Fossil/Palm PDA Watch Reviewed

SLiK812 writes "Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal has a pretty good review of Palm's and Fossil's new wrist PDA. We all knew some time ago that this was coming out, and was initially covered last November and briefly last month. This is the first review I've seen, and Mossberg does bring up some interesting points, both good and bad. Definitely worth the read before buying it."

I can't imagine

that this thing is going to sell very well. It doesn't even look like it would be easy to use. And as I recall the battery only lasts like 48 hours. I wonder how they ever got this idea to market...

Not sure how needed it is

In terms of coolness factor its a 10, But looking at all the pictures I have seen I am not sure how usable this really is. Sure it has all of the Palm features but its so small, my blind eyes would probably have trouble reading anything without stairing. More impotantly for the price, I would rather have a refurb Handspring Edge and get one of those wallets that has room for my palm if I really needed to keep my palm with me all the time (which is infact how my current setup is. I would rather the USB watch anyday over this one

the importance of good editing

...even in major newspapers. There are many interesting things about this watch/PDA I always wanted to know, but the fact that "The watches...come with a tiny stylus" is a little more personal than what I wanted to know.

My Plam Pilot is a real fossil

I have an original Palm Pilot. I should probably upgrade that some day.

This won't be a problem for this group!!

And if you make a watch too large or weird-looking, the wearer can look so geeky that he may never get a date.

I LOVE MINE

The Fossil
wrist pda
is very co
nvenient i
f you dont

mind a ver
y small di
splay area
and a tiny
stylus.

But it is
so very st
ylish and
gets me la
id daily.

Perfect for haiku

Fossil PDA:
Looks very
high-tech,
but it's
Super hard
to use.

Re:Perfect for haiku

Fossil PDA
An ocean of circuitry
But what time is it?

Re:World's Smallest Spam Whisked daily to your wri

STYLUS-EN
LARGER!!!
add THREE
INCHES to
your styl

us!!

Just a little too small

It's a great idea, but it's just too small. I hate the cell phones that attempt to cram so much into such a small space, or the laptops that cram a 1600x1200 resolution into a 15" monitor. With only 2MB of memory and an extremely small screen in a relatively bulky enclosure, I just don't see this as a great product.

It definitely has its uses, but many would be well suited with a larger Palm Pilot or PocketPC.

Don't RTFA, this sums it up

"Fossil Watch Has Awkward PDA, But Comes With Cool Style Feature"

Summary: Functionally clumsy, but it looks cool!!

Re:Don't RTFA, this sums it up

Summary: Functionally clumsy, but it looks cool!!

That watch is my polar opposite, it seems. (probably true of most geeks).

Fashback to the 80s!

I saw those pda/watches and my 1st thought was the old lcd "draw the numbers on" calculator watches were making a comeback.

Mmmm..big and ugly, where do I sign up?

Delays?

Hrm, according to other sources [theregister.co.uk], the relase date for the pda/watch is delayed until 30th September.

Company name change?

"VA Linux" changed its name to "VA Software" when they started selling non-linux things.

So "palm" has to change its name to "bodypart" since they start selling things you don't use in your palm.

Best suited...

For those people who think that a calculator watch just isn't quite geeky enough.

Yeah, right.

For those people who think that a calculator watch just isn't quite geeky enough.

Uh huh. And the rest of us look like James Bond with our tri-corders clipped to our belts, right?

Meh.

Y'know, some combinations make sense, but aren't really meant to be.

Traditional PDA screens are about as small as you can go while still retaining a reasonable degree of usability. Get a watch that's too large, and it's no longer anything that you want to wear on your wrist.

While the entire concept of being able to wear your gadgets on your wrist is cool, it takes more than simply saying "I'll meet you halfway" to design such a device. Simply put, the PDA is too small, and the watch is too big for most people to be interested in this device.

Unless you're dealing with a very limited input style--think at most four or five buttons and maybe some form of roller switch--it's going to be nearly impossible to develop a viable wrist-worn device that relies on tactile input. Data storage, sure. Even limited data output is doable--an iPod-esque control system could be adapted to a wristwatch, and one can create relatively unobtrusive displays for a watch (without too great of expectations for resolution, readability, or volume.) But trying to drop a PDA into a watch--that's just too much fine motor control and tactile interaction in too small a space to be practical.

Re:Meh.

The way I interpreted the article was this:

Rather than be put off by the "lack of Palmness" and expectations that it will be a substitute PDA, consider it a watch that happens to run Palm OS.

