Ask HN: What are some geeky wrist watches? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What are some geeky wrist watches?

46 pointstheinterjection47 comments

I'm looking for a digital watch that has functionality like an hourly chime, alarm clock, and reminders. When looking purely at functionality, I have no trouble finding this, but there are some aspects of regular watches that I don't want to give up either.

Functionality-wise: I want to hold on to the long battery life of regular watches. It doesn't need to last a year on a charge, but longer than a month would be nice.

In terms of style: a lot of the watches are designed to look expensive. I'm talking about things like glossy screens, fancy modern designs, and metallic bodies. These are things I want to avoid. I like the retro designs of the watches listed here[1], for example, with black, plastic bodies, and low-resolution screens.

Basically, I'm looking for a computer watch, which was the precursor to smartwatches. Is anything akin in that vein still being produced?

1. https://www.pcmag.com/feature/265834/12-ultra-nerdy-watches-of-yore

Casio still makes many versions of the databank watch and, imo, you cant get geekier than that. https://www.casio.com/products/watches/databank

As a kid I cried for years and finally got this https://www.casio.com/products/watches/databank/cmd30b-1t

I totally used that watch to shut off random TVs in public places! nostalgia

Truly the Chieftain's Toy.

This is what I was looking for, thank you. I'm getting the DBC-32-1AES. It gives me extra nerd cred for having a model that ends with "AES".

Elliptic Curve Cryptography is the only standard I believe in :P

Currently on IndieGoGo which I am totally rooting for: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/watchx-wearable-developme...

Looks awesome for hackers, specially if you add some decent case and protective glass to it.

They will provide 3d case data to make your own cases

We will provide the exact 3D model of watchX. 3D model has everything including resistors and capacitors on the real watch. We encourage you to draw the case you need based on your application. Please see this video: https://youtu.be/bHaP2b0yczk it's an interesting use of watchX. You can also see the 3D model on the video. We will provide different reference designs on our web site as well.

Wow, that's cool! Though I second the request on some sort of protective case or something.

Thank you, we are glad that you liked watchX.

You kids can keep your integrated circuits.

http://www.cathodecorner.com/nixiewatch/

I just got a Pebble 2 SE and loving it so far. I even wrote a little timer app for it; getting set up was comparatively straightforward and the API seems to be really well designed. Fun to be doing something in C again, though there's also a JS route for folks who are more comfortable with that path. The company was recently purchased by Fitbit and they are going to end official support for the Pebble devices so things like voice recognition are going to stop working. However, they released a firmware that removed the dependencies on their servers and there's a pretty substantial grassroots effort to keep things moving forward. I like it enough that I'm thinking about buying a couple more to keep in deep storage for when my current one dies. I imagine it's hard to find a more capable watch for $60, though I haven't done a super exhaustive search.

https://www.pebble.com/pebble-2-se-smartwatch-features

https://www.amazon.com/Pebble-Technology-Corp-900-00057-se/d...

Casio Gshock solar powered watch with an actual GPS chip and radio receiver. http://www.casio-intl.com/asia/en/wat/watch_detail/GPW-1000-...

Geeky in a very different way: I get a kick out the true atomic watches ala Bathys https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/introducing-the-bathys-ces..., though Hoptroff begs to differ... https://www.hoptroff.com/collections/atomic-timepieces/produ...

Not radio controlled, but actual atomic-based frequency drivers.

I know, not really what you mentioned, but cool nonetheless.

What could be more geeky than a red LED Texas Instruments $9.95 watch from the 1970's?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Texas-Instruments-Series-500...

https://www.ti.com/corp/docs/company/history/timeline/eps/19...

Hmmm. I wonder if there'd be a market in recreating that style of push-button LED watch.

Nah.

/me thinks about how much volume it would take to make it worthwhile selling at a $100 price point.

Casio still makes the "casio classic" which is exactly what you're thinking about and is still a pretty popular watch.

I have a Hamilton Pulsomatic [0] in my collection and for geekiness it is pretty high up the tree. A digital watch that you don’t need batteries for is very nice and it gets a huge amount of (male) attention.

As an aside I have never had a woman ever comment on any of my watches - it really is a male thing.

0. https://shop.hamiltonwatch.com/hamilton-collection/american-...

