Casio has been leaving a lot of money on the table in terms of nostalgia products. There's been a low rumble of demand for the Casio CZ series of synthesizers for a decade or more, and a bunch of non-Casio companies have cashed in on it (Behringer makes CZ-1 Mini, Arturia has CZ V, several other phase distortion synths exist). It's incredibly cheap to replicate, a simple early digital synthesis algorithm that'll run on anything; Korg has been making ARM-based emulation synths (basically a Raspberry Pi-like SoC in a keyboard form factor with some knobs) for a decade or more and I have to assume their margins are very comfortable since most of the guts are off-the-shelf low-cost parts rather than custom chips.
But, I guess their watches were always a bigger business than the synths.
I have a couple of Oceanus brand watches that I got in Japan. They are fairly un-cheap.
However, in Japan, their G-Shock brand (kind of lower cost, in the US), can get even more expensive than Oceanus. Some of them look like Pip-Boys (Because this is HN, I need to mention that this is a deliberate exaggeration).
Not offhand. I got the watches in that big Akihabura store, about 20 years ago, and they had a shitton of G-Shocks, as well as Oceanus. I saw several 6-digit prices.
Many of the folks I worked with, could afford good watches, and wore G-Shocks. They were quite proud of them.
I suspect you’ll see them on the Japanese Casio site.
It's entirely possible that the more expensive "G-Shocks" were Mr G. I remember seeing wording about titanium cases, etc., but most of it was in Japanese, so the only thing that jumped out at me, were the price tags.
Oh yeah I never heard of chrono24. I'm not a watch guy at all :) I was just interested because I used to have casio watches when I was young. After which the mobile phones emerged and I stopped wearing a watch at all, until they started doing more interesting stuff (payments and notifications are what interests me mainly).
> Casio has been leaving a lot of money on the table in terms of nostalgia products
Casio has been quite successful at not abusing trust in their brand by releasing lower-quality outsourced replicas like HP did with their calculators. Not that HP had much farther to fall but it’s nice to see a corporation that’s not incompetent!
They don't have far to fall in the synth world. Their current keyboard line has no synthesizers to speak of. But, also, they still have a keyboard line and relationships with music dealers, so presumably they wouldn't need to outsource the return of the CZ.
Trying not to leave any money on the table is exactly the approach that reliably kills off nostalgia income streams.
Picking off some low hanging fruit while demonstrating provable restraint can result in a huge money stream that goes on and on. But when the mindset "it's good, but it can be better!" becomes dominant (e.g. through market dynamics, being publicly traded means that ownership perpetually shifts to those who think that income sources could be squeezed just a little harder, or much harder, actually), it quickly turns sour. And when it flips from beloved to "why throw money at those greedy $expletive,plural" it flips hard, and forever.
"So much better" means "with added smartwatch crap"?
The whole value of them is they are simple, minimally changed over time (you can depend on getting the same model in a decade), functional, with no/bare minimum smartwatch crappery, essentially endless battery, and no planned obselecense.
Why would i put even more "smart" crap on or around me? I pay by physical card; i hate the "app" being forced on you by banks outsourcing their infra onto their clients.
And why would i need to track my.... steps? Because some corp started this shit as a marketing ploy years ago?
They've also dipped their toes into guitar toys with the Dimension Shifter. They do seem to be kind of paying attention to the music market again, after decades away from it. So, I'll keep hoping for a really good CZ re-issue.
That sampler looks so fun and I want to buy it but I already have a PO33 and SP404 MK2. So I really don't need it. Probably keep an eye out on reverb in the next year or so
Korg did it right - budget off-the-shelf processor, most of the money spent on the UI, wildly optimistic prices, no nostalgic ties.
The expensive part of a modern synth isn't the DSP board, it's the industrial design and tooling needed to build the rest of the hardware.
The CZ series was workable, but there really aren't many passionate nostalgic buyers waiting to drop a few hundred - minimum - on an expensive reissue.
Agreed. My knowledge/experience with synths is limited but between DSPs that're as available as ketchup and Kleenex for the past few decades and an LLM there's not much to rolling one's one. A watch on the other hand is higher LOE
I don't think I buy that argument (that there aren't enough people interested in it).
It's not quite in the ball park of something like the DX 7 or several of the better known analog synths, which have nearly all seen re-issues, mini-versions, software emulations, etc., often several. Damned near every Roland synth from that era has seen a re-issue and official plugin. Yamaha has been more measured in their re-issue plays, but the DX did get a reface DX, along with the CS, CP and YC. FM synthesis has been wildly successful in nostalgia synths as well as novel takes on the idea (e.g. the Elektron FM groove box) and Korg's Opsix (I have two of them, the first gen small one and the big expensive one made in Japan), and Yamaha still ships FM synthesis engines in their high end workstations. And, there's at least four plugins that emulate the CZ (I'm working on a fifth to be released in another month or two).
I don't think all that would exist without some demand. I have a soft spot for early digital synths, and I think a lot of other folks do, too. I don't like to buy from Behringer, but it's the only hardware option out there right now aside from the real thing (I own a real CZ 101, but I wouldn't want to take it out of the studio).
The prices are pretty similar to Yamaha DX series synths on eBay right now (starting at about $300 and going on up to $700 for working specimens, depending on model and condition).
According to what I can dig up, the original MSRP of the DX7 was $1995. The original MSRP of the Casio CZ 101 was $395. So, by my reckoning, the CZ has a higher collector value than the DX7 based on relative price change over the years.
Edit: But also, the CZ was generally more comparable to lower-end DX synths, like the DX27 or DX9. It was a budget synth in its day, while the DX7 was the pinnacle of digital synthesis for at least a year or two after release, everyone had to have one.
>I don't think I buy that argument (that there aren't enough people interested in it).
>I don't think all that would exist without some demand.
What we old synth nerds need to understand is that there are always new synth nerds leaving the worlds music schools, quite often with a fat wad of disposable income/parents cash, and they want to build their own little studios to make the next mega-hit.
This is the driving force behind Behringer and all the re-issuing goings-on and such.
But the synth world is a fashion scene. Devices and techniques and engines go in and out of fashion.
The recent Gearmulator releases have lit a serious fire under the DSP-synth world precisely because folks really want these old synths, and I suppose its quite fun to take the real DSP firmware and emulate them:
>Korg did it right - budget off-the-shelf processor, most of the money spent on the UI, wildly optimistic prices, no nostalgic ties.
Korg does put out "nostalgic" remakes of analog synths just as well: MS-20 (complete with patch board), Arp 2600, as well as digital versions like the Korg multi/poly virtual analog.
This is where Behringer absolutely shine - about a decade ago they established a fully automated mega-factory in Malaysia designed around Siemens’ Xcelerator portfolio, PLM/MES software, and Digital Twin technology.
Korg 2600 - ~ €1000
Behringer 2600 - €300
CZ Series doesn't have much cachet simply because phase distortion synthesis was the 'we have FM Synthesis at home' cheap alternative to 4 OP FM Synthesis in the 80s. About the only USP they have in that arena is the fact they're responsible for the 'Reese Bass' sound - the 'Wilhelm Scream' of Techno if you will.
