Interesting Novelty Watch

[The Nid Hog]

I was watching a program about robotics the other day. The host of the show was a pretty well-known musician in Japan who is known for making his own rather unusual instruments. Some of them are available in stores, and his Otamatone shows up on US amazon too.

Anyway, my eye went to a strange wristwatch that he was wearing. A little googling and I found it. It's called a Zihotch.

It's obviously inspired by old rotary dial phones, but it isn't a phone at all. It's more like a strange combination of a wristwatch and a stay in the past. If you want to know what time it is, you dial 117. That used to be (not sure if it still is) the number you would dial in Japan to get the current time. When your call connects, a voice tells you the time. In Japanese, so that's something to consider. If you want to set the alarm, dial 0 and then use the dial to input the time you want to get up. You'll get a call back to awaken you.

When it first went on the market, it was produced in the black and blue shown in the photo, as well as traditional red and off-white versions. The price would work out to about $71 today. although it would have been considerably less expensive in 2005 or so when it first came out and the yen rate was better.

 

[Thebigspendur]

The number 1 thing a watch should be able to do is tell you the time at a glance. That watch fails miserably. In the 1970s they had LED watches where you had to press a button to display the time for about 5 seconds. They didn't last long on the market.

 

[Doc4]

The number 1 thing a watch should be able to do is tell you the time at a glance. That watch fails miserably. In the 1970s they had LED watches where you had to press a button to display the time for about 5 seconds. They didn't last long on the market.

I am reminded of the old commercials plugging Sports Illustrated subscriptions that would come with a free football-phone. The moron armchairQB would make the obligatory call to his wife, buddy, &c with the innane "guess where I'm calling from ... a football!!" with enough w00tage to light up Denver.

That a novelty piece fails at accomplishing the functional obligations of its serious bretheren is par for the course, and beside the point for someone who would actually buy such an item.

(fwiw, I'd say that the number 1 thing a watch should be able to do is tell you the time with reliable accuracy. Maybe that's a discussion for a less frivolous thread. But I'll certainly take your point about "at a glance" information being important ... it's one of the reasons I prefer simplistic watch faces rather than the uber-informational "pilot" watches and such.)

 

[Go West Young Man]

The number 1 thing a watch should be able to do is tell you the time at a glance. That watch fails miserably. In the 1970s they had LED watches where you had to press a button to display the time for about 5 seconds. They didn't last long on the market.

The Japanese will go for creative design over boring old functionality every time.

 

[Doc4]

The Japanese will go for creative design over boring old functionality every time.

You should probably tell Seiko about that ...

 

[kg4ghn]

You should probably tell Seiko about that ...

That's a beautiful watch!

 

[The Nid Hog]

In many ways this watch (although inexpensively priced) is inspired by the same design philosophy that runs through this artist's work with musical instruments. He wants to tie together other practices of relating to time with a whimsical return to analog technology that doesn't abandon digital accuracy.

I didn't grow up in Japan, but I remember a friend of mine in fourth grade who was very concerned with the accuracy of his little Timex. Every morning before school, he would dial the local time number and do his best to synchronize his watch with it. After that, he'd dial the weather report number before finally heading out the door. He's gone on to a very notable career in electronic design.

I think that's what the designer is trying to evoke here. It isn't a watch for technophobes. Rather it's one for technophiles, to remind them of all of the radio shack kits and homemade gadgets that got them to where they are. Of course, it probably also appeals to a certain kind of hipster or maybe to someone who was once in love with a switchboard operator. Still, it's a timepiece about another time in their lives. I thought that was kind of cool.