Today $300 or less can buy a watch that runs UNIX, can emulate any machine in 1981 in realtime, and stream data from the ARPAInternet over a wireless connection orders of magnitude faster than any leased line.
Sounds like a €30 smartwatch I've seen some 7 years ago. Yep, it costed that back then. It ran Android 4.4 and even the battery was user replaceable.
I think it was called QW09.
Unfortunately, I was 10 at the time, and €30 sounded like a lot to me, so I didn't buy it :(
I wonder if it would be possible to recreate something like this for real, with cartridges for each software/tool (like a gameboy or similar?), excluding the comically tiny keyboard probably :P
Every time I think about smartwatches, I just think about how much I miss Pebble. I loved my Steel and Time Steel, and was bummed that the company failed before the Time Steel 2 happened.
god, i loved my pebble back in the day. Had an OG and picked up a Time a couple years ago to try Rebble. It's nice but it's just not the same anymore...
What I want is a watch that looks just like old fashioned analog watches, does all of the fitness tracking you get from a modern Fitbit, and transmits it to my phone. I don't want a square watch or a digital display. I want classic beauty with tech under the hood.
I tried using an analog style watch face on my Apple Watch, but the rectangular digital screen + the need to charge it every single day just wasn't all that great
I traded it back in and reverted back to my Citizen Eco Drive (which is solar powered so I never have to worry about charging it) and is visible easily in sunlight
While I wouldn't call it classy I really like the familiar design of the garmin instinct. It's definitely a sports watch but as a woman I actually love it so much more than my fitbit versa 2. And I love my fitbit. Now it's still a digital watch not mechanical but I'm from the generation where they started making tamagochi etc when I was in middle school so it's pretty nostalgic to have a watch using that tech.
Folks who like this may like Watchy, an opensource smart watch with an eink display, WiFi, Bluetooth, and a 7 day battery life. I do not own one but it is a bit tempting. https://watchy.sqfmi.com/ make sure to check out the watch faces
There was an early smart watch released in the late 90s called the Ruputer or onHand PC. It had a small grayscale screen and a joystick input, and featured installable applications. There was a small but thriving development scene for it. I’ve wanted to pick one up to play with but they seem nearly impossible to find now, at least at a good price.
I wore a “data bank” watch around that time, which could store memos and phone numbers, typed in via a tiny phone style keypad. I also remember lusting after the Casio watch camera.