A lot of Japanese companies leave piles on the table. One often unnoticed reality of Japanese imports and exports, at least in modern days, is that Japan as a whole has total double standards on those, requiring over the top perfection for imports but exports are almost on take it or leave it basis. Even Nintendo products are at barely acceptable levels if the standards for imports were applied to e.g. en-US editions. It's a miracle that Japanese products have substantial sales volumes and good reputations at all. It's quite unlike Chinese engineering of today.
The oddity I see isn't that quality isn't great, but that developments and company public relations feedback loops are almost open looped in the global scope, only closed in domestic Japanese scope, as if the entire global part were a surplus sale. It somehow works but it's a bit weird, and it looks to me that this open loop setup is causing a lot of tiny but accumulative pains for a lot of Japanese products, which is just ... unfortunate, I guess.
There are Japanese companies that focus on quality, Grand Seiko and Credor (Seiko) watches are finished to a high degree by hand. They have used urushi lacquer, hand polishing, hand enameled dials, and all kinds of other high end finishing techniques.
They ate American manufacturing's lunch and now China is eating theirs. The circle of life, or something. But, yeah, I have fond feelings for a lot of Japanese brands, not just electronics (my favorite car since childhood is a Nissan Z, speaking of Japanese companies on the ropes).
It's a really good question why Casio didn't continue making synths after the 80s. It's possible that the entire CZ-line was intended to be a one-off response to Yamaha's breakaway success with the DX7. After the CZ-line, it looks like Casio tried to keep up with Yamaha for a few years, but exited the market after Yamaha launched the SY-line. From what I understand, the CZ-series were great sellers then, but even with all of the nostalgia they'd never move large numbers now.
For what it's worth, Yamaha aren't particularly nostalgic about their cult-classic synths either. I guess that from their perspective, the DX7 and CZ-101 were already obsolete within a few short years. By 1990 the sound had already become quite dated, and technology had moved on. Now that they've become popular again as a cult-classic, the margin just isn't there anymore because of the market share of software, or cheap independent FM/PD synths.
Shameless plug, in case anyone is interested, I've done some work reverse-engineering some of these synths:
Awesome. When I was researching the CZ 101 (still am, actually), I spent some time reading the MAME implementation, including the NEC upd933 chip emulation. I was going to say I'm surprised I didn't find your docs, but it looks like they were all published late last year which is precisely when I was doing my research (I used the holiday to work on some projects I'd been stewing on in the back of my mind, and a phase distortion plugin was one of them).
I don't know why I find that era of synth so enjoyable and interesting, but I do. I love every FM synth, but that side of things feels pretty well covered by existing tools. Korg makes the OpSix (and I have two), Yamaha has the reface DX and I think their workstations still ship an AFM engine, and there are at least a half dozen plugins that are mostly quite accurate, and a handful of other hardware options.
Phase distortion just feels more neglected, so that's the one I've been spending time on. I have an excellent engine running, which is more accurate than the Arturia CZ V engine (at least compared to my actual CZ 101, maybe they were comparing against another model, but the MAME engine is also like the real CZ and not like Arturia, so I am inclined to say Arturia got sloppy), but I'm going pretty slow on the UI. Making a nice plugin UI for a synth that didn't have a nice UI is a challenge. You can't just copy the original UI if you want it to be fun to use.
The (relatively new) Casiotone CT-S1000V and CT-S500 have CZ sounds included along with fun voice synthesis technology, and are recommended as a good cheap keyboard on some forums.
One thing I've never understood (and hopefully some Casio geek can shine a light on): why do almost all old Casio models have a 24/12h time switch taking the premium spot as one of the main 4 buttons, instead of having it buried deep in the (awkward) menus. Seems to me that something like alarm or stopwatch setting or a second menu action button would have been far more useful.
In my country, 30-40 years back, people who needed a watch were those ones who travel regularly. And travel was mostly using public transport, trains and planes. Most or all of it operated using a 24h time. That button was very useful.
Compare that to the mute/silence/DND physical button in iPhones today.
Also people who worked in confined spaces who wouldn’t know if it was day or night outside after a days job. My father who worked in an oil rig in Abu Dhabi used one. He gifted me one.
It is a bit strange, like being surprised some countries drive on the left side. xkcd 1053 of course, but people are still allowed to be surprised when someone went their entire life without picking up a fairly common factoid.
You did not know that large parts of the world default to 12h time?
This is absolutely NOT an American thing. I am not American and have never lived there. I am 58 years old, British and Irish, and lived a decade in Nigeria and a decade in Czechia. I have travelled widely around Europe and can get by in 6 foreign languages.
12h time in real daily life is more common everywhere I have ever been. Only minor subsections of humanity -- military people, maybe -- work on the 24h clock.
I learnt English as a kid with the 12h time, but UK friends nowadays say they tend to use 24h everywhere precision is needed (e.g. transport timetables) and less and less 12h in everyday chat.
I was supposing USA was the same. Obviously not.
> Some advocates of the customary system saw the French Revolutionary, or metric, system as atheistic. The president of an Ohio auxiliary of the Institute wrote that the traditional units were "a just weight and a just measure, which alone are acceptable to the Lord". His organization later went so far as to publish music for a song proclaiming "down with every 'metric' scheme".
Those buttons are the menu. The idea of menus on watches is a modern ux extravagance.
I don’t have the satisfying answer as to why they dedicated a button to 12/24 hour time but my guess is that it’s simply a cool digital feature and stands out against the limitations of analog watches.
I always followed trial and error until I reached my target and I had the feeling that my results were much better than if I were randomly clicking buttons. That is, some memory always remained. Or the menu is well thought out and has some consistency.
The button press sequences are still combo-style; when I set one of the alarms on my ABL-100WE, it always ends in trial and error. I mean, basically it's logical, but when the buttons change what they do (e.g. when the display says "SET", the light button becomes "up"), it throws me off.
They had modal menus back then, they just didn't display them. You had to memorize which obscure symbols to press, to change various settings. For example, in the 1970's, HP's calculator watch required pressing ⯅• to switch between 12 hr and 24 hr modes, or A⯅A to clear an alarm.
In the 80's and 90's, when sixteen-segment and dot-matrix displays made displaying text easier, calculators started displaying menu items, so you didn't have to memorize the sequence.
Since then, we've moved on to full-color high-resolution displays that can handle any text of any language, and the menus have more-or-less switched back to memorizing a sequence of which obscure symbols to press, I guess because some people think they look cool? Sometimes there's no menu at all, and you just have to memorize finger movements.
You can bury stuff like setting the time into a menu, people will accept it. They know that there will be a way to set the time. But if the 12/24 is hidden, whatever is picked as the default will drive away a noticeable fraction of those would-be buyers who prefer the other setting. For starters, pretty much everybody who does not get pulled into a sales person interaction that's sufficiently deep to touch the subject. And that sales person interaction won't be the best possibly, you don't want to bore them with nuisance settings, you want to show off The Stopwatch (or whatever was the flagship feature of the watch in question)
I don't know what clever jiggery-pokery you are trying to do, but whatever you typed, it's just turning to tofu on this Macbook, in both Chrome and Firefox.
