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Comment by Stratoscope | Hacker News Reader

Try this exercise:

Hold your arm so a watch strapped on top of your wrist would be facing toward your eyes for easy viewing of its display.

If you have a smartwatch, or any kind of watch, you do this many times a day.

Now hold your arm in that position for 30 or 60 minutes to watch an entire TV show. You can take a break during the commercials.

Enjoying that? Probably not.

With a [smart]watch, you only glance at it a bit here and there. You don't try to view it continuously.

It is interesting to see a very clever product idea that completely ignores human anatomy.

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This assumes that this was intended as a truly practical item. However, this is a product of a watch manufacturer. Its usefulness is also defined in social terms. It's an expensive novelty item, a status symbol, a conversation piece, an icebreaker, etc, then it's also a practical item. This one doesn't achieve these social functions by mechanical complications, a multitude of jewels or fine engravings by monk-like artisans, but by putting the product on the very forefront of modern technological development, something that would be hard to catch up on by more traditional watch manufacturers. It's also a contribution to the ever-ongoing competition between traditional mastery and modern inventiveness and the struggle for status. – That said, I love this product as a period piece.

Just imagine what kind of statements this products allows its owner to make: You have made your fortune, as may be clearly seen by the fact that you could obtain this product. (That is, it was affordable to the middle classes, but who knows, this must have been as expensive as it is futuristic!) You are aware of and interested in modern developments, which probably relates to how you made your fortune. You're not someone who just inherited their wealth, indulging in sentimentalities. You care for hard facts. You are a modern business man. You are probably self-made. You are important enough to justify a significant investment to keep you as up to date as possible. It's of vital importance to you and probably an unknown quantity of dependents that you won't miss the news. You are always on the go and you have an extraordinary situational awareness. Etc, etc. Also, you are James Bond. (The Yuppiness of this item is quite immeasurable.)

Exactly. This watch was the Bored Ape NFT profile picture of its time. It shows you're rich and you're with / ahead of the current times. And in comparison to a bored ape, it cost less, could be taken to parties and other in-person social functions and you could even sneakily follow sports events during boring meetings.

I think, it's important to note that consumer goods in the 1980s were very much culture building (in the sense of terms like "nation building"). They allowed consumers to express themselves, to align themselves along a certain set of values, to show off, to organize in recognizable cultural tribes, they provided identity, etc. In a sense, 1980s tech was what the FB profile became to the internet generation. (I personally enjoy this cultural aspect.)

You get all that? All I get is "feckless blowhard".

Well, the night has just reached that imperceptible pivot where 2 am turns into 4 am (© Jay McInerney, Bright Lights Big City), you enter that downtown in-place and in effortless elegancy you navigate to the bar like Brian Ferry. Some say, you look like Mikey Rourke, while you haven't quite the looks (however, in a favorable light the mirror never lies, especially, when the hair style is just perfect). Casually you place your hands on the bar top, by this revealing your wrist – it's a Seiko TV watch! Clearly, you're not one of those indulging Patek Phillipe types, who just happen to retract their arms with a sour expression on their face. ;-)

There's a scene in season 1 of Halt and Catch Fire where rich grandparents give one as a gift[0], which seemed to say they felt that their daughter had married below her station.

0: https://www.theverge.com/2014/6/30/5855632/close-up-halt-and...

All true. Besides, you could take it off and place it in front of you.

This sounds very plausible. I wonder if it was the actual business case for making this watch. They must have had to justify the expense of development, I always wondered if they learn enough from the endeavour or gained enough from new tooling that that was the justification.

Yes. It's interesting to see so many replies in this thread completely missing the aspects you describe and only focusing on the practical usage of the watch.

I'll also add that bubble-era Japan was full of novelty electronics like this. Companies were investing heavily in R&D, and even if sales weren't great, these kinds of items boosted prestige and reputations for being cutting edge.

Not to mention these creates surely incorporated some R&D inventions that were then used in different, more popular and profitable products.

There’s no reason the face has to be on the outside of the arm.

I remember when we had the databank watches (in the 80s), we’d wear them on the inside of our wrists since they were easier to use. The arm is in a position not much different from holding a smartphone with one hand.

IDK, I mean...imagine you have access to a desk which can support a human arm... Or the top of your backpack sitting on your lap as you ride the train or bus.

Then imagine, additionally, if your brain didn't seem to mind watching TV at an angle, since it always watches it at an angle, just on a different axis of rotation, anyway.

