Watch Out! Watch On!

After an eager month-long wait, my gift to myself finally arrived — the legendary “Casio Royale”. I gifted myself a “Casio Royale” to celebrate the successful  outcome of the months of effort put into the admission process.

It’s time to bid farewell to my old Casio F91w for the new upgrade, Casio AE1200. I still love digital watches. What is its super power? It tells time just like what a watch is supposed to.

I got into the habit of always wearing my watch from my mom. Initially, I wanted to emulate her. Now it is so much of a habit that you can essentially call it a prosthetic.  I hardly ever remove the watch. It stays on my body 23 hrs a day. The colour of my arm is a testament to it. So, a new  watch would make for a perfect gift.

I needed a watch which was light, low maintenance and rugged. Just as an upgrade I wanted to have world time. I am feeling international now. I reasoned that I need to check at least two different time zones constantly without having to subtract 4.5hrs or worrying about DST.

This watch in addition to these features also provides 5 alarms. Provision to toggle DST(daylight saving time) for each time zone separately. Quickly switch home time zone, stopwatch and timer. Two bright leds. I think the only feature it lacks is the ability to launch missiles!

Smart watches can do a whole lot more. I have quenched my curiosity for these watches by gifting my wife one. But I couldn’t make myself to like it.

Firstly, I expect a watch to tell time. Just when you need to check time, smart watch might remind you that you have been lazy and walked only 1000 steps today. It sends you on a guilt trip instead of telling time.

Then the watch face. Unlike the smart watches the vintage watches can’t have their faces changed by a theme change. The design of each aspect of the watch face had to be deliberate and usable and yet fashionable to be liked by the majority of the population. So you can feel assured that the designs function well.

Finally,  the biggest problem with smart watches is that they need constant charging. Smart watches are a joke when it comes to this department. The longest you can expect for a smart watch to remain charged is around a month or two. Contrast this to my earlier F91W or the new AE 1200 which has a battery life of 10 years! They will out last the straps of the watch itself.

Making a good product takes a lot of effort. The model AE1200 was launched in 2012 and my previous watch F91W in 1989. The attention to detail like the change of beep sound when you complete loop through all modes, the choice of buttons to control modes, the led placement and the accuracy of the clock is very inspiring. It tells you that there was a team who engineered the product so well that it survived the test of time for so many decades.

Today I am feeling very proud wearing this watch. I had to source it from someone who traveled from US. The third thing which I have ever imported in my life. The first two were a Kenwood Radio and an ADSB dongle. It was totally worth the effort and time.

One day I would love to engineer a product as refined as this – just like those brilliant minds at Casio behind these watches.