There are menus on these watches, though. On the F91w the menu button flips through different setting modes which affect the function of the other buttons.
I spoke with a Casio engineer about this. It's so that your bending wrist can accidentally switch it to 12h time when you actually really want it on 24h time or vice versa.
They could just set it to 12h mode for americans and 24h mode for the rest of the world, and hid the setting somewhere deep in the menus (hold this button for 3s, then press that button 5 times, and then the other button two times, etc.), so you could change it from american to normal display if needed, and never again press it by accident.
My F-91F I replaced the Casio module with an Ollee watch and pretty much disabled all of the features, I can sync the time when reconnecting to Bluetooth on my phone which I do about once a month.
Wearing a Casio as I type this. The "24hr" button switches 12/24 modes on the "watch" mode, when using stopwatch it starts the watch, and when using alarms it turns the alarm on/off.
It has pretty critical functionality for those, I think the way its labeled on the watch face just makes it sound a little odd.
Now that I think I can't very fast come up with any feature I would want to have on third button in clock display mode. UI is 3 buttons, light, mode and one mode dependant. So I can't think what you would use it for in clock mode. So better have it work, but do something inconsequential...
A watch like the F-91W is a bit wonky in terms of the buttons. You're right the 24/12h makes no sense, who needs to switch between those two options regularly? The backlight button is also questionable, because it's not entirely clear what you're suppose to gain by vaguely illuminating the first 20% of display, which will be empty from midnight until 20:00.
It has to be extremely dark though, or maybe mine has a worse than normal backlight. Other models are much better, it's just the F-91W.
The fact that Casio is well aware that the backlight is just terrible, but haven't fixed it in close to 40 years is hilarious and just makes me love it even more.
And you specifically have an F91W? In pitch black, it maybe illuminates 2/3 of the screen for me. I can't imagine using it as a flashlight! But mine is newer, maybe the older ones have better lights.
Even worse, my Casio can't even change the default mm-dd to my country's default dd-mm, keeps throwing me off.
I used to walk around with a Casio always, I would have welcomed this connectivity, but now I have a Pebble and I like the balance. Could have done without the HR monitor, and with GPS though (some features don't work without phone connection, too many I find). Other than that, perfect for me.
For a very long time, China and India used a mixture of the 12-hour and 24-hour formats, which meant they had to convert the time or switch between time formats multiple times par day. That was the intended use of this button.
Both countries have now officially switched to the 24-hour format.
I'm skeptical. Switching between time formats when you're used to it requires 0 cognitive effort, and certainly doesn't warrant a button. Eg in France, people use 24h time for display but talk in either 12h or 24h time depending on personal preference, so you might look at "17:00" and say "5" without even thinking about it, it's just a different name for 17.
It doesn't take long to learn to interchange. If you start today you won't be doing it tommorow, but if you keep it up in a few months you will. At least for the common times - you might have to think about what 10pm is if you normally go to bed before then.
It’s not quite the same when a schoolchild or a farmer has to figure out different train timetable formats depending on the railway company. It was the 1980s, and these were the first affordable watches available…
The SNCF doesn’t change its format when you travel to Brittany or Alsace.
Really hoping this will include the ability to sync information from the internet via the BT tethered phone. But probably not
Similar to the current weather feature that grabs the weather for the next 5 days on every sync, I just want to push the local time train schedule just once per day to my watch.
I added a calibration feature for the pulsometer. Lets me set how many events I want to count in order to get the answer. Allows me to turn the pulsometer into an asthmometer. Use it every day at work, makes counting respiratory frequency painless.
If I remember right, I also made some improvements to the TOTP watch faces. Even maintained the repository for a bit while Joey focused on getting the Sensor Watch Pro out. Merged a lot of stuff.
The movement firmware is open source and it has tons of features. Highlights include temperature compensation for seconds per year accuracy, and a TOTP generator that lets you login like you're James Bond.
People have written orbital calculators for this thing. Even the Chrome jumpy dinosaur game got ported.
I have one of these, there is an open source project called gshock_api that supports it. I think that makes it a much more interesting device. I don't use the app, I tag alarms in remind, and sync them from cron - works great.
This is great, as is the CasioGShockSmartSync Android app. I wish there was an iOS app, as the official app is horrible, only works after signing up for an account, and only works if given every tracking permission possible to vacuum the maximum amount of data to the cloud.
Hmmmmmmmm. I've always been a fan of the classic Casio aesthetic, and I want to want it, but this is a strange point in the functionality-vs-price space.
A base F-91W costs less than half that, and my phone can already track steps with reasonable reliability.
An entry-level fitbit costs about the same and monitors way more stats including heart rate, SpO2. Worse battery life and appearance, but if I wanted that featureset it's probably what I'd get.
Some of us prefer looser fitting bands. Most of smart watch features are useless unless you strap it down tight. I'd bite on something like this if the form factor wasn't off.
Simple smart watches make sense for people who want accurate time who don't want to pull their phone out of their pocket for things that can be answered by looking at their wrist.
I recently thought I could probably go back to a not-smart watch to not have to charge the watch all the time, but I don't want to deal with setting the time regularly either due to quartz drift and dst. So a bluetooth watch with two years of battery life doesn't sound like a bad idea really.
Even cheap quartz movements tend to drift by ±10 seconds per year, so you'd only really set it at dst. Maybe you're thinking about automatic watches which can drift by several seconds per day, and stop if you don't use it for 24/48/X amount hours. I have to set my automatic quite frequently
±10 seconds per year would be quite an expensive quartz movement. To be that reliable anywhere it should be thermocompensated, too. This is the range of Grand Seiko 9F, Citizen Chronomaster, or Bulova Precisionist.
+/- 10 seconds a year for a quartz watch isn’t cheap. A Grand Seiko or Citizen high-accuracy quartz watch costs around $3,000 for the most basic models. A cheap quartz watch is an order of magnitude less accurate, which is still more accurate than a Rolex .
I'll probably be in the minority, but my phone can't track my steps, because I don't have it with me all the time, but my watch is on my wrist. The fitbit requires a Google account, so that's going to be a big no. The Casio might also require an account, I can't tell. The Fitbit has 10 days battery life, the Casio, 2 years.
The price is a bit high, it is basically just a watch with a step counter. I'd also argue that people who buy Casio watches might have multiple watches they switch between, so you'd only put this on when you want to count your steps, and in that case there are better and cheaper options.
Like their G-Shock watches, the actual area dedicated to showing the time is overwhelmed by superfluous elements. Must be barely 20% of the top surface that actually performs its primary function.
When I look at my watch I want to see the time, not wasted space announcing "Casio Step Tracker" or "Water Resist" ( which isn't even proper English).
I moved to Timex a few years ago as their basic digital watches have nice big numerals for the time display.
On the principal menu of my G-Shock, I have the time on ~80% of the screen. The rest is 8/19, WED and the seconds. Of course the time is smaller when I go to the tide screen.
