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Ask HN: What are some geeky wrist watches?

46 points| theinterjection | 8 years ago | reply

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

47 comments

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[+] begemotz|8 years ago|reply
Casio still makes many versions of the databank watch and, imo, you cant get geekier than that. https://www.casio.com/products/watches/databank
[+] theinterjection|8 years ago|reply
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".
[+] joekinley|8 years ago|reply
Currently on IndieGoGo which I am totally rooting for: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/watchx-wearable-developme...
[+] mxuribe|8 years ago|reply
Wow, that's cool! Though I second the request on some sort of protective case or something.
[+] TomK32|8 years ago|reply
Looks awesome for hackers, specially if you add some decent case and protective glass to it.
[+] palyancodr|8 years ago|reply
Thank you, we are glad that you liked watchX.
[+] Tcepsa|8 years ago|reply
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...

[+] danieltillett|8 years ago|reply
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-...

[+] dagw|8 years ago|reply
Or, if you have happen to have infinite money lying around, a Hublot MP-07 :)
[+] vram22|8 years ago|reply
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.

[+] workmandan|8 years ago|reply
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.

[+] mcjiggerlog|8 years ago|reply
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.