Citizen Eco-Drive Proximity: Your thoughts?

[flavoredair]

I'm a total gadget nut. iPhones, iPads, Kindles, Nooks, Digital watches of all flavors, several Eco-Drives, etc. Just love gadgets! So the news about the new Citizen Proximity - the analog bluetooth watch - caught my eye.

It's a neat concept but... am I the only one who thinks that something about the face doesn't look quite right? It just looks... odd. Something about the inner circle of the face. It just looks... I dunno... cheap?

Thoughts?

[bencayetano]

Is that ring the antenna? Not my style but it's always great to see development of new technologies.

[flavoredair]

Is that ring the antenna? Not my style but it's always great to see development of new technologies.

That's what my initial thought was. It's either an antenna, a very odd glass reflection, or just a very, very ugly face.

[Andrew McGregor]

It looks like that's a completely transparent dial, and you can see the whole of the solar cell beneath. I expect because they needed to maximise the power available.

[skyhawk818]

This watch does nothing for me at all. I hope citizen does not use this Technology in other watches! Hopefully, this will not sell well and will be forgotten. I would hate citizen to add this tech to the next Skyhawk. I am hoping for news of the satellite AT. Bluetooth= BAD IDEA!!! Especially created for only one phone!!!!

[Andrew McGregor]

I understand why iPhone 4S only... they needed bluetooth 4.0 to get the power demand low enough, and that's so far the only bluetooth 4.0 phone out there.

I also understand not liking the looks of the watch.

But why is the concept a bad idea?

[skyhawk818]

The concept is a bad idea because it limits the amount of buyers. For example, anyone that does not own the Iphone brand, cannot use this watch to the full extant it was made for. Now, if they made this watch so that ANY cell phone could hook up with the watch... that would be much better. I understand the technology only allows the specific version of Iphone, but then they could have waited until more phones could use the feature (even "flip" phones). If they used this tech in the next Skyhawk (which I HIGHLY doubt), I would not buy it as well as most of the other fans of skyhawk as well....

[Andrew McGregor]

I think you're not seeing the point... it only works with the 4S now. Next year, there will be a lot more potentially compatible phones. That isn't a reason to delay launching the product.

They simply can't make it work without Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy, it's not that they wouldn't want to. It's also not possible to make it work with just any cellphone... the phone has to be capable enough as well. That means iPhone 4S and later, Android once Google put BT 4.0 low energy support into it, and maybe someday Windows phones if there are ever enough of them to make it worth writing the software, and that is all, barring future plausible entrants to the phone OS market, which is presently unlikely.

Since when has limited compatibility limiting the number of buyers been a reason not to do something commercial, if the number of potential buyers is sufficient to make money doing it? Obviously, Citizen thinks there are enough. I expect the beancounters at Citizen are right, they're clearly not stupid.

[petew]

I think it looks cheap because of the transparent plasticky looking dial needed to accomodate the solar cell. Additionally, these dials sometimes create printing limitations so the fonts can't be as fine and crisp as what you would see on a conventional dial.

[watchma]

It's either an antenna, a very odd glass reflection,

Doesn't look any better head on - got the same "anomoly" present

Looks like it's been too near a heat source and it melted the display LOL

Using Bluetooth, the watch will sync its time and date from the phone, alert you to incoming calls, SMS messages, and e-mails. It will also tell you if you have a missed call

Ah so, it tells you when the phone that will be in your pocket has received a message or a call coming in ??
So your wrist goes off as well as your pocket? - sounds like a great feature and much needed LOL