There are some editions of their models which don't have any of those labels and they look much better. But I think they never went far enough, and design a good looking digital g-shock with big time and date, nothing else. When I was younger, small time display was fine, but now as someone with presbyopia (like any 40+ adult) those digits are just too small.
BIG Warning to anyone thinking about purchasing one of these
You cannot connect the watch to Bluetooth without a proprietary app, and that proprietary app will not let you use the Bluetooth feature without some bullshit called a "CASIO Account". Their privacy policy is a bit of an eyebrow-raiser too.
From my understanding, apps need location permissions if they want to scan for available bluetooth devices rather than having the user pair in the bluetooth settings app. The reason being that advertisers set up bluetooth beacons all over the place and used passive scanning in apps to collect the users location.
What's not clear to me is why they really need to be able to scan for bluetooth. Surely requesting location permissions is worse UX than having the user go to the settings app to pair.
from a financial perspective they would assume one persons data is worth maybe 50$ a year (a random number) on top of maybe another 50$ in subscriptions they can sell. Assuming most such products service the business for up to 3 years, you are looking at an additional 300$ upfront that the business loses giving the data away to someone like Apple. Also the value gain from purely having such a business of subscriptions and data collection is probably another 100$ per customer. Thats close to 500$ for that thing.
Someone like Casio could just sell it for 500$ and collect their future cashflows right away. However, the customer turnout might be significantly less than 55$ they are selling it for.
So the only way to sell it for profit is to keep the data and make a subscription (which may or may not exist yet for Casio).
They could just sell it at an honest price with an honest profit. It’s an upsell from cheap F91Ws so they could have made more money just by selling me a thing that reads from Apple Health. It doesn’t even need to track steps itself.
I also disagree my email address and step data is worth $450 to them.
Let’s be honest. This thing is not innovative. It’s going to be using cheap commodity chips. Its selling point is nostalgia. I find it hard to believe it’s not already profitable at $55.
While I empathize with your feelings about lock-in, I encourage you to see that we live in an amazingly empowering era. I would wager that with $20 in credits for the LLM flavor of the week and and an equally expensive BLE-to-USB dongle (try the nRF52840 dongle), you will have the protocol reverse-engineered overnight. BLE protocols are often very low-hanging fruit for this type of effort.
Yes, it's annoying this stuff isn't open source from the get-go, but it has never been easier to open hardware up for yourself and others.
There should be bounties for open sourcing drivers/apps like these and generally making 'clean'/better interfaces to hardware devices, now that it's so much easier.
Claude Code reverse engineered cheap (Android only) usb and wifi endoscopes here, wrote/flashed/hardware-in-the-loop developed python+arduino libraries, etc.
It's a completely new world.
@wpm, happy to fund the nRF52840 dongle if you want to try this + release code!
Have you released your reverse engineered endoscope camera work? It's something I've been thinking about doing myself, since the vendor apps leave a lot to be desired.
Is it really as easy as you say? I have one of these Casio watches and plenty of spare Claude credits. Wouldn’t mind doing this but no idea where to begin.
If you ask Claude how to do it, it might already give you some strategy that's reasonable (at least, it's good to see what it thinks)
Make sure to use Fable, and preferably have the Max plan (or plenty of credits)
LLMs can do very good work when they're unattended and optimize towards a goal that's unambiguous / for which you have a reference.
Generally speaking, in hardware, this means having a "rig" ie a testbed where the AI can send commands, observe output, and iterate on its own. You want autonomy, not babysitting (as much as possible)
In the case of this Casio watch, I would start by giving Claude Code context on what you're trying to achieve (read&decode messages sent probably over BLE, reverse engineer the protocol, get to a point where it can send valid messages itself). The goal should be a python/command line tool that can sniff packets, decode them, and send them. (step by step, starting with sniffing)
Get the nRF52840 USB dongle mentioned. Have Claude Code talk to the dongle. Ask it to list devices it sees. Ask it to see/detect the Casio watch. Use the proprietary Casio app and ask CC to record the sequence and decode the messages (explaining to it what you did in the app)
Also: have it do research - has this protocol been cracked/documented before? Is there an Android app for this Casio app which could be decompiled (usually more easily than the equivalent iOS app)?
Reach out if I can help - my offer for a dongle stands for anyone who wants to do this! It looks like a cool watch, it shouldn't be held hostage. :-)
Hi Greg, I am Claude Code junior specialist from Czech Republic and also huge Casio fan.
I've been ignoring all bluetooth enabled models in the past, since I had a lot of negative experience with proprietary apps (Sony Music Center, Ultrahuman etc).
This is not me first time thinking about reverse engineering products app, I love open hardware and I wanted to contribute to the community, but while doing my research (which Claude agrees with), I've figured out that it might not be as easy as I thought.
For example, Googles Fitbit Air is according to some encrypting its traffic in a way, that it reaches Googles Cloud first, unencrypts and then reaches the app itself.
How would you approach this issue? By the way, the dongle offer still stands? ;)
Offer still stands! email me (my email is in my profile)
When there’s a will, there’s a way :) I’m not immediately sure re Fitbit Air (that’s nasty if it’s e2e encrypted!), but… maybe it doesn’t pin the server certificate and you can intercept communications?
Seems like you would have fun reversing this! :) reach out!
From my experience Fable will reject this request - its pretty trigger-happy with it's safety detector for reverse engineering, even if you push it on right-to-repair. However Opus 4.8 is more than capable of doing it, with a bit of guidance.
ble is just transport layer, if the actual data is encrypted, you can get nothing.
One of our device FW at first transmit raw data through gatt service, then folk at gadget bridge reverse engineer it, which does not sound good to stakeholder, so we have to encrypt the data between phone-device.
Quite possible transport is encrypted, but that can likely be overcome with some RE on the Android app. Given the price of this piece of hardware, it's likely recoverable with moderate effort. At least worth a try.
yeah, my point is "1 night and $20 of Claude token" maybe not enough.
Also you dont really need the nrf52840 dongle if you want sniffing(Also unlikely to work after the pairing process is done), you can use btsnoop on Android phone to record data, then analyze it with wireshark.
You're right, I was representing a best-case scenario with an intention to be inspiring.
And yes, the Android approach works too and I have done exactly that with Claude previously. The BLE dongle is however a platform-independent approach.
There is an Fdroid app "Casio G-Shock Smart Sync"
Not sure if it supports now but most likely may support in future.
This is an unofficial app for Casio G-Shock, Edifice, and Pro Trek watches. It allows you to control your watch, sync data, and configure settings without a Casio ID. It offers a faster, privacy-focused, and more powerful alternative to the official Casio app.
Key Features check
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- No Account Required: Skip the Casio ID login entirely.
Gadgetbridge is open source provides a lot of "drivers" for different BT devices from Casio, Sony, Pebble, Garmin to Xiaomi and allows to live without monstrous in size and tracking proprietary apps.
I complained to the relevant GDPR authority (German) and never heard back. It's blatantly illegal - overprocessing of PII - to require registration for connecting two devices owned by the same person, in the same room. There's no fathomable necessary or legitimate use.
