
The Wristwatch Looks For a New Use - robg
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/the-wristwatch-looks-for-a-new-use/
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WalterBright
I carry a phone that'll tell me the time. But I wear a wristwatch because I
can tell the time at a glance. I don't have to dig in my pocket for the phone,
open it, and peer at it. I can tell the time while driving, my watch is right
there. I can tell the time while jogging without having a phone flapping
around in my pocket. I can check the time when my hands are carrying things. I
can unobtrusively check the time. I can read the big face with hands on a
watch faster than I can read the numerals off of the rather busy face of my
phone. The battery on my watch dies once a year. It dies every other day on my
phone. I don't have to remember to charge my phone.

I.e. my phone tells the time, but it's a lousy watch.

I'm old, too, and stuck in my ways. So there!

~~~
edanm
"But I wear a wristwatch because I can tell the time at a glance."

Incidentally, this is one of the main advantages of _not_ wearing a wristwatch
- I'm less stressed about the time.

I do wear a wristwatch when jogging though.

~~~
electromagnetic
I never wear a wristwatch so I don't stress about time and rarely ever have.
I'm generally always early, which makes me even less stressed about time.

~~~
jpwagner
You're hired!

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hapless
The wristwatch is jewelry. Its primary purposes are adornment and display of
wealth.

Your gadget just has to be cooler and more ostentatious than one of my present
wristwatches. It's not about being useful. You don't have to do a better job
of telling time, or run applications, or try to supplant my phone.

~~~
rexf
Agreed, watches are no longer for keeping time. Phones have long taken over
that role.

In fact, my watch still gets worn after the battery died. (Hard to explain,
but the OLED time shows up after a button press
<http://www.google.com/images?q=DZ7080>)

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sbierwagen
(Tired counterexample to an overbroad generalization:)

I'm 22, and I wear a wristwatch. I wear an expensive wristwatch, actually,
that's solar powered, radio synchronized, has a barometer, etc. If I had a
wristwatch that merely _told the time_ , however, I might not bother.

~~~
Zev
(As another counterpoint)

I'm 21 and I usually wear a wristwatch. I wear an expensive wristwatch,
actually. All it does is tell the time. It isn't solar powered, it doesn't
synchronize with a server somewhere based on nuclear time, it doesn't even
have a chronometer. If it had more features and did something _other than tell
the time_ , however, I might not bother.

~~~
kilian
I'm 22, and I think we have the same watch. I wear it merely as a fashion
statement, and indeed to quickly check the time. That's it.

Mine plays pong as an easter egg though.

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ratsbane
A purely mechanical wristwatch is a marvelous thing. I frequently use my phone
to tell time, but when my Nexus One battery went dead on a long flight
recently I was glad to have the spring-powered backup on my wrist.

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Groxx
That doesn't look like any version of Doom I've ever played.

~~~
bad_user
It's more like Wolfenstein 3D, without the enemies, the objects, the guns, or
the wall textures.

I guess these people never played Doom.

~~~
derleth
> It's more like Wolfenstein 3D, without the enemies, the objects, the guns,
> or the wall textures.

It reminds me of the maze screensaver from Windows 95, without the wall
textures or the objects.

If they added enemies, objects, and guns, they'd have Faceball 2000, an FPS
for the Game Boy that supported deathmatch mode (wasn't called that then, of
course).

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yason
I've never really figured out _why_ wear a wristwatch. I think I last had one
when I was in elementary school, early 90's. By high school I had dropped the
habit.

I don't care about glamorous shiny and expensive things, so that's no reason
to wear a watch, really.

I rarely need to check the time and whenever I do, I can usually just see it
somewhere: the city is full of clocks, especially the places where you might
want to know the time, like tram stops and subway stations.

When I'm at work my computer conveniently tells me the time so that I can
appear at a meeting roughly on time.

