I mostly dislike modern smartwatches. After a while, they tend to feel like soulless slabs on my wrist.
I absolutely understand the appeal, and there was a time I would’ve loved that much information at a glance. But the charm faded quickly as technology advanced, and I’ve found myself constantly preferring my analog timepieces.
However, it wasn’t always like that, and I loved early attempts at making wristwatches more interesting.
I recently wrote about my Seiko MessageWatch, which received timely information via radio waves.
Casio was also releasing watches with advanced capabilities in the late 90s. And while you couldn’t receive information on the Casio Vivcel watch, it did more than you’d expect before Wi-Fi and Bluetooth were around.
Casio added a receiver to the watch, long before Bluetooth
It relied on an old cell phone network
Casio was ambitious with the Vivcel line. I still get a kick out of wearing my VCL-120. It’s a regular quartz watch with world time, an alarm, and a stopwatch. And I’m always a fan of watches with electroluminescent backlighting.
However, Casio put a small receiver inside. When you bought one, you had to match your watch to the technology your phone used.
We always had AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone System) phones in the 90s. The AMPS standard was incredible. Before digital signals, it was a way for us to use cell phones.
It was sort of like a glorified walkie-talkie system, but instead of being directly connected to another receiver, you went through a cell tower.
You would connect to a tower and be assigned a channel, and the network would route your call to whoever you were trying to reach. It worked like magic, but there were limitations.
This was before digital signals, so conversations were unencrypted.
If you’re old enough to remember, it wasn’t unheard of to have someone’s conversation bleed over onto your line. That’s because while towers didn’t assign the same frequencies to other calls, frequencies were reused across different towers.
So if the weather was just right, you could pick up the voices of people using the same frequency as you from another tower nearby.
It was those frequencies bouncing through the air that made Casio’s watch possible, but it would also lead to problems.
The Vivcel was a cool idea, but there was no way to control it
Mine still buzzes today
If you brought a Casio VCL-120, you wanted to be alerted to incoming phone calls. There was a small vibration motor in the watch that buzzed when it detected a signal from your phone.
It was great if you were in a class or meeting and wanted to keep your phone on silent while still being alerted to missed calls.
It was a nifty idea, especially in a time before Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Your watch didn’t need to be tied to your phone or number, and there wasn’t a practical way to do so back then.
Unfortunately, that was the problem. The watch couldn’t discriminate which AMPS signal it was picking up. So, if there was another AMPS device in the room getting a call and was close enough to you, your watch would buzz.
Early on, that may not have been a problem, but as cell phones became more widely available and cheaper, the airwaves were soon flooded.
It’s why my Vivcel watch still buzzes today. Whenever it detects something in the 800 MHz band, the motor whirs to life.
There is a way to turn off receiving mode when it gets to be too much, but I leave it on. It’s cool to know my watch is responding to its surroundings, even if it no longer means I’m getting a phone call.
Besides, it has a cool retro look, and keeping time on a quartz watch works just as well today as it did in 1998.
Modern smartwatches have lost that charm
I don’t need to be in touch constantly
I love watches like my Seiko MessageWatch and the Casio VCL-120 because they let me stay connected without being available.
The information I got on the MessageWatch was passive; I had no way to respond. And the Casio Vivcel just did its job. I was alerted when a call came in, but I wasn’t being bombarded with messages and emails all day long.
I get the appeal of smartwatches, and the 12-year-old me is somewhere, screaming that we waited our whole lives for something this cool on our wrist.
However, there is such a thing as too much, and no matter how impressive watches like the Galaxy Watch Ultra are, the charm is lost.
I hope for a return to simpler times
I’m looking forward to my Pebble Time 2 when it arrives, and it’s part of a trend this year. I’m currently using a Unihertz Titan 2 Elite with a physical keyboard, and it seems ideal to pair with a Pebble.
It’s not about getting less work done as much as it is about being focused on what I’m doing. When I’m working, I want my mind to be there, and when I’m spending time with my family, I’d like that to be the focus.
Devices like the Casio VCL-120 remind me of that, even if it buzzes just because my microwave went on.