Now, if you don't expect to perform input on a watch, then don't. Instead, you can write a Palm OS program and download it to the watch to have as your watch "face." You want a Matrix-like falling digit clock? Write it. You want a port of the Dali clock, with constantly morphing digits? Port it. You want to write a Tetris clock-game, where the falling blocks are shaped like numbers? Cool. You can even push the buttons on the side to play a little game. Thne, when you want to run OmniRemote to change the channels on the TV in the bar, fine. It runs, it's Palm OS.

Just don't expect it to be your be-all/end-all PDA and it won't disappoint you.

DISCLAIMER: I work for a company who has a retail division that sells Fossil watches. However, I am not trying to shill these watches in order to get you to buy one; I'm just pointing out that they are not as useless as they look as long as you lower your expectations. I personally won't buy one for the same reason I won't buy a PalmOS / cellphone combo: they are two different devices serving two different functions using two different human interfaces that only share a common need for internet connectivity. Viva la Bluetooth!

Re:shortcomings

Imagine a hot girl at Starbucks asking you the time

This is slashdot. What makes you think most readers are capable of imagining CONVERSATION with a hot girl?

Sheesh...

As it it wasn't hard enough to get a date, now they want me to strap a PDA to my wrist. Yeah, that'll reel 'em in...

Already a knockoff version

While I think a watch is one of the ideal places to keep a data device - since you always have it with you (the other being a keychain), I don't see the point of paying a $100+ premium for a fashionable one over a functional one - no matter what you are going to be considered a geek for wearing one these, that you paid $295 [amazon.com] for a Fossil branded PalmOS watch versus $179 [amazon.com] for a Abacus branded one, only makes you look like a geek that is careless with his money.

Two handed use...

I found entering text, and even accurately tapping on items on the screen, to be awkward and frustrating -- especially with the watch on my arm, but even when I removed it to hold it with both hands.

Yeah, I've always had the same problem with my regularly sized Palm. Whenever I hold it using both hands, it is damn near impossible to use the stylus with any accuracy, much less trying to write letters. However, I don't suspect Palm is going to fix this anytime soon. My inclination is that they will just wait for users to evolve a third hand. Even then, I suppose you will have people trying to hold their Palms with all three of their hands.

Battery

Assuming I would want to wear an ugly huge watch (that's a personal opinion of couse) that's called "Fossil" and is MSN-enabled (uuh), I have a problem with such small devices that have an internal battery.

From the specs page :

POWER REQUIREMENTS : AC power adapter (100V-240V), DC output (4V-9V), Lithium-ion rechargeable battery (internal).

BATTERY LIFE : 4-5 days (based on average use of 30 minutes per day with no backlight or IR)

Right, so in real life, if I was to use the thing normally, with backlight at night and syncing with my desktop with IR, I'd say I'd probably have to charge it up every 2 or 3 days. Given that a real-life Li-Ion batteries have a typical life of 300 recharge cycles (yes, you can get more out of them, but you have to be *very* careful when you charge and for how long, which isn't always practical in a consumer device), especially since it's probably a super-small fragile battery, that means the battery will have to be changed after 2.5 years of use at most.

Do I want to see the face of the watch repairman when I bring him the Fossil for a battery change? Do I want to see the bill when I have to send the watch back to Fossil for a battery replacement? No.

So, no PDA watch for me. Nosiree ...

Does this somehow mean

that Flava-Flav will now hang an iBook around his neck?

What about lefties?

I'm left handed, and I wear my watch on my left wrist... so am I supposed to change which wrist I wear my watch on after 20 years?
Should I try graffiti with my right hand? I have a hard enough time with my left.

Puhlease

Palm pilot...$70
Palm pilot watch w/ almost no features...$300
Look on wife's face...priceless.

I actually have a use for this!

It's for tennis. I'm going to program it to keep score/stats for me. After every point, I'll indicate whether I won or lost and why (eg, double-fault, forced error, unforced error, service winner, ace...) Then it can sync with my computer and over time I'll have in-depth statistics on my match, so I can compare myself to Agassi and see the precise scientific extent to which I suck. I'm assuming, of course, that I can actually program the thing. And that it's water resistant. Hm.

Pretty good review?

I hope that meant that the review was a good one, and not Mossberg's reaction to the watch. To sum up Mossberg's review, the device is clumsy as a PDA but its only redemming feature is that you can change the face! Not much of a thumbs-up for the Fossil.

Among Mossberg's comments about the watch:

• "The Wrist PDA is a big, bulky watch with an electronic screen for a face."
• "[The stylus] is easy to lose, so Fossil supplies a free spare."
• "The Wrist PDA is much harder to use than other Palms or Palm-compatible devices."
• "I found entering text, and even accurately tapping on items on the screen, to be awkward and frustrating"
• "I found the rocker switch that you use to navigate around the screen to be stiff and its surface to be slippery"

Now in all fairness, keep in mind that Mossberg is in his 50's, and that's not Fossil's target audience of 20-something, eagle-eyed early adopters. So his first experience should be taken with a 30-year-old grain of salt. But I think I'll let some other people "early adopt" this one.