If I really, really need to have the time then I can use my cellphone. Well, I
don't have my cellphone with me all the time, so I can't always do that
either. Especially if I'm going alone and have no rendezvous coming up, I
don't have it.

If I'm cycling around on a summer day, that's usually without the watch I
don't have and without the cellphone I don't want to carry with me, so I can
usually tell when it will soon be the evening and to turn my heading back to
home.

A few times I've just asked for the time. That's quite as low-tech as it goes.

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ConceptDog
I actually just recieved my Sony LiveView in the mail today. Worn like a
watch, it's more of a phone accessory than anything else. I can get updates as
to phone calls, messages, and twitter, all without pulling out my phone which
is usually buried in my pocket or in my jacket pocket.

The wrist is prime real estate for devices now. If apple didn't have a plan
for this, I'd be shocked.

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erohead
And our team is usually right here on HN (alright, maybe a bit too often). Let
us know if you have any questions about inPulse.

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erso
I recently spent $1500 on a NOMOS Tangente wristwatch. The Tangente is a
manual-wind, mechanical wristwatch with an in-house movement. Based on the
comments I've seen so far, most of you will think I'm crazy.

I bought it partially because I just wanted a nice watch (the jewelry factor),
but also because I didn't want to dig around in my pocket for my phone.

"But it's less accurate than a quartz watch!"

True, but absolute accuracy is not what I was going for when I bought the
watch. When I look at it I'm looking more for the general position of the
minute hand than exactly what minute it's on.

I find the ticking it makes to be calming and the exhibition back fascinating
to look at. Taking 10 seconds in the morning to wind it to me is an enjoyable
part of getting ready each day.

I'm sure some, or even many people will still think I'm crazy. C'est la vie.

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sabj
Just today I was thinking again about how I wanted to find a watch that would
make me happy. I have felt all my life that watches are unfortunate devices
which shackle us to schedules, Time, work, etc. But since I'll be graduating
and starting a job soon, there may be some semi-legitimate use for one.
Checking cell phones for the time isn't ideal, though it generally suffices.

I traditionally gravitate towards nice analog watches and nothing else, the
slimmer and less outrageous the better. If I were to buy something else, I
might consider something zanier - like a watch that only told me the cycle of
the moon - but I'm not sure what kind of statement I want to make. I find
myself therefore caught in between two worlds of watch-wearing...

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jamesbkel
I spent the better part of the last decade without a wristwatch, mainly
because I thought my phone was good enough.

However, about 2 years ago I reverted back to wearing a watch. I went with a
Swatch Skin... extremely minimalist & thin watch that weighs almost nothing.
As one of my friends described it, "it's not really a watch, but more like
just having the time on your wrist".

I've really enjoyed not having to dig out my phone to check the time. I used
to think the convenience was trivial and there was no reason to wear a
watch... but I'm pretty sure I was wrong.

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axiom
Wow, congrats to the InPulse team!

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ghshephard
Some have attacked Kurzweil for considering his prediction that "People will
be wearing computers in the form of jewelry and clothing" [1] as a successful
prediction. But, if he wasn't correct in precise time, he certainly will be in
form.

[1] [http://singularityhub.com/2010/01/19/kurzweil-defends-
predic...](http://singularityhub.com/2010/01/19/kurzweil-defends-predictions-
for-2009-says-he-is-102-for-108/)

~~~
ekidd
In fairness to those criticizing Kurzweil, the timing of his predictions
_does_ matter, because he's arguing that technological growth is a fast
exponential, leading to super-human intelligence by 2040 or so. So if he's off
by 5 years on wearable computers, he might be off by 40 years in his ultimate
prediction, or growth might be an s-curve instead of an exponential.

