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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Amusingly, the Casio G-Shock has been made more expensive. That thing solved timekeeping. Rugged, solar-charged, corrected from radio time signals, and under $100. At last, the zero-maintenance accurate watch.

But not expensive enough, so they now have models up to $500.

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For what it's worth, there's still a <$100 model with all those features.

https://www.amazon.com/Casio-G-Shock-GWM5610-1-Tough-Solar/d...

It's worth noting that not everywhere has a time signal to sync from. Notably, Australia. In those places, if you want a watch that doesn't need manually setting you either need to get one that syncs with your phone, or one that can receive GPS signals. Both exist.

The watch you linked has the 3159 module which really hits the sweet spot for features. You get radio sync, daylight savings, world clock, stop watch, 4 alarms, snooze, and countdown timer.

It is my beater watch but I end up wearing it more than any of my automatics. I keep my world time set to UTC which is great to have while digging through server logs. The alarms are nice. I use the countdown timer for pomodoro. Best part, it is always accurate and I never have to set it.

My only complaint is the backlight only stays on for 1.5 seconds.

There is a similar module with bluetooth, but I think the only feature you get is the ability to make the backlight last longer and to manage alarms.

Anyway, I highly suggest that one if you need to add a square to your collection. There are some better looking ones, I'm going to buy the all black, negative display one next. Searching gw-m5610bc should get you to it (but make sure you get the one with the radio. there's a cheaper all black one that doesn't have the 3159)

>At last, the zero-maintenance accurate watch.

I imagined this to be the case when purchasing my $500 solar G-Shock, but it needed the battery replaced every 3-5 years, and the work had to be done by an authorized Casio repair center; local watch repair people refused it.

The rechargable battery for one of these is literally $10 on eBay, and I can't believe there wasn't anyone around you willing to fit it. I can believe larger chains refusing it, but come on, a small jeweler or watch repair shop would have done it I'm sure.

Anecdotally - I've had my solar powered Edifice watch for 10 years now and the battery still works fine.

>The rechargable battery for one of these is literally $10 on eBay, and I can't believe there wasn't anyone around you willing to fit it. I can believe larger chains refusing it, but come on, a small jeweler or watch repair shop would have done it I'm sure.

I went to a Macy's watch repair department, a well-known jewelry store, and two small watch repair shops (the "old man in a tiny office in an office building" type) highly ranked on Yelp. All refused.

>>All refused.

Did they say why? I'm not surprised the large store did, but the "old man in a tiny office" type shouldn't have - why did they refuse? The only reason I can think of is if the battery is soldered on, but otherwise how is it different than replacing any other type of battery. I know my Edifice watch uses a regular button-type battery, it's just rechargable, but it's not soldered on or anything.

>Did they say why? I'm not surprised the large store did, but the "old man in a tiny office" type shouldn't have - why did they refuse?

If I recall correctly, they said that they could not remove the case back and guarantee its waterproof integrity.

So it had nothing to do with that specific watch or its rechargable battery then - clearly none of those people repair any waterproof watches.

A number of watch stores in my area won't replace a battery in any watch. It's not because they're not able, it's because they've been burned by people who claim that the store ruined an expensive watch while changing the battery.

It's a liability issue, not a capability issue.

That's....crazy to me. Here in UK we have a chain called Timpsons and all they do is repair watches, shoes, keys etc, smaller jobs like this.

If it really is a liability issue, then it's solved the same as with literally anything else in the world - you sign a little piece of paper that releases them of liability. Done. When I bring my own brake pads to fit to my car at a nearby garage they just make me sign a paper that they don't and won't accept any responsibility for fitting my own pads. Problem solved.

Yeah when I got the battery in my gf's Galaxy S8 changed, the repair shop had me sign that there's a chance the phone won't be 100% afterwards and that I accepted this risk. Seemed reasonable enough, if I hadn't liked those terms I could have walked out the door.

That doesn't surprise me. Back in the dim and distant past, I worked in a store where one of my jobs was changing watch batteries. I was given a Watch Back Remover tool and shown once how to use it: that was the full extent of my "training".

So, if we got a watch that didn't have a standard back, we just wouldn't bother with it. However, for the G-Shock, it looks like it's a really straightforward job that should take you 5 mins to do yourself. Looks a lot easier than any laptop repair/replacement job for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGkFYVpDv-k

It also had the problem where it was larger than my arm, but some people like that?

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