Watches
Children of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s will likely remember the craze that was slap bracelets, those oh-so-trendy fashion accessories whose stainless steel spring bands allowed them to wrap around a wrist with a simple slap. Ritmo Mundo has brought back the slap bracelet and added some extra functionality with its Reflex watch that lets you know just how far gone that misspent youth is. Read More
Design studio Tokyo Flash accepts concept watch designs that can, if rated highly enough by visitors to its website, be turned into real, purchasable products. The latest design to be submitted, by "Alan from the USA" is based on two classic science fiction movies - Tron: Legacy and 2001: A Space Odyssey. And it's really rather stunning. Read More
Dedicated wrist-worn timepieces can be unquestionably beautiful (the Blue Ocean Watch or Zenith's Defy Xtreme, for example) but today's discerning gadget-lover requires much more from their wrist candy. The iPod Nano can already be made into a pretty decent digital watch but it doesn't (yet) have built-in Bluetooth connectivity so can't connect with the ever-present smartphone like the various flavors of the I'm Watch can. Smartwatch veterans Bill Geiser and David Rosales have just launched a consumer version of their open source, developer-focused, Bluetooth-connected watches. The STRATA is being billed as the first iOS 6-compatible smartwatch on the market and has already more than doubled its funding target on Kickstarter just a few days after its campaign launch. Read More
We have commented before at Gizmag at how the luxury watch business can seem to the uninitiated to be an ever-spiraling vortex of pointlessness. Take the latest creation from TAG Heuer. A mechanical watch/chronograph that can time events to 1/2000th of a second. But why? Human reaction time makes it useless and crystal/electronic timers can provide even greater accuracy. For the “haute horologist” the achievement is its own reward, but there are practical spin-offs; TAG-Heuer has essentially re-invented the mechanism that’s been at the very core of mechanical watches for over 300 years. Read More
As someone of a certain age, as a young child I was taught how to read the time using an analogue dial on a clock or watch. I suspect things are a little different now, with kids more used to digital displays on computers and smartphones. But I have some not-so-fond memories of trying to grasp the concept of the minute and second hands on an analogue display. How different my childhood could have been had someone, somewhere designed a watch with one hand rather than two. Read More
Garmin signals its entrance into the outdoors GPS watch segment with the fēnix. Despite its annoying punctuation and emphasis baggage, the watch appears to be a fully featured and functional wrist top for the outdoors set. More than just a watch with a GPS chip, Garmin sees the fēnix as a hands-free navigation solution. Unlike its existing GPS sports watches, the Fenix (we've humored Garmin long enough) offers a more robust feature set that will navigate you into and out of the wild. Read More
GPS watches already come in all shapes and sizes (at least if you consider "heavy, square brick" and "massive discus" all shapes and sizes). Now they have a gender. The new Bia sports watch claims to be the first GPS sports watch designed for women, by women. In addition to bringing a little estrogen to a testosterone-dominated market, the watch adds a slim form factor, a separate GPS-GSM unit and a smart set of features. Read More
BASELWORLD, held in Basel Switzerland, is an annual watchmakers and jewelers exhibition where over 100,000 buyers from all over the world descend to check out the coming year's new product. Literally hundreds of new watches are launched at the fair from dozens of manufacturers including big-hitters Rolex, Hublot, Breitling, Patek Phillipe, Tissot and Glashutte. We've assembled a gallery of the most notable releases in 2012, which includes the most innovative, most beautiful, most expensive and most ugly ... and the last two categories are embodied by the same watch! Read More
The argument that new technology somehow tarnishes sport as a purely human endeavor has created controversy in swimming circles and the like. We average golfers, on the other hand, need all the help we can get. Garmin's latest effort in getting you to the green takes the functionality of its handheld golf GPS units and puts it on your wrist - the S3 touchscreen GPS golf watch. Read More
Japan’s Tokyoflash has made a name for itself with numerous weird and wonderful – or maybe baffling - ways to tell the time. Now, bringing to mind Homer Simpson’s quote of, “From now on Honey, we'll be spelling everything with letters,” when Marge is impressed by a house that has its street number spelled out with letters, German design agency Biegert & Funk is set to release a wristwatch that fancies things up by telling the time in words. Read More