IDK, some things are cool and also _just_ useful enough to be a no-brainer if you have the money. Throw in James Bond ads and you get a social utility bonus. Lend it to a friend in exchange for someone's phone number, or whatever. It's good stuff in lots of ways.

Agreed that it’s kind of ridiculous to assume you can’t rest your arm… people do with phones all the time. To be fair, old lcd displays did have a razor thin viewing angle.

The use-case of it could be to primarily listen and just glance occasionally, like an augmented radio. News and sports events could fit the bill for example - listen most of the time and take a look for 30 seconds when something interesting/relevant is mentioned.

Ah, now that makes sense! I was picturing actually watching a full TV show, but what you describe is very practical.

Maybe tiktok would have been invented sooner if a majority of people had screens strapped to their wrist.

One of the examples was showing a baseball match in progress. I imagine that would appeal to the Japanese "salary-man" where he could be commuting or even working and keeping up with what is happening out on the pitch.

This is probably the primary use case. Although modified FM radio receivers could easily receive analog TV audio it just would be a harder sell.

Also, sometimes companies do things just to show off their capabilities to the market, especially Japanese companies. Sony were the kings of this tactics back in the day.

As a side note, in the typical western FM band allocation (88 - 108MHz), the analog TV audio carrier for channel 6 would be located just under that (at 87.7MHz), and since most radio receivers could go a little under and over that range, most people could listen to channel 6 audio on the go.

This generated an entire market of "TV" stations who's main purpose was to broadcast audio, in the United States they were nicknamed "Franken-FMs".

Who says you have to be wearing the watch while you are using it? Do you hold your phone in your hand for 30-60m when watching an "entire TV show"? I sure don't! I prop my phone up against something just like I'd do with a TV watch.

I’m not a baseball fan, but this seems like the type of thing that could be good to sneak the game in when a person is dragged to a function they don’t want to be at. The typical radio + earbud in all the sitcoms is fine, but being able to quickly check out your wrist to see a play, or replay seems like it would make it a lot better, while still being discrete.

You carry it on your wrist, but that doesn't mean you need to watch it on your wrist.

Even if it is a watch.

That's a good point. When I used to wear an old Casio digital watch, I would often take it off my wrist if I was going to do any serious timing with the stopwatch.

Of course if you're going to take it off your wrist for any serious viewing, they could have just put a bigger LCD on the tuner device itself, since you have to carry that anyway.

But that wouldn't have the "wow" factor of a TV watch!

When I used to wear a digital chronometer/clock (ahem!) I totally took it off for serious timing. And it was all so serious, when you were the holder of a timer that counted milliseconds.

When I was, I guess, grade 5 a kid showed up at school with a "TV watch". It didn't require extra connections, it tuned in OTA broadcast TV (basically CBC, at the time). This would have been in the early 80s.

I have no idea where he go the watch or how. They were a lower income family and lived in very modest circumstances but he always had the latest and greatest, brought it to school, caused a huge commotion, and would have the device taken away (think personal sized PacMan consoles, sling shots, those robot toys, etc).

It did work. The way it was used was a ton of kids would crowd around this guy and watch a grainy, poorly rendered, CBC program with faint sound (I recall a headphone jack), and we marveled at how cool it was that he could watch TV at school. Unfortunately, nothing interesting would ever be on, and the teacher took it away immeadiately.

When I was at uni, I made an AR app intended for the iPad, that would let the user walk around a specific part of Brighton and see historical facts as overlays on the screen.

One of the early feedback comments was that it was quite exhausting holding out the ipad for more than a minute at the time.

This comment resonates well!

Now try it while sitting - rest your arm across your folded leg, or on the arm of the chair, or hold the rail/handle on the train/bus, etc. etc.

I doubt you'd want to stand to watch regular TV, so why assume you'd be standing to watch a TV on your arm?

>Enjoying that? Probably not.

As a kid? Immensely.

Definitely. As a high school kid in the early 90s a classmate once had a pocket sized TV. The tiny screen and terrible viewing angle didn't stop us from crowding around it during break time!

Do you enjoy holding your smartphone? Do you enjoy holding your smartphone up to you face to watch a video?

I don’t know if many people enjoy it, but I see people do it every day. Sometimes you can

And you know, if the watch is really that uncomfortable when you’re holding it up for watching TV, you can even take it off!