I'll take some solace in mine supporting lots more alarms (beep when school recess ends) and a bunch of geeky stuff like sunrise, moon phases, tides, and stuff.
Obviously this is completely subjective, but to me that one you linked is SO much uglier than the other. I'd hate to have that on my wrist, whereas the one this whole submission is about I'd probably buy to replace my Oura ring if it had sleep tracking, heart rate monitor etc. rather than just step count
I agree: it's horrible! But, as numerous commenters have observed, the one featured in the submission is only available at retail in England and countries other than the U.S.; on eBay it's $175 + shipping/delivery/insurance.
This: "... I'd probably buy to replace my Oura ring if it had sleep tracking, heart rate monitor etc. rather than just step count."
If it had all those other features it would cost way more than the version offered!
Yes, it seems to be a repackaging of the ABL-100WE and has a long battery life. Unfortunately, their app is horrible, only works after signing up for an account, and only works if given every tracking permission possible to vacuum the maximum amount of data to the cloud.
Amazing! I was proud that my OnePlus smartwatch needs recharging only once every 5 days, but 2 years is unbelievable. The difference is partly due to the LED screen of my smartwatch, LCD is much more energy efficient.
I really like my F91W case with a Sensor Watch Pro board and accelerometer sensor.
My favorite features:
- Piezo alarm is much louder.
- Countdown time can be incremented by tapping the watch.
- LED color can be changed by adjusting RGB values.
- It features sunrise/-set and moon phase info/calendar.
- I changed the week day names to German abbreviations.
- There are lots of intriguing watch faces that you can compile into your firmware.
Sadly, the project is in some disarray as the originator apparently lost interest and the community isn't moving uniformly. Would love to see such a project for Casio with 4 buttons as this would allow for a lot more interesting use cases ... the pinnacle would be a board for their calculator watches. That would be rad.
The Sensor Watch forum on Discord is pretty active.
They make a replacement screen too. The feature set depends on the firmware, and you pick the right firmware for your screen (or make your own, it's FOSS).
> Countdown time can be incremented by tapping the watch.
This one is fascinating to me. Can you set it to start a countdown timer by tapping the watch itself (not a button)? If I could, say, tap the watch to start a 30m countdown timer whenever for baking, and then change a setting to make it a 1m30s timer on tap for exercise, that would be huge for me. But maybe that's not what you meant?
If you want a Casio watch and are traveling to Japan, just get one at a second hand shop there (WonderEx, Second Street, ...). They are tend to be well stocked on the Casio cruft.
I have a Casio PHYS STR-800, nonworking. I got it two decades ago because of the large lap memory (and unusual look, too); I was doing a lot of running, including track training and such.
It short circuited one day. Put in a battery, and it drained the thing in a minute. Put in another one, same thing.
It's been sitting in the top shelf of a bathroom cabinet since like 2011.
> IIRC, the F-91W has a really small strap. Almost a "ladies watch" size.
It does. A few months ago I bought a F-91W for the nostalgia, but I have a hard time wearing it due to the tiny strap. I just ordered a bigger one strap, let's see how it works.
Casio has so many great, cheap, watches for which you don't accidentally change the time, reset your stop watch, or switch from between 12/24h mode every time you bend your wrist.
The F201W (which this appears to be based off of) is not one of them.
Kind of hope this is a signal the culture is moving towards an analog 2.0 movement (a merging of old school interfaces with modern tech components thoughtfully incorporated).
I am not passionate about it but I like to make sure I'm moving a lot. I like that I can at a glance just see how much that's happened each day. I have one of these. Had one a while now and its the only watch I've ever used that I've stuck with and kept using.
My father wears Casio watches almost exclusively, he's been tempted by a Fitbit so he can start tracking his step count, but even though I've bought him the Fitbit, he's finding the whole setup and app usage too intimidating, and so he hasn't used it.
This, in the silver ABL-100WE-2AEF model, is exactly what he wants. Same Casio, same interface, just now it has step count. He doesn't even need / want the Bluetooth.
(Me, I'll keep rocking my Pebble Time 2. Absolutely love it.)
My phone is sitting on my desk now connected to a charger - meaning any pacing I'm doing at the moment it not tracked. When I cook I often set my phone on the counter with the recipe - again while I'm moving all over. I often go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without bringing my phone.
I hate watches, but one would be better for step tracking - it is more likely to be on me to track information.
Step tracking is for health reasons. Unless you do activities you describe 12h a day, every day, whether they are counted or not doesnt move the proverbial health needle a bit
Step tracking is for people who like to pretend they are doing something healthy without actually exerting any dedicated effort above and beyond their normal routine.
"Walking briskly for 30 minutes" is a better measure of something healthy than how many steps you took.
From what I can tell health is about both quantity and quality. 30 minutes of exercise and sitting is not good for health. That is why 10,000 steps per day is so often a goal - I can do a few thousand steps in the 30 minutes of exercise, but other activities should also give steps and I want to know in general how active I am.
I do try to get my daily exercise. However it is still interesting to know how many steps I've taken. (sometimes my daily exercise is bike or swimming which are obviously not steps)
People are, absolutely, yes! In the tech world there is an ever-growing focus on devices which can operate independently of smartphones, even to an offline/local-first extent.
The trend is trickling down into other circles as well. People are beginning to correctly identify needless hyperconverged connectivity as a burden rather than a convenience.
Of all the things "smart watches" do, the one thing beyond time that most people actually perceive daily is their tracked steps.
IE; My apple watch ais the only one that goes out of it's way to make sure I know my steps for the day, and is always "accurate". Which is nice, but gimmicky for someone like me who doesn't analyze my steps.
I imagine Casio went after similar low hanging fruit, as an acceleromater is cheap/old tech, while still being able to feature compete with something like an apple watch.
Sure, but we can't do sleep tracking well. Todays devices mostly guess and map to typical patterns. Might, might not, work reasonably for you. But chances are that if you want to track your sleep because you suspect irregularities then they are about as useful as a potato.
From other anectdata the apple watch seems to just as bad as everything else.
We just don't seem to have any idea how to track sleep quality even with better devices than just a watch/whatever. Even a binary, is the person I'm attached to sleeping, is hit and miss. And with that in mind you can be pretty sure that the sleep stages etc is even worse.
I had this same reaction to past step counters. I keep my phone in my pocket, and it works basically perfectly as a step counter.
But then I realized that many people do not keep their phone in their pocket, especially women. For them, a watch, bracelet or ring really is the best option.
Grandpa kept a pedometer in a little pouch for decades. I got him a Fitbit but he didn’t like that, and more recently another cheap pedometer off of Amazon.
> Step counter seems like a bizarre thing to focus in on? are people passionately tracking steps without their phones?
Yup. I go for walks specifically to leave my damn phone at home. I do bring an Apple Watch w/ airpods in case I need to take an urgent call and for podcasts, but I don't bother with texts or alerts or any other nonsense.
And while step tracking is not critical, if you have health goals that include a minimum number of steps a day I find it incredibly nice to have. I can check my counter before bed, and take the dog for a 30 minute walk if I'm behind for the day. Just a means to hold myself accountable on those crappy low energy stressful days.
