High-Tech Timewear

Ever wanted more out of your watch? You’re not alone. The world of super high-tech watches is awash with innovations and creations left and right – some of them things the average person would never dream of putting on their wrist. Although a few of these features may be just a tad over the top, they prove that watches are just as much a part of the high-tech craze as iPods, Bluetooths and tiny computers, and that, most importantly, they’re not just for telling time.

Watches made for serious athletes are bursting with super-functionality and additional gadgets such as chronometers, thermometers, odometers, depth and altitude indicators for divers and hikers, GPS systems, heart-rate monitors, compasses and special light displays for night-ops or other nocturnal activities, to name just a few.

Suunto is a Finnish company that manufactures sports instruments for training, diving, mountaineering, hiking, skiing, sailing and golf. One of their flagship devices is a complex dive computer, which, of course, also tells the time. Its SME dive computer was first launched in 1987, with technology to help divers calculate the safety duration of a dive and the decompression time. In the late 1990s, the company combined its dive computer with an electronic compass, creating the Suunto Vector, a wristop computer measuring air pressure and altitude, helping predict changes in the weather, and displaying direction and time. In 2004, Suunto introduced the D9, the first piece to combine a dive computer and a digital compass.

For dry-land sports nuts, Suunto has released a series of training products, such as the t6, a heart-rate monitor that gives sports laboratory-quality measurements on training and its effects on the user’s fitness and real-time information. It also gives advice, just like a real-live coach. The Suunto Core is a watch with a contemporary design and the “advanced ABC” – altimeter, barometer and compass – functions.

TechEBlog, a blog featuring news and information on the tech and gadget world, have compiled a list of seven high-tech watches “you can’t buy” – in other words, these are watches that have been invented and manufactured, but they’re not currently available for retail.

These include an iPod watch (basically the screen and Mp3 playing technology of an iPod on a wrist strap) and the Monaco V4 Concept watch, which ‘uses belts instead of gears,’ creating a lot less friction than cogs driving one another. “To generate energy,” they say, “a platinum ingot slides back and forth as you move your wrist. A series of 0.5 millimeter-wide belts transfer this energy to four spring-wound barrels. The barrels employ more belts (13 in all) to run a balance wheel that translates this energy.”

There’s also the PC Watch, a seven-ounce wrist piece boasting a 2.8-inch touch screen LCD display, a slot for an SD card, WiFi, USB, Bluetooth, a GPS receiver and support for Linux or Windows CE operating systems.

For those who actually want to buy, Japanese company Thanko retails a FMP3 watch ($109-$143, available in Japan) with 1 GB of memory, an internal FM tuner and USB connectivity, making file transfers a cinch.

A bit more mainstream, Sony Ericsson has created a Bluetooth watch that can display caller ID information below the watch face, allow the user to block calls by pressing a button on the side of the watch, send an alert to the watch when a new text message is received and control the music functions on the phone with the push of a few buttons (much like an iPod shuffle, but wireless and worn on the wrist).

A Chinese technology wholesale company – Chinavasion – sells extreme high-tech watches with a whole gamut of functions that go way beyond telling time. These “watches,” if they can even be called by such a simple name, have an information capacity ranging from one to five gigabytes. Just a few of their basic features include Bluetooth A2DP transmission (advanced audio distribution profile – technology that enables users to stream music through a Bluetooth device), AVI/Xvid and DivX (video playing formats) and OLED (organic light-emitting diode) screen technology.

The company also manufactures a metallic silver watch with a hidden 1 GB Mp3 player, 5 EQ (equalizer) modes to choose from and an FM tuner for listening to the radio directly from the device. “This fashionable geek gadget [has] other such features as its MIC and Line IN audio recording in WAV format, its water resistant and shock proof design for everyday wear, and the ability to connect with the latest OS (operating system) including Microsoft Vista.” And don’t forget, these watches also tell the time.

LED Watch Stop, a company that manufactures watches with retro LED displays, has created a piece very much resembling those slap bracelets from the ‘80s and early ‘90s. Although LED display is nothing new, this silicon “wriststrap” is all face – it tells the time with two lines of LEDs that light up according to their numbers. The top line goes from zero to 11, and the bottom line, from zero to 30. It is apparently designed for active people, as it’s encased in a waterproof silicone case that curls around the wrist. It also runs on rechargeable batteries, which are re-juiced by placing the watch every once and a while in its case. It retails for $189.

Aside from Mp3 players and Bluetooth technologies, a few companies have launched computer watches and wrist devices that function more like PDAs or even tiny, wristwatch-sized personal computers than devices for telling the time.

A Japanese company created the “One-Seg” (or Wan-Seg) TV Watch, a pocket TV/Cell Phone in the form of a watch, for those who are into oversized watches. According to Engadget.com, the TV watch picks up digital broadcasts, which the wearer can view on a large flip screen, is available in three different colors and, with the insertion of a Willcom W-SIM card, turns into a (quite impractical, it seems) cell phone, which all wraps around your wrist. The watch is rather large, with a 2.4-inch (6.1 cm) screen and “beefy” dimensions of 2.3 x 3.5 x .88 inches (5.8 x 8.9 x 2.2 cm), weighing just over four ounces total. There’s no word on if you’ll have to make a trip to Japan to snatch one up, or even how much dough you’ll have to shell out.

The OnHand PC, created by Japanese company Matsucom and launched in the Americas in the early part of this century, is, as the name suggests, a computer for one’s wrist – not a new idea when one recalls the Timex Datalink, a watch released in 1994 with the ability to perform data transfers with a computer. It is a close relation to the Seiko Ruputer, which is sold only in Japan, and, as vnunet.com, a technology industry news source, says, “Strap this on, and you’ll be able to out-geek anybody on your block!”

The wristwatch-computer includes a 3.6Mhz, 16-bit CPU, with 128 Kb of SRAM and 2MB of flash memory. A tiny “joystick” (pointing device) allows the user to navigate the 5-line, 20-character screen, and entering data into the watch is enabled by hooking it up to the PC by placing it into its docking port, which hooks up with a nine-pin serial lead. And just when it seemed like that was quite enough, the watch also has the ability to communicate with other OnHand PCs.

Although most of these functions are features the majority of people never even thought they’d want to have on a watch – much less need – these watches aren’t about necessity, but about super functionality. For all their nifty gizmos and gadgets, the general consensus seems to be in line with that of The Economist, which said, “In recent years there have been several attempts to boost the appeal of watches by adding exotic new functions, from telephones and televisions to personal organizers.

“But so far, none of these super-watches has been a hit with consumers. Manufacturers, it seems, have tended to ignore obvious practical limitations, and have failed to exploit the unique position of the watch – right there on your wrist.”