Casio, always pushing the edge of what you can do with
a wristwatch, surpassed themselves a few years ago. They developed and
released an entire line of "Wrist Technologies." This series of
watches offered a standard digital timepiece, along with a unique feature on
each model. One watch was a universal TV remote, one was an mp3 player, and yet
another took small digital photos. The focus of my fascination was the PC
Unite watch. The PC Unite was essentially a small electronic organizer loaded
onto a watch. It came with easy-to-use and configure software which allowed
data (contacts, to do, calendar, etc) to be exchanged with the PC or handheld
computer. The data was easily viewed on the watch with the push of a few
buttons.
I stand by my evaluation that the software that came with the
watch was reliable and easy to use. My experience with the hardware aspects,
however, were not as favorable. To transfer the data from the PC to the watch,
a small infra-red device was included in the package. This IR device came with
drivers for Windows 95/98. If you install the device in Windows 98 and upgrade
to Windows 2000, you can continue to run the IR device. My problem came when I
had to carry out a fresh install of Windows 2000. After hours of searching the
Casio and other websites, I was unable to find a Windows 2k/xp driver for the
device. Being the Geek that I am, I engineered my own "fake" drivers, which
worked. Strike 1: A consumer product should not require a computer
professional to creatively engineer drivers to make it work.
Strike 2 was the memory capacity. I was only able to fit ¾ of my
contact list and 2 weeks of appointments onto the watch. Invariably, the more
data I put on the watch, the "sync" time grew near exponentially (y=3
(x^(3/2)+b). Also, large quantities of data would drain the battery at much
accelerated rates.
Strike 3 in baseball is fatal to your attempt at bat. In Kevin's technology
world, strike 3 is usually not fatal. In the case of the Casio PC Unite, it
was. Along the way, the watch would occasionally report "lo cell"
which is it saying its battery was dying. The alert would go away after a
few minutes. Older model Casio DataBank's ® had the same problem, usually
when they were too hot. After about nine months of this, the PC Unite's screen
was blinking. All my data was gone, and the time was in need of correction.
After a few weeks of this happening almost daily, I changed the battery. The
problems continued with several good batteries. My conclusion is the processor
or memory was damaged as it would keep time perfectly, without fail, if no
data was loaded. This, however, made the watch all but useless to me.
Casio made some major innovations in the watch world with the "Wrist
Technology" series. While other users are satisfied with their WT
watches, I am not. The piece is now in my graveyard of miscellaneous failed
hardware
awaiting placement in someone's museum.
___
Kevin Martin is Whim's Resident Geek. He makes a great hardware beta tester, but so far no companies have been willing to put their devices into his sometimes rough hands.
I stand by my evaluation that the software that came with the
watch was reliable and easy to use. My experience with the hardware aspects,
however, were not as favorable. To transfer the data from the PC to the watch,
a small infra-red device was included in the package. This IR device came with
drivers for Windows 95/98. If you install the device in Windows 98 and upgrade
to Windows 2000, you can continue to run the IR device. My problem came when I
had to carry out a fresh install of Windows 2000. After hours of searching the
Casio and other websites, I was unable to find a Windows 2k/xp driver for the
device. Being the Geek that I am, I engineered my own "fake" drivers, which
worked. Strike 1: A consumer product should not require a computer
professional to creatively engineer drivers to make it work.
Strike 3 in baseball is fatal to your attempt at bat. In Kevin's technology
world, strike 3 is usually not fatal. In the case of the Casio PC Unite, it
was. Along the way, the watch would occasionally report "lo cell"
which is it saying its battery was dying. The alert would go away after a
few minutes. Older model Casio DataBank's ® had the same problem, usually
when they were too hot. After about nine months of this, the PC Unite's screen
was blinking. All my data was gone, and the time was in need of correction.
After a few weeks of this happening almost daily, I changed the battery. The
problems continued with several good batteries. My conclusion is the processor
or memory was damaged as it would keep time perfectly, without fail, if no
data was loaded. This, however, made the watch all but useless to me.