I am going to take advantage of all the Casio expert to ask whether it is possible to invert the screen from dark background to light background in these watches. I have seen articles and tutorials online but the guy at the shop told me absolutely not. I have the ABL-100WE. Thank you
The theory is simple, it is a 90 degree rotated polarizing layer, How comfortable you are doing surgery on the delicate LCD assembly is another matter. If I were to do it I think I would buy a couple cheap watches to practice on first.
And Opinion: I wear a factory blackout casio, I like it because it does not have all that great 80's casio text all over the place (I am not sure what is wrong with me) but a downside is the inverted LCD display, it looks very cool, but is also much harder to read, I was trying to see if I could do the mod the other way, back to a light background.
Bluetooth stays on only for three minutes and then turns itself off once you're done syncing stuff. I have had one for nearly two years now (ABL-100WE). Absolutely love it.
I work with accelerometer chips, a lot of them have features specifically for pedometers. Keeping the accelerometer on will draw a few uA, then you can have the accelerometer keep track of the step count internally and have the main processor query it as necessary to update the step count display. When there's no motion for a while, you can also put it into a lower power sleep mode that doesn't track steps, then when it detects motion it'll wake up the main processor which will then put the accelerometer back into pedometer mode. I think 2 years on a CR2016 (90 mAh) is reasonable if Casio knows what they're doing.
If it's like the G-Shock, it's not a real step counter, it's a small accelerometer. It will trigger on every single wave when you're planing if you're windsurfing, which makes it quite useless.
I mean, airtags are doing radio stuff at a regular cadence. I've noticed they update once every 15 minutes, so they are turning the radio on to do whatever BLE triangulation they need to do 96 times per day. That's milliamps over at least a few milliseconds to wake the radio, do whatever triangulation is needed. It's amazing that they last that long considering what they are doing. I think they are using Nordic NRF54 internally so it's testament to the power efficiency those chips are capable of.
Airtags don't do any triangulation. They just send out a BLE beacon periodically to any iPhone within earshot, and also spend some time listening for new instructions that almost never happen.
They have no idea where they are or what their airtag/BLE neighbors, if present, are doing. They don't grok GNSS or wifi. There's nothing for them to triangulate or trilaterate or tri-anything when they're just sitting there.
So yes: They are indeed pretty tidy about energy consumption. They accomplish this in large part by being very simple in normal operation and leaving the heavier lifting to the world of iPhones with relatively enormous batteries that get recharged ~every day.
I feel the same about the apple watch. All I use it for is literally tracking steps. I do not care about any other feature. If my watch fails I will just get a casio watch.
I wish they would've added features like LED lighting and other improvements while keeping Solar and Atomic clock syncing. Instead of modern smart watch stuff.
These watches have cheap batteries that you can swap in two minutes. Not a big deal. Solar batteries cost a lot more money and will render this watch as e-waste in the future.
I have the ABL-100WE-1A version, it has LED backlight. all of the ABL-100WE have it.
I press 3 seconds on the mode button, the watch syncs to the phone, syncs the clock and doesn't drift for a long time, and it also syncs the steps from pedometer.
Nice! When I wanted a “dumb” smart watch many years ago, I went with a FitBit. I think it matched the features to what this Casio offers minus the HR monitor. Fast forward to now, I use a Garmin Instinct that hits the spot for me. I’ve grown accustomed to the more detailed analytics (HRV and “daily battery” are awesome). Still I’d consider a Casio with more sensors and a solid phone app to give them justice. Anyhow, I own the previous version of this watch and a few other Casios and I still like them for what they are. Gonna hold on to them until I die :)
i love the product design aspect of a product that only needs to have one thing set (in this case, the time zone), to be eternally a functional device
which is why i love gshocks, both for design but also specifically the ones with tough solar/multiband 6 (and bluetooth (optional))
they have battery lives in the range of decades (due to solar charging), set themselves (multiband 6 is using atomic clock radio signals) and via bluetooth
you can get gw-b5600-2 and gw-s5600u (auto backlight) for under $200, but usually closer to $100. there are many more models, of course
that sounds expensive, but it's insanely durable construction and battery life means it'll be the only digital watch you'll ever need to buy. and the only configuration it will ever need is the time zone.
The batteries the gshocks use goes for about $15 or less.
Regular batteries may be a better deal but that doesn't include the process of opening the watch, replacing the battery, and then resealing the case.
I'll trade $15 and a 15 minute job once every 15 years for a 15 minute job every 5 years. And no watch with a regular battery will have auto-backlight (for the obvious reason).
And also... if you want a deal, don't buy a $100 watch with auto backlight, capable of setting its own time off of a radio, and capable of ringing your phone when you can't find it.
I service my watches every five years to keep them waterproof. And at that point I always replace the $1 battery, regardless of its condition. That way my watches are always operational.
would some Casio/watch expert know if it's possible to replace the face plate on these watches? I love the simplicity but I don't like all the text outside the watch itself like "Step tracker" and "Water Resist".
GW-M5610U-1ER enjoyer here. I am actually glad it is not connected to my phone, and I swap them with Garmin watches when I need to check the time and don't want to get any notifications.
Bluetooth is watch initiated, and only turns on 4 times a day (or when the user explicitly requests it with a button press). The pedometer is probably a special chip.
You should compare this with the F-91W that gets 7 years on the same battery, and hobbyist hardware mods that get years out of the same battery running ARM chips.
I had the same thought--speculating, perhaps it's like you say and we'll see a disclosure somewhere that it's "Up to 2 years, with 1 weekly Bluetooth pairing, 1 second of backlight use per day, no step counter."
Though, the CR2016 is a pretty big battery vs typical watch batteries, and in some other Casio watches are used as 10-year batteries.
Nice thing about BLE is that it can be really cheap and stateless, you don't need to keep polling. If it was sending each and every step count to the watch (or even every minute) that would be one thing, but a semi-daily sync for time and steps could easily fit in one BLE packet.
My little temperature and humidity sensors that show an LCD 2x the surface area of a watch and broadcast a BLE packet every minute lasts about 12 months on a CR2032 (~200mah). A CR2016 is ~90mah little less than half. And receiving a BLE packet takes way less energy than sending.
Then you have the on-demand stuff that costs a packet or two, like the lost phone finder -- which is what I'm most excited about.
My favourite ’90s wristwatch. battery lifetime just amazing.
I haven’t worn wristwatch anymore, since the dawn of smart phones. All my time information has moved into that, in my pocket. That’s my only dependency.
Here is a fun fact; the US believes owning and wearing an F-91W is evidence that you're a terrorist so much so that they can place you in Guantanamo Bay without trial[0]:
> In a handful of cases the detainee's possession of a Casio watch or the wearing olive-drab clothing is cited as evidence that the detainee is an enemy combatant. No basis is given to explain why such evidence makes the detainee an enemy combatant.
How does the Tacoma differ from the Hilux? I know there are some slight styling and engine differences for different markets, but pretty sure its still mostly a Hilux.
