothes to dry in two hours", etc. I now try to avoid having to keep track of small things doing it "the cyborg way". In fact I just used it to set a timer for my tea. Siri supports some more surprising things (while listening to a podcast interview I said "Hey Siri, show me pictures of X (the person being interviewed)" and the face appeared on the watch) but I don't always realize I can use it for those.
- I often use voice dictation to reply to messages when walking around. I even picked up phone calls Dick Tracy style a couple of times when the phone was a couple of meters away.
- I use it to navigate with the maps when walking. I don't drive, but it's possibly useful that way as well. When walking long distances it's better to have the notification to turn around the corner on the wrist than on the phone in your pocket.
- I use it to track my hearbeat during trainings. It has a podometer function as well that stores the distance walked in the health app on iOS.
- I have the current temperature on the watch's face and tapping on that opens the forecast. I use that a lot.
- I didn't expect this feature, but it suggests standing up and moving around a bit for at least a minute every hour... and I love it. It's a very small thing, but helpful for us who work sitting down.
- When you charge it and set it on its side it becomes a bedside clock. I use that to wake up in the morning.
- The flashiest thing it does is acting as a remote of the iPhone camera, with a live video feed and all... it's handy to get group shots without setting the timer and running away into place.
As a Slashdot discussion grows longer, the probability of an analogy involving cars approaches one.
Seconded. I had the first-gen Vivoactive and loved it for the same reasons. I even developed a tide prediction widget for it and a simple watchface. Now I have a Tactix Bravo, which also has the 10-day battery and ConnectIQ, with the added bonus of doing GPS readings while swimming. It's amazing that companies like Samsung and Apple seem not to get what smart watches need to be, but much smaller "old tech" Garmin does.
Yeah, same. I thought at first someone was taking a swipe at Slashdot, like: "Hey, this site sucks as news for nerds. Got a better one?"
I don't see any point in a watch as a pure timekeeping device, as someone else pointed out, I have a hard time NOT seeing the time wherever I look these days. Primary reason for wearing one these days seem to be: fashion, fitness, or nostalgia.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
As an iPhone alternative:
Battery easily lasts a week.
Much cheaper.
Not nearly as bulky.
Things in common:
Can get notifications without pulling out phone.
I always have phone on silent and it's a nice backup.
Might not have phone on me but I can still see calls or messages nearby.
I do run and it's nice to wear a flipbelt and start/stop watch instead of armband.
Don't have clock in living room and often video games obscure computer clock.
Simply put, the best watch for a computer geek/nerd is a smart phone and it does so much more and has lots of screen real estate (bought a smart phone took off my watch and never put it back on again). The thing a least do with my smart phone though is send or receive phone calls. Have a habit of turning it off when not using it, I control my phone, my phone does not control me.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I'd recommend a watch that reminds some people not to "duh" much.