Hasta La Gadget!

Oscilloclock shop owner Aaron’s latest offering is based on a vectorscope, a special kind of oscilloscope used to analyze the quality of television or video signals. Like its brethren, the digital age has reduced the need for vectorscopes, but Aaron can make them useful again as clocks.

Like his other oscilloclocks – one of which we featured last year – the VectorClock uses Aaron’s custom controller board, which draws shapes on the screen by drawing circles, with certain parts of the CRT screen blanked out depending on the desired shape or character. Aaron is proud of this particular build, which is based on a Tektronix 520A vectorscope, because he was able to use nearly all of its exisiting circuits, thus minimizing internal modifications.

As you’ll see in the demo video below, the VectorClock can display the time and date in a variety of ways. It also has dimmable lighting and can even display words.

It looks like something you’ll find at the Darkwaters General Store. Contact Aaron if you want him to build you a VectorClock. He probably doesn’t accept bottle caps as payment.

[via Hack A Day]

I’ve written about a number of smartwatches over the years, but the Qualcomm Toq is the first one I’ve had any extended period of time with. The Toq differentiates itself from other smartwatches through the use of Qualcomm’s proprietary Mirasol display, which provides ease of reading in daylight conditions, and minimizes battery use.

So why would you want a smartwatch? Well, in the case of the Toq, you’ll be able to receive text messages and notifications, check weather and stocks, and control music playback from your wrist without ever taking your phone out of your pocket. Sure, those are decidedly first-world problems, but once you get used to it, it’s rather nice to be able to have this sort of information available at a glance – especially if you’re driving, or involved in another activity.

While it contains quite a bit of technology, the watch itself is rather unassuming – with a slim 9.96mm thick case and matching rubberized band. Part of how Qualcomm kept the watch as slim as conventional timepieces was to move the battery to the other side of the watchband. This makes the clasp a little bit larger than I’d like but it’s a reasonable tradeoff for providing extended battery life and keeping the watch itself comfortable to wear.

When first setting up the Toq, you’ll need to adjust the band to your wrist size, then cut off any excess with scissors before placing the pin in the clasp. This setup means the Toq is customized to your wrist size, but it also means you won’t be able to resell or give the watch to someone with a larger wrist down the road. Also, since the band contains wiring for the battery and the battery itself is in the clasp, you can’t swap it with a band of your choice. I find this to be a minor inconvenience, as I like the style and comfort of the included band.

The first thing you’ll notice about the Toq is its transflective Mirasol display, and this is the first gadget to really show it off. The always-on display is easy to read in bright sunlight, but also offers backlighting for indoors and dark environments. I found the display to work best in under bright or directional light, whereas in low levels of ambient light, you might have to use the backlight momentarily. Though angling the watch can help you capture extra light in dim rooms. Here’s a look at the display with the backlight on.

While it is a color display, colors are somewhat muted, not vivid like you might find on an OLED or LED/LCD screen. That said, the Mirasol is much easier on the eyes in daylight, plus battery life is better. Unlike e-Paper displays, the Mirasol screen refreshes almost instantaneously, though I’m not sure you’d want to watch video on one. For those of you interested in understanding more about how Mirasol’s display technology works, head here.

Once the watch is on your wrist, you simply install the Qualcomm Toq application on your Android smartphone, and pair the Toq via Bluetooth. The Toq is currently only compatible with Android devices, and requires Android 4.0.3 or greater. I’m hopeful that iPhone compatibility will come at some point, though Qualcomm clearly has a deep investment in the Android hardware business, so I’m not holding my breath.

In the Toq application, you can send firmware updates to your phone, download new watch faces, icon sets, and arrange your favorite apps. The application also allows you to configure what applications send notifications to your watch, what calendars to sync up, which cities you get weather for, and what stocks to watch. One really nice thing about updates is that they’re done automatically, and wirelessly.

Having the ability to switch watch faces is kind of fun, and you can choose from a variety of artistic, typographic and functional displays. For my usage, I prefer the display which provide time, date and weather at a glance, but there’s also a display which shows a stock of your choice. To switch watch faces, you simply swipe your finger across the bottom of the watch face.

In addition to having a touch-sensitive display, there are areas on the watch band itself which provide touch-based interaction. Tapping the spot immediately above the display twice activates the display’s backlight, and tapping the area below the screen brings up the menu so you can select apps, check battery status and configure settings.

With a connection established between watch and phone, you will immediately start receiving text messages and other notifications on your wrist. In addition, any time the phone rings, you’ll get alerted, along with caller ID information and the ability to answer or ignore the call. All alerts are silent, but are accompanied by vibration by default. Assuming you’re wearing a Bluetooth headset, or connected to Bluetooth hands-free in your car, you can take the call then and there. Just keep in mind that the Toq doesn’t act as a speaker or microphone itself, but Qualcomm is offering companion headsets as an accessory.