> It is interesting to see a very clever product idea that completely ignores human anatomy.

I guess you don’t use, for example, laptops?

You never went to a baseball game, and you are under 40?

You would normally see people with portable TVs, so that they could see the TV broadcast, hear the color commentary, and catch instant replays. Having a watch with small dongle receiver, with low weight and low power consumption, is so much MORE convenient than lugging the shoebox-sized TV around.

I can imagine similar convenience on a train commute.

> Now hold your arm in that position for 30 or 60 minutes to watch an entire TV show. You can take a break during the commercials.

It could work for porn.

But since this was getting OTA signals, is there anywhere in the world where porn was broadcast (unscrambled)?

You've missed the selling point, which is watching sports on your wrist. For the Japanese, that's sumo and baseball, mostly.

Neither requires you to pay full attention to your wrist for 30 minutes.

Not that this was a wildly successful product, but the point wasn't to watch a sitcom, complete with commercial breaks, without moving.

I wear my smartwatch on the inside of my wrist. I've always worn my watches on the inside. When I was super cool in middle school I wore my calculator watch on the inside too. And my daughter actually wears hers on the edge of her wrist.

I would definitely be comfortable watching on my wrist.

True. I never find a watch comfortable to watch. Everything is called a ”watch” and not a”glance”.

Rotation is more comfortable the other direction. The under arm makes a lot more sense for a “smart”watch, or at least a device that requires input

Isn't under-arm the classic position for race car drivers?

I'd imagine if the main purpose of the watch is to watch TV, I can wear it on the inside of the wrist, making it very comfortable to watch for a long time.

That's basically the position when I hold my phone in my left hand anyway.

I see this more for entertainment on public transportation, waiting rooms, etc. for short 10-20 minute spurts. Holding your phone in front of your face is similarly uncomfortable, but we all do it.

If the screen was on the bottom of your wrist you could probably rest your elbow on your knee or elsewhere comfortably for a that length of time and watch that way.

Given the number of people that watch full length movies while holding a smartphone up to their eyes I don't think that's the main limitation.

When I use my apple watch to watch videos (reddit client for instance), I rotate it, so it's on the bottom of my arm. That works a lot better.

It was good enough to be featured in a James Bond movie.

For many companies, I think that's the only kind of thing they care about.

They definitely got that product placement for free, and the license to the movie clips for their advertisement. Wait...

You could just cross your arms and look down. This is not unlike how (some) people use smartphones or read a book.

If it was rotated 90 degrees and could be rotated to the inside of your wrist that could work pretty well.

Seiko should have just placed the screen on the contraption that the watch needs for TV-reception.

The watch form factor allows you to have it with you.

You can remove it from your arm for longer viewing sessions.

People pay good money for calisthenics exercices. This watch does for free.

Same thing applies to touch screen laptops. No one ever uses it.

You would be surprised.

I have a neighbor who only uses the touchscreen on their ThinkPad, except when they have to type something.

The other day I stopped by to help them troubleshoot a problem, and they had to do a password reset.

They touched the Old Password field on the screen and typed in their old password on the keyboard. They touched New Password on the screen and typed in the new one. Of course then they had to touch the second New Password field on the screen and enter it again on the keyboard. Finally they reached up to touch the OK button on the screen.

I mentioned that they could avoid going back and forth between screen and keyboard by using the Tab and Enter keys. They asked, "What are those?" I pointed them out on the keyboard and explained what they do.

We will see if the message got through. Hopefully with some gentle encouragement over time, it will.

My real point is that yes, some people do use touchscreen laptops.

That reminds me what a revolution it was when "point and click" became a thing.

I remember being at a college computer lab and watching someone trying to use the mouse on the Mac while holding it suspended in air. It made Scotty's mouse moment in Star Trek IV completely understandable.

My wife was a devotee of the touch screens on her Windows laptops (she had an HP and a Surface), although now she seems to use her iPad (with smart keyboard) exclusively except with rare sessions at her desk to use the laptop.

She always tends to tap the screen when she uses one of my Macs. It was fascinating during the early days of the pandemic seeing my kids (who were in kindergarten at the time) adapt more easily to trackpad+keyboard on the Mac vs touchscreen on iPad than she did.

You could have said the same about any laptop.

Do you enjoy a keyboard that ruins your hands and a screen that ruins your back?

it's also a toyish choice to put the screen on the watch instead of simply on the additional receiving device. doesn't make much technical sense.

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