Author in awe... of standard Palm feature?

From the article:

But the most interesting feature of the Wrist PDA has nothing to do with the Palm functionality. In watch mode, when the thing is just telling time, you can scroll through and select from a wide variety of different watch-face designs. This is the first watch I know of that lets you pick the way its face looks and change that look as often as you like.

Well, duh! It's a Palm, so of course you can make the watch have whatever face you want!

My Palm III (all of $11 on eBay) has multiple clock faces, too -- Analog [palmadd.com], Big Digital Clock [gacel.de] with world time and weekday-only alarms, another Analog [astraware.com] version, and my favorite, the Hell Clock [minordemons.com] with built-in countdown to Halloween. "Hell Clock" is the one that I like to beam to the cell phones at the Verizon store, to give them more "visual interest".

I'd have dozens more, but I lost interest after four. And I didn't pay one red cent for any of 'em (all were freeware at the time).

My Grandma once said...

"Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

Well, I think she was referring mostly to posted speed limits, and how she would commonly drive 5-10 mph under the limit, but...

...this also applies to PDA's worn on the wrist.

Pssst!

Hey, buddy...wanna buy a Beowulf cluster of these?

walter got lucky to get one

amazon.com revised its shipping date to 30th of September. http://www.i4u.com/article489.html [i4u.com]

Crazy Interface Idea

Part of the problem, as people have mentioned, is that the screen is simply too fscking small. Too small to do really look at data (address books, etc), too small for input (stylis or not) - just too small.

It almost seems to me that we need to wait until we have an interface that can be built on the fly - say, a hologram idea.

Now, let's pretend that this actually works, and, a la Star Trek style, ignore the science: you have a flat pane of the watch that normally tells time. At the touch of a button, an interface appears over the watch that is about the same size of a standard PDA screen. It is able to sense the location of objects moving over it, so you could "touch" the images with your fingers, "scroll" through the address book, read an e-book (though you might want to move the watch for that to make it more comfortable, etc). You would have to allow the user to shift the display (so if you're driving, you can make it stay "upright" as you look into your address book before smacking into the car ahead of you because you didn't have your eyes on the road).

If you wanted to be really cool, you could let the user lay the watch flat, and "expand" the interface into a whole desktop complete with "keyboard" so they could type, use their fingers as pointer devices, etc. (We are of course pretending that the watch's electronics are so small and heat efficient they don't burn a hole in your wrist/desk to compute all of this information).

This technology I'm sure is about 15-20 years off, but I think that's what you would need to allow something that small to have an interface worth using.

Of course, this is just a "pull the idea out of my ass" concept - I could be totally wrong as to whether this would be useful or not.

And as per usual,

There's no left-handed variant. A normal watch you learn to deal with; one windy button you use once-in-a-while is OK... But when there're a load of buttons on one side of the watch, and no easy alternative, it's completely unusable by lefties.

I mean, the normal palm is bad at times with the scrollbar on the wrong side of the screen [don't tell me about lefthack; it breaks Eudora]

Experiment: Put your watch on your right wrist. Now change the time. Now imagine you need to do this with far more dexterity.

Bah. They're only losing about 10-15% of the market by doing that, so no great loss, I guess...

Gary (-;

The inevitable Casio Databank comparison

Nobody seems to have mentioned the time-tested Casio Databank [casio.com] watch yet, so here is the product comparison with the Fossil PDA watch:

Fossil features: clock, calculator, backlight, address book, date book, to-do list, IrDA port, ability to run Palm apps, and a memo pad.
Casio features: clock, calculator, backlight, address book (kinda), 5 alarms, world time, atomic time synchronization and a stopwatch.

Fossil battery life: five days
Casio battery life: two years

Fossil price: $295
Casio price: $89

I'm going to stick with my Casio Databank. :^) If you use a CR2032 battery instead of the CR2016, and you turn off the hourly chime and alarms, you can get about 8-10 years use out of one battery!

great

On this first model, these watch faces are in black and white. But Fossil is looking into a model with variable color faces and is considering creating a Web site where users could download new and different watch faces, or even post watch faces they have created themselves. You could imagine watch faces with various logos, slogans or photos.

Yeah, I can imagine Wal-mart selling them at a 30% discount with a permanent Wal-mart logo face. And then I can imagine someone writing a De-WalMart hack to replace the logo, and going to court for violating the DMCA because they thwarted the rot13 encryption neccesary to bypass the logo lock. Same shit, different year.