Text messages work well, and you can even reply to messages with one of a number of canned responses you’ve stored ahead of time using the Toq smartphone app. You can also check your calendar from your wrist, and Qualcomm’s simple and clean interface makes it easy to scroll through your calendar by swiping up or down on the screen. However, it only seems to display calendar entries for the current day and tomorrow, so it’s not a full-fledged calendar.

In addition to the notification and calendar applications, there’s a weather app which gets its data from AccuWeather. The app lets you quickly scroll through current weather for multiple cities of your choice. The app is very basic though, providing only current temperature as well as the day’s low and high forecast. I’d really like to be able to drill in and get a forecast too.

There’s also a stocks application, which provides at-a-glance stock market data from E-Trade. Again, it’s quite basic, providing the current stock price, and the day’s change in points and percentage. Again, it would be nice to have access to more details, like business news or share history graphs, but for a quick update on stock values, the app does what it needs to.

Last, but not least, there’s the music app, which allows you to quickly see artist and title information for your currently playing music, as well as play/pause, track skip and volume controls. This is very handy if you happen to be wearing headphones and want to change tracks or see the name of an track without pulling the phone out of your pocket. The music app works with either the standard media player on your phone, or with DoubleTwist. I’d love to see Pandora or Spotify support at some point.

Charging up the Toq is about as simple as it gets. Just pop open the included charging case, flip up the charger panel, and set the watch over it. The watch charges wirelessly in just a couple of hours, and in my experience, you should be able to get between four and five full days of usage between charges. I found myself charging the Toq far less frequently than my HTC One phone. Those orange bins on the right of the charger are designed for charging up Qualcomm’s optional wireless headphones.

The wireless charging makes it as simple as setting your watch on the nightstand while you sleep and it’ll be ready for use when you wake up. Still, I’m a little surprised Qualcomm went with Bluetooth 3.0 instead of Bluetooth 4.0 wireless communications, as the latter would likely cut down on power consumption even more.

The Qualcomm Toq retails for $349.99(USD), making it one of the more expensive smartwatches on the market today. Overall, I’m happy with the basic functionality of the Toq, though I would like to see a larger app catalog, and more depth to the included apps. It’s most useful for at-a-glance access to notifications, calendar events, checking stocks and weather, and works fine for controlling music tracks. That said, I wish it offered some sports and activity monitoring, and chronograph functionality to round things out. Battery life is better than I expected, and the display is quite good – especially if you spend the majority of your time in well-lit environments.

The Toq is a solid first effort for a first-party Qualcomm device, and a strong demonstration platform for their Mirasol displays. I just wish it did a little bit more for the price.

At first glance, this watch might look like a timepiece from the Iron Man franchise, but it’s not. It’s actually the TokyoFlash Kisai RPM gold watch. Like most TokyoFlash timepieces, it’ll require a bit of time and practice before its wearer will actually be able to read the time off of it. Once you get the hang of it, I have no doubt that telling the time will get easier.

When the watch is off, it looks sleek and polished with its blank face and curved, smoked lens. When it’s on, lights illuminate to indicate what time it is: the inner ring displays the current hour, while the outer ring shows the minutes, with each brick divided in five-minute intervals.

The watch also has a neat light-up animation where the LED lights spin around the display at fifteen-minute intervals from six in the evening until midnight. As is the case with many of TokyoFlash’s watches, this one is USB rechargeable.

The TokyoFlask Kisai RPM Gold Watch is available for $189(USD).

[via Red Ferret]

While most alarm clocks try to wake you up with sight, sound or a combination of both, the ALARMclock sticks to facts. Sure, it’ll bleep and blare like any other clock when you set a time, but this clock will make you want to spend time more wisely in general. How? By bumming you out.

Designed by Chicago-based Fig Company, ALARMclock connects via Wi-Fi to a mobile app, which is where you’ll enter your login credentials to your bank account or social networks. You can set it to display your 401k, savings or investment amount, as well as an “an aggregate number which represents the scope and size of your social world.” If that’s not enough to get you to move your ass, you can also make it work like the Tikker and display how many days you have left based on your “age, health, lifestyle, diet, family history and other factors.”

It’s as beautiful as it is grim. Pledge at least $85 (USD) on Kickstarter to get an ALARMclock as a reward.

Before the invention of timepieces, our ancestors aligned their schedules with the rising and setting of the Sun. Mammoth hunting when the Sun goes up, then chill at Hairy Guy 34′s cave when the Sun goes down. Designer Jon Liow’s concept clock will let you partake in this ancient tradition of guesstimating with the Solar Light.

The Solar Light isn’t solar-powered. It gets its name from its function, which is to mimic the amount of sunlight in a particular timezone. By default, if it’s noon in your chosen timezone, the Solar Light will shine brightly, while its LEDs will probably be completely off at midnight. You’ll be able to select a timezone from a mobile app. You can also invert the light’s function (it’ll be brighter at night, darker during the day) and even turn it to a normal lamp from the app.

I think I’d love to have a Solar Light. It’s a nice way to imagine what your loved ones are doing if they’re abroad. It would be more useful though if it could also show you what the weather is like in that area.

[Jon Liow via Core77]