6 ms·

The Wristwatch Looks For a New Use

81 points by robg 16y ago

sbierwagen 16y ago
(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 16y ago
  (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 16y ago
    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.
axiom 16y ago
Wow, congrats to the InPulse team!
ratsbane 16y ago
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.
hapless 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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 http://www.google.com/images?q=DZ7080)
RK 16y ago
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.
georgieporgie 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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 16y ago
    The Seikos are supposed to be accurate to within +/- 5-10 seconds per day. You can't beat quartz, though.
    - InclinedPlane 16y ago
      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 16y ago
        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)...
WalterBright 16y ago
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!
- haribilalic 16y ago
  It's not polite to check the time when you're with company, but it's a hell of a lot less rude to do so on a watch than a phone.
  - rjprins 16y ago
    I don't know.. When you look at your phone, people can assume you got a message or something. Looking at your watch can really only mean one thing.
    - haribilalic 16y ago
      I'm okay with people having a schedule and that sometimes they squeeze me in between appointments — all of my friends work or study — but I'm less okay with people engaging in a conversation with other people or checking their email/Facebook/Twitter.
    - joshd 16y ago
      To me checking a message is much more rude than checking the time. It's actively stating "I have more important people to talk to than you".
      - ZoFreX 16y ago
ghshephard 16y ago
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-predictions-for-2009-says-he-is-102-for-108/ http://singularityhub.com/2010/01/19/kurzweil-defends-predic...
- lotusleaf1987 16y ago
  The Casio calculator watch, among others, has been around for a long time now: http://www.amazon.com/Casio-CA53W-1-Twincept-Databank-Ani-Digi/dp/B000GB1R7S http://www.amazon.com/Casio-CA53W-1-Twincept-Databank-Ani-Di...
- ekidd 16y ago
  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 16y ago
    Sloppy reasoning. "Past results are no guarantee of future performance."
    - ekidd 16y ago
      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.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
sabj 16y ago
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...
erohead 16y ago
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.
ConceptDog 16y ago
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.
ceelee 16y ago
I've had the chance to play with these watches, and I'm seriously impressed. This is going to be huge.
d8niel 16y ago
This is just the start of using mobile watches to talk to phones, computers, you name it! These guys have great vision!
tomjen3 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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.
pella 16y ago
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 http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/EZ430-Chronos
- limmeau 16y ago
  Somebody has ported Google two-factor to it: http://tnhh.net/pancake/chronos-otp.xml http://tnhh.net/pancake/chronos-otp.xml
Groxx 16y ago
That doesn't look like any version of Doom I've ever played.
- bad_user 16y ago
  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 16y ago
    > 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).
jamesbkel 16y ago
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.
motters 16y ago
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.
yason 16y ago
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.
maayank 16y ago
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'...
erso 16y ago
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.
metageek 16y ago
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?".
swah 16y ago
I'd be very happy with a watch that displayed what Growl displays on my laptop.

81 points by robg 16y ago

(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 16y ago
(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 16y ago
  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.

axiom 16y ago

Wow, congrats to the InPulse team!

ratsbane 16y ago

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.

hapless 16y ago

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 16y ago
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 http://www.google.com/images?q=DZ7080)

RK 16y ago

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.

georgieporgie 16y ago

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 16y ago
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 16y ago
  The Seikos are supposed to be accurate to within +/- 5-10 seconds per day. You can't beat quartz, though.
  - InclinedPlane 16y ago
    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 16y ago
      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)...

WalterBright 16y ago

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!

haribilalic 16y ago
It's not polite to check the time when you're with company, but it's a hell of a lot less rude to do so on a watch than a phone.
- rjprins 16y ago
  I don't know.. When you look at your phone, people can assume you got a message or something. Looking at your watch can really only mean one thing.
  - haribilalic 16y ago
    I'm okay with people having a schedule and that sometimes they squeeze me in between appointments — all of my friends work or study — but I'm less okay with people engaging in a conversation with other people or checking their email/Facebook/Twitter.
  - joshd 16y ago
    To me checking a message is much more rude than checking the time. It's actively stating "I have more important people to talk to than you".
    - ZoFreX 16y ago

ghshephard 16y ago

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

lotusleaf1987 16y ago
The Casio calculator watch, among others, has been around for a long time now: http://www.amazon.com/Casio-CA53W-1-Twincept-Databank-Ani-Digi/dp/B000GB1R7S http://www.amazon.com/Casio-CA53W-1-Twincept-Databank-Ani-Di...
ekidd 16y ago
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 16y ago
  Sloppy reasoning. "Past results are no guarantee of future performance."
  - ekidd 16y ago
    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.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

sabj 16y ago

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...

erohead 16y ago

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.

ConceptDog 16y ago

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.

ceelee 16y ago

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

d8niel 16y ago

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

tomjen3 16y ago

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 16y ago
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.

pella 16y ago

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

limmeau 16y ago
Somebody has ported Google two-factor to it: http://tnhh.net/pancake/chronos-otp.xml http://tnhh.net/pancake/chronos-otp.xml

Groxx 16y ago

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

bad_user 16y ago
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 16y ago
  > 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).

jamesbkel 16y ago

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.

motters 16y ago

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.

yason 16y ago

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.

maayank 16y ago

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'...

erso 16y ago

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.

metageek 16y ago

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?".

swah 16y ago

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