The wording doesn’t seem to me like owning the watch was the only evidence and that was enough to put people in Guantanamo, it sounds to me like it was a contributing factor. Still a bit crazy but I don’t think they just arrested everyone with this watch.
> the US believes owning and wearing an F-91W is evidence that you're a terrorist
No they don't, please don't spread misinformation. If this were true, the watch itself would be banned in the country and/or nobody would sell it.
Your own source says the Pentagon refuted the author's claims because they did not have access to classified information, which I believe would suggest that there is more to the story than merely owning a very common watch and nothing else. Otherwise millions of innocent Americans would be in jail.
There is a very, very good reason this was only "in a handful of cases" and never again.
It's not quite as simple as "if you have one of these you're a terrorist" of course; it's one indicator based on long-standing patterns, but never used as sole proof.
AQ training/bomb-making manuals from the 1990s–2000s recommend cheap, reliable digital watches like this as timers for IEDs as they're extremely inexpensive and widely available worldwide, durable, water resistant, and easy to modify as delay timers.
Often these guys would get picked up with two or more watches of the same model, for example. We recovered them in bomb-making facilities and on fighters throughout the GWOT. Ramzi Yousef (Philippine Airlines Flight 434) and Ahmed Ressam (the 'Millennium Bomber') both had them.
> Ramzi Yousef (Philippine Airlines Flight 434) and Ahmed Ressam (the 'Millennium Bomber') both had them.
This is like a statistics 101 question. Google says that Casio has sold over 100M F-91W's since 1989. Let's round down to an average of 2.5M a year, or 25M over the 10 peak years of the global war on terror (GWOT).
You named two terrorists who wore them. Let's say that's an understatement by 200X. Some quick math shows that the percent of terrorists who wore F-91W's is 400/25000000 = 0.0016% positive rate, or conversely a 99.9984% false positive rate. Not good!
Now I never actually took a statistics class, so maybe I got this question wrong. But it's obvious that using the possession of an F-91W as a sign of being a terrorist is a mistake.
Well, your argument might be valid but calculation of course has nothing remotely to do with truth. If we’re talking about the US, person has to be in the US/travel to US. That dramatically cuts down the amount from 25M. Second - the person has to be.. how do I put it, non white? Probably muslim. That also cuts it down by far. I can believe that people who fall in these two categories might have some subcultural groups. And in most of them they might just.. not wear Casio watches. It’s not like probability of wearing/not wearing Casio watches is equally likely for every person on earth. They have their target groups.
> Khaled El-Masri is a German, Lebanese and French citizen who was mistakenly abducted by the Macedonian police in 2003, and handed over to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
> While in CIA custody, he was flown to Afghanistan, where he was held at a black site and routinely interrogated, beaten, strip-searched, raped, and subjected to other forms of torture.
> After El-Masri held hunger strikes, and was detained for four months in the "Salt Pit", the CIA admitted his arrest was a mistake and released him.
Trick question! It was actually that his name is one letter away from someone else's name, and some manager in the CIA had "a hunch":
> At the end of 2003, El-Masri travelled from his home in Ulm to go on a short vacation in Skopje. He was detained by Macedonian border officials on 31 December 2003, because his name was identical (except for variations in Roman transliteration) to that of Khalid al-Masri, who was being sought as an alleged mentor to the al-Qaeda Hamburg cell, and because of suspicion that El-Masri's German passport was a forgery.
> CIA agents discussed whether to remove El-Masri from Macedonia through an extraordinary rendition. The decision to do so was made by the head of the al Qaeda division of the CIA's Counter-Terrorism Center, Alfreda Frances Bikowsky, on the basis of "a hunch" that El-Masri was involved in terrorism; his name was similar to suspected terrorist Khalid al-Masri.
> When the Macedonian officials released El-Masri on 23 January 2004, American security officers immediately kidnapped him. El-Masri later described them as members of a "black snatch team." They beat him and sedated him for transport using a rectal suppository. "The CIA stripped, hooded, shackled and sodomized el-Masri with a suppository—in CIA parlance, subjected him to "capture shock"—as Macedonian officials stood by."
> In a handful of cases the detainee's possession of a Casio watch or the wearing olive-drab clothing is cited as evidence that the detainee is an enemy combatant. No basis is given to explain why such evidence makes the detainee an enemy combatant.
After wearing an Apple Watch for almost a decade, the F-91W became my new "never take off" watch. For daily use, the only thing I miss from a smartwatch is a weather+temp forecast complication. Interestingly, it doesn't seem like this F-B100W-1A provides that (yet).
I’ve seen some people put something like a Whoop on the opposite side of their watch, so theoretically the functionality is achievable, but I can’t imagine the form factor to work due to the demands on compute and battery heart rate and sleep tracking need.
Started looking at Casios. Now I am thinking of getting W-800HD-1AVEF. Old A159W is kinda broken or pain to get right. Not really using one often, but maybe a few times in 10 years clock would be reasonable.
i want one of these but i need it bigger. i bought an F-91W last year and its so small, it barely fit on my wrist and it looked like a little girl watch on my wrist.
Best feature of old Casio products is they do NOT have RF (wifi/bluetooth) , but (sadly) this one has listed bluetooth and app as a feature.
I have seen (Xiaomi) smartwatches that wont allow setting the time without an app (asking to many permissions, and forcing cloud accounts) installed on a linked phone. facepalm
I feel that the smartphone connectivity feature is a departure from the philosophy of the F-91W. Is having a smartphone for "Easy watch setting" not a flaw of the watch, rather than a feature?
I'd love if it was radio controlled and charged with solar. And without phone connectivity.
Nice try, Casio. However the Amazfit Neo does the same, and more features (like heart rate and sleep measuring) for a similar price. I like mine quite a lot.
> A built-in motion sensor automatically tracks your daily steps, with your step count displayed on the LCD screen. Pair with your smartphone via Bluetooth® for automatic time adjustment and easy access to watch settings through the app.
I see and I was wondering why they sold it for £55 only. They collect and sell your personal data.
I love the F91-W. I’ve owned a few of them. Each one had the same problem; the band would crack and break before the battery died.
I foresee the same issue with the non-metal banded versions of this watch. Also the stated 2yr battery life is kind of meh in comparison to the F-91W. I’ve got an F91W that’s been running on the same battery for nearly a decade.
A lot of love here as well for the F-91W. As for the band, I use mine with a Phoenix Nato strap [1], which I suspect will last as long as the watch itself (if you are on a budget, there are plenty of PRC Nato clones out there). I wear it daily, as well as with my suit given how stylish it is in its simplicity. The only maintenance necessary is to gently run an open flame along the strap holes maybe once a year control the growth of loose nylon threads.
Personally not at all interested in these new features - an F-91W that needs a smartphone to operate properly is madness to me - but I do appreciate the way they implemented them, with a focus on longevity and simplicity.
Plenty of smartwatches are relatively thin and have vibration, and it only uses up battery when it's used. There's no excuse except they probably just wanted to cut costs.
I'm disappointed because that's what kept me from buying the Amazfit Neo, which is a similar concept to this one. Without vibration it's useless to me. They get so close to a great product and then...