Or, if you have happen to have infinite money lying around, a Hublot MP-07 :)

Well I am a few zeros short of infinite, but my hamilton does come with a 120 day power reserve :)

This is not the same as what you want, but I'm mentioning it here because it is about watches, and a bit cool (IMO):

A while ago I needed a new watch, walked into a Tata Titan showroom (India) and saw some kids watches of a Titan brand or line called Zoop. Liked the bright colors and the simple designs of some of them (they have more complex ones too), and bought a couple of them to use.

Googling for "Titan Zoop watch" and clicking the Images tab will show some examples.

Might be able to get them outside India too, via Amazon etc.

I have a couple of old (now discontinued) Tokyo Flash[1] watches. They are pretty neat and unique.

[1]https://www.tokyoflash.com/

'Click watch' seem to make some amusing looking ones http://www.click-watch.com/shop_cat.php?CatID=1

I think the nixie watch from http://www.cathodecorner.com/nixiewatch/ seems my favourite though.

An old school Casio is a great choice. I've had a F91W for ages and the battery last years. Cheap too.

https://www.amazon.com/Casio-F91W-1-Classic-Resin-Digital/dp...

It has an hourly beep and an alarm but no reminders.

What I'm really waiting for is the F91W of smartwatches. I want subtle smart integrations like sleep tracking, heartrate monitoring etc but with a simple, always on screen and hardware buttons.

The Pebble watches were getting close but they were still way too big for my taste, and still too expensive.

DIY? Found this: https://github.com/carrotIndustries/pluto

But they've made different design decision:

Q: Why is there no accelerometer? A: Accelerometers are the most useful when they're permanently active for applications like sleep trackers, pedometers or features like "shake to do something". Unfortunately, even accelerometers marketed as "ultralow power" draw approx 30 µA when running, draining the CR2016 coin cell in less than half a year. So we decided to dedicate the available space to a digital compass.

I've this - https://www.adafruit.com/product/495

Google showed me this - https://www.tokyoflash.com/en/watches/

This one just came up on Kickstarter today. Long battery life of 2 years. Hybrid analog + digital.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/858167610/swings-worlds...

I have the Casio B640. Has a countdown timer and the current time is shown in the top right when in the other modes.

https://www.casio.com/products/watches/classic/b640wb-1bvt

Try searching for binary watches.

http://www.ebay.com/bhp/binary-watch

This is also a goldmine: https://www.tokyoflash.com/watches

Hello, This is Mustafa, Co-Founder of watchX, https://igg.me/at/watchx/x . watchX is definitely a geek watch. I would like to answer your questions if you have one.

Hi, This is Mustafa, Co-Founder of watchX: https://igg.me/at/watchx/x . watchX is definitely a geek watch:) I would like to answer your questions if you have one.

I wish this thing had made it out of crowd-funding hell:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/920064946/oscilloscope-...

Sure would love to wear it!

Doesn't have your requirements but cool as hell Urwerk UR-202 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5MExuc0hxg

The casio database is probably what you're looking for. They had a few different models but most deleted your list above. Luckily Casio still makes them, should be easy to find on eBay.

Typo* Casio Databank: http://www.shopcasio.com/category/watches-databank-watches

Casio's g-shock line of watches should have something that matches your needs. Or perhaps a Casio Protrek PRW 2500. These watches also have solar cells so the batteries last for ages.

Does anyone remember Timex Datalink? You held it up to a CRT (only works with CRT!) and the screen would flash some kind of coded lines which the watch would read to transfer your data.

Nixon Dictator - https://www.stuff.tv/nixon/dictator/review

I used to have the Casio Flip-Top Database watch (first entry on the pcmag list). The flip mechanism wore out after a couple of months so I wouldn't recommend such a mechanism.

I have a Junghans solar powered radio controlled watch. Plainly black, but it's made from space shuttle grade ceramics and it's only nerdy once you talk about it ;-)

Just googled and read about it (to get what radio-controlled meant), sounds really cool.

https://www.junghans.de/en/junghans-news-press/artikel0/36/N...

I wear http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/ivsp/

That watch skipped the forehead and jumped to fivehead.

Chronos from TI is a great hackable watch cf. http://www.ti.com/tool/EZ430-CHRONOS

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