~~~
Estragon
Sloppy reasoning. "Past results are no guarantee of future performance."

~~~
ekidd
No, I really think that Kurzweil's claims of a technological singularity
within our lifetime are extraordinary enough that he should be held to very
strict standards of timing and prediction. Good grief, the man eats strange
nutritional supplements by the handful in hope of living an extra 10 or 15
years and thus, by his theories, living forever.

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d8niel
This is just the start of using mobile watches to talk to phones, computers,
you name it! These guys have great vision!

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tomjen3
I stopped wearing a wristwatch since it is enormously uncomfortable typing on
a laptop with one. I still keep one in my coat pocket, but I rarely use it
anymore.

I wish I could get a nice, cheap pocket watch like the ones they used to use
with a three piece suit.

~~~
zbyszek
I have been carrying a pocket watch for over a decade. They need not be that
expensive; I bought one as a gift a couple of years ago for about £25
(~USD40). I guess it depends on the amount of niceness you require. They are
readily available on the high street where I live, or on the net of course, so
go and have a look.

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motters
I don't think that wristwatches are going away any time soon, due to their
convenience factor, but they probably will accumulate more functionality and
could be used in future as a digital wallet, a P2P data server or a phone.

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maayank
Since I know that both teams are lurking here:

If an inPulse watch had an accelerometer and could double as a WakeMate
(connected to their iPhone app and website, etc.) it would be great.

Just sayin'...

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pella
another hacker watch ( $49 )

 _"The eZ430-Chronos is a highly integrated, wearable wireless development
system that comes in a sports watch. It may be used as a reference platform
for watch systems, a personal display for personal area networks, as a
wireless sensor node for remote data collection, or simply as a watch."_

<http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/EZ430-Chronos>

~~~
limmeau
Somebody has ported Google two-factor to it: <http://tnhh.net/pancake/chronos-
otp.xml>

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metageek
A week ago I got my first Android phone. One thing that my Nokia N86 did
better was that I could hit the button on my headset and say, "What time is
it?".

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RK
Called me old fashioned, or lazy, but I hate reaching into my pocket just to
check the time. A Casio watch fits the bill perfectly.

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ceelee
I've had the chance to play with these watches, and I'm seriously impressed.
This is going to be huge.

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swah
I'd be very happy with a watch that displayed what Growl displays on my
laptop.

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georgieporgie
In an utterly opposite-topic vein, I've recently discovered the joy of
automatic, mechanical watches. No battery, no electronics, no manual winding.
They're just a spring, gears, and a rotor that 'charges' the spring when you
move your arm.

Sure, I have a mobile, but I feel a bit silly digging in my pocket when I just
want to check the time. Plus, there aren't many non-tacky forms of jewelry for
men. Finally, there's just something neat about a completely mechanical
solution which is simultaneously old-tech (concept) and high-tech (execution).

Searching for "Seiko 5" on Amazon turns up a lot of options, and the core
mechanism has been around since the 1960s. My absolute favorite automatics are
the Seiko SKX007 and 009 dive watches, which seem to be unrivaled in value for
money.

I'm very curious if this old-tech option appeals to the 20-somethings as much
as it does to me, a guy who grew up when digital watches and (gasp) calculator
watches were the coolest thing on the planet.

~~~
WalterBright
I have a self-winding watch in a drawer. I abandoned it because it wasn't
accurate. I had to reset the time every day. I love the cheap quartz watch I
have. Big face, big hands, can tell the time without my glasses on, incredibly
accurate, $20, with a button for a backlight.

~~~
georgieporgie
The Seikos are supposed to be accurate to within +/- 5-10 seconds per day. You
can't beat quartz, though.

~~~
InclinedPlane
So it's off by half an hour to an hour over a year? That's pretty shoddy
accuracy if you ask me, especially in an era where clocks accurate to the
second are ubiquitous and cheap.

~~~
georgieporgie
Sure, if you never adjust your watch for a year. The whole point is how
amazingly accurate it is for a sub-$200, _purely mechanical_ timekeeping
device. Besides, it's pretty common for super-accurate quartz watches to
become wildly inaccurate about once per year (dead battery)...

