Calculator Watch

Are there any geeks out there (of course there are, this is the empegbbs) that know about calculator watches?

I want a calculator watch with the following features:
1) Backlight
2) add-subtract-multiply-divide calculator (no more than that needed)
3) Alarm
4) Countdown timer with chime when finished
5) Stop watch
6) Mildly water resistant (5 feet would be more than enough)
7) Hourly chime
8) Date/Weekday calendar
9) Oh, and I guess it should tell me what time it is.

I don't want data storage, multiple alarms, multiple languages, multiple time zones, all that fancy stuff that my now-deceased Casio used to do.

Is there such a watch?

EDIT Thinking about it, it doesn't need the calculator. I hardly ever used the one on my old watch, I just liked the geekiness of it.

tanstaafl.

Well, the modern wonder device for the wrist would be an Apple Watch of recent vintage.

The downside* would be that it really wants to be paired with an iPhone. Mostly for the initial configuration , but also so it can use the iPhone as a liaison to the internet.

* Of course it will also cost Apple Watch prices, and the rechargeable battery will begin to fade in a few years

Upsides would include not only a wide array of Watch apps, both built-in and from the App Store. But many of the apps can be voice invoked and/or controlled. Having a live GPS full-on map app on one’s wrist seems like living in the future.

Many iPhone apps automatically sense when a Watch is configured so the iPhone alerts can appear on the Watch, and often the iPhone app can be responded to using the Watch.

For those that are iPhone allergic, I am unaware of the state of things for non-Apple wrists.

I used to love my calculator watch. Then I loved a watch which stored a list of phone numbers in it. Then I loved my Timex Datalink which updated its address book by scanning bar codes off the CRT monitor. That was wild!



If you think about it more, do you really need any of that stuff on your wrist at all any more?

I made that choice after having a smartphone for a little while. It did everything any watch ever did, and more, and I soon realized that I didn't actually want to have something attached to my wrist 24/7. I ditched watches altogether, and never looked back. It made me instantly happier.

For telling time, I don't actually need to know the time of day at an instant glance to my wrist. The only situations where I truly need to know the time, I can usually find a nearby clock in my field of vision, or, take the extra moment to lift up my phone, or extract it from my pocket, and look at it. Maybe I need to know the time less often than other people do.

I'm with Tony on that one.

But we don't know if Doug actually carries a smartphone around. Maybe not, which is why a useful watch is wanted.

Yes, I do. Reluctantly. I am a confirmed Luddite and grumpy old curmudgeon, and the only thing I do with the phone is carry it with me as an emergency device when hiking in the mountains, and occasionally it makes noise and I take it out and talk to someone, and very occasionally take it out unbidden and talk to someone else.

I must have looked at my bare wrist 50 times the other day when I did not have my watch. Fortunately, I was able to resuscitate it. When I reassembled it, it did not seal properly (the little O-ring gasket was worn and stretched enough it didn't fit properly in its channel) and got wet inside when I showered. I dried it out, it came back to life, and I reassembled it, this time with some RTV silicone to help out the gasket.

The original battery lasted seven years. I may be good for another seven.

tanstaafl.

The beauty of a simple small device is the huge battery life compared to a smart watch. Makes sense in Doug's scenario, but I do wonder why people with smart phones still wear watches.

And I wonder why someone would dig through their pockets, purse, or (in my case) a belt-mounted carrying case, dig out the phone, turn it one, maybe load some sort of timekeeping app, to fin out what time it is, rather than taking a quick glance at their wrist.:)

tanstaafl.

True, but I've never really worn a watch, except when travelling (pre smartphone).

Recent model iPhones (and others) have always-on displays, with the time visible. Glance at the screen, the time is visible.

Many people look at their phone screen many, many times per day. Mostly for things other than the time, but the time is generally also visible.

So digging out the phone is often a quick motion, almost muscle memory.

Recent model Apple Watch is similar.

I wear an old analog watch. I often don't have my phone in my hand. At night (and being too nearsighted to read a clock) a barely glowing watch is nice to check the time on.

Yeah, I'm a luddite.

I keep a little illuminated clock on my windowsill, not bright enough to be bothersome but easily read from five feet away.

One night it showed all Fives, and I got so excited I jumped out of bed, ran and got my camera and snapped a picture before it changed to 5:56.

It takes very little to entertain me!

tanstaafl.

A handful of thoughts:

The universe of WearOS is likely to have a calculator app, out there somewhere. It's also fairly straightforward to build your own. Alternatively, most "smart" devices support speech input, which helps for the occasional calculations.

Speaking more broadly, I've had some sort of smart watch since the start of WearOS in 2015. I'm currently wearing a Garmin Fenix 5S+ from 2018. It's less "smart" than the Apple or WearOS watches, but gets a week of battery life, even after five years of daily use.

The true killer feature is simply getting your text messages on your watch. And that's not even the really killer part of it. It's that all the social cues around looking at your watch still kinda fit. Like, you're signalling that you're taking your attention away from someone you're talking to, without the level of disengagement that comes from staring at your phone.

Alternatively, if you're going for nerd cred, it's hard to beat a Nixie tube watch (e.g., https://niwa.watch/) or even a classic digital watch (e.g., a $20 Casio: https://www.casio.com/us/watches/casio/product.A158WA-1/; similar guts are also available as a G-Shock model with solar charging and atomic clock radio time sync).

I wear a non-smart watch every day. Certain areas of work there are no personal devices that can store or transmit data allowed, so any phone or smart watch are out.

Other times, if I'm just running away from my desk quickly, I will leave the phone at the desk. It is a lot larger than a watch, and I'd rather not carry it with me if I don't need it.