Vibration is precisely what made me sell my brand new (sold out) Pebble watch. No matter the firmware or options (un)chosen, it would randomly vibrate at odd times of the day. Couldn't stand the constant distractions.
Casio G-Shock GW-M5610U back on my wrist where it belongs.
I am with you on this - with vibration alarm, it would be an instant buy. Vibration alarm on the wrist is so much less stressful in the morning, plus it doesn't wake up anyone sleeping next to you. I haven't used audio-based alarms in years.
I'm a huge fan of the Casio F-91W, have two of them on my desk right now. Maybe it's just me, but for this specific model I feel like it becoming bluetooth enabled breaks the spirit of the simplicity of the model.
But hey, seems like people are excited for that, happy for them! Mine will last another 10 years without it.
I own a F-91W and would instantly buy the newer upgrade (if it had vibration alarm and notification, which it doesn't unfortunately). It is more about the iconic design than simplicity.
It's still powered by a coin cell so it's probably for power conservation reasons. Way cheaper to periodically power on the BT radio and sync steps to your phone than it is to constantly listen for notifications.
It's not just power, if it where, they'd fit a USB C rechargable cell in there.
Its still a cheap casio resin watch at the end of the day. If this where to be able to push/pull notifications, the watch would be completely different in cost, ui, marketing, etc.
It would go from being charming retro tech with modern features, to dime a dozen bloatware/fitness tracking hardware.
That's an interesting take. I wear a non-smart watch specifically because I don't want notifications or any smart features. I wore an Apple watch for years but went back to a dumb analog watch when I got tired of the distractions.
I've been thinking of going back to a smart watch and only turning on notifications for texts from my wife. This so I can leave my phone out of my hands when I'm with my son.
and as someone who want dumb watch you have tons of options compared to someone who just want small watch with notifications which will last at least one month and have real AOD
no such thing besides old Amazfit Bip and overpriced pebble time 2 exists, everything else has either no battery life or looks like brick on wrist (greetings to Garmin and Casio)
If you want a coin-cell powered watch with a couple of years battery-life, but still want notifications, the G-Shock GBD-200/300s have this feature: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCq1ei5cT_8
huge dimensions comparable to bricks sold by Garmin, key new know when Casio will produce something with F-91W dimensions
if I have to choose between used Amazfit Bip for 15-20$ or pebble time 2 with worse (bigger) dimensions, worse battery life (even compared to 5+ yo Bip battery) and not even built in GPS for 200+ $ it's pretty easy choice
The Amazfit Neo was already doing something very similar a few years ago, a Casio-like design, always-on monochrome display, physical buttons and a 28-day battery life, while adding notifications and basic fitness tracking.
Nice move! I wish it would support even more activity / health features in the future like GPS tracking, sleep tracking, etc. As a full package in the classic design it would make a great alternative to Garmin / Polar / Whoop / Oura etc.
Casio has been leaving a lot of money on the table in terms of nostalgia products. There's been a low rumble of demand for the Casio CZ series of synthesizers for a decade or more, and a bunch of non-Casio companies have cashed in on it (Behringer makes CZ-1 Mini, Arturia has CZ V, several other phase distortion synths exist). It's incredibly cheap to replicate, a simple early digital synthesis algorithm that'll run on anything; Korg has been making ARM-based emulation synths (basically a Raspberry Pi-like SoC in a keyboard form factor with some knobs) for a decade or more and I have to assume their margins are very comfortable since most of the guts are off-the-shelf low-cost parts rather than custom chips.
But, I guess their watches were always a bigger business than the synths.
the watches are a high end fast fashion brand in japan. it seems to be very lucrative
I have a couple of Oceanus brand watches that I got in Japan. They are fairly un-cheap.
However, in Japan, their G-Shock brand (kind of lower cost, in the US), can get even more expensive than Oceanus. Some of them look like Pip-Boys (Because this is HN, I need to mention that this is a deliberate exaggeration).
Now I'm curious, do you have some examples?
Not offhand. I got the watches in that big Akihabura store, about 20 years ago, and they had a shitton of G-Shocks, as well as Oceanus. I saw several 6-digit prices.
Many of the folks I worked with, could afford good watches, and wore G-Shocks. They were quite proud of them.
I suspect you’ll see them on the Japanese Casio site.
Look up gshocks around $300 on chrono24 etc. then go look up the new MSRP
There are collectible models that sell used higher than they were new, but for the most part they’re much cheaper
Then there are lines like MR-G. hand hammered metal cases made out of premium materials.
It's entirely possible that the more expensive "G-Shocks" were Mr G. I remember seeing wording about titanium cases, etc., but most of it was in Japanese, so the only thing that jumped out at me, were the price tags.
Oh yeah I never heard of chrono24. I'm not a watch guy at all :) I was just interested because I used to have casio watches when I was young. After which the mobile phones emerged and I stopped wearing a watch at all, until they started doing more interesting stuff (payments and notifications are what interests me mainly).
80s casio watches are the rage with kids in the US, too
Not just Japan, they're widely popular globally as daily drivers, but also as "fashion" watches, with Gen Z too.
> Casio has been leaving a lot of money on the table in terms of nostalgia products
Casio has been quite successful at not abusing trust in their brand by releasing lower-quality outsourced replicas like HP did with their calculators. Not that HP had much farther to fall but it’s nice to see a corporation that’s not incompetent!
They don't have far to fall in the synth world. Their current keyboard line has no synthesizers to speak of. But, also, they still have a keyboard line and relationships with music dealers, so presumably they wouldn't need to outsource the return of the CZ.
Trying not to leave any money on the table is exactly the approach that reliably kills off nostalgia income streams.
Picking off some low hanging fruit while demonstrating provable restraint can result in a huge money stream that goes on and on. But when the mindset "it's good, but it can be better!" becomes dominant (e.g. through market dynamics, being publicly traded means that ownership perpetually shifts to those who think that income sources could be squeezed just a little harder, or much harder, actually), it quickly turns sour. And when it flips from beloved to "why throw money at those greedy $expletive,plural" it flips hard, and forever.
G-Shocks could be so much better, and it has been this way for at least a decade.
"So much better" means "with added smartwatch crap"?
The whole value of them is they are simple, minimally changed over time (you can depend on getting the same model in a decade), functional, with no/bare minimum smartwatch crappery, essentially endless battery, and no planned obselecense.
a smart watch to use forever. how long is their support cycle?
Why would i put even more "smart" crap on or around me? I pay by physical card; i hate the "app" being forced on you by banks outsourcing their infra onto their clients.
And why would i need to track my.... steps? Because some corp started this shit as a marketing ploy years ago?
Where have i written "smart"? Also they already put in all those stuff so it is obvious that I don't mean that.
Completely right about the synths, Casio has been missing out. Their new Sampler looks really nice, and has been a surprise in the music world.
They've also dipped their toes into guitar toys with the Dimension Shifter. They do seem to be kind of paying attention to the music market again, after decades away from it. So, I'll keep hoping for a really good CZ re-issue.
That sampler looks so fun and I want to buy it but I already have a PO33 and SP404 MK2. So I really don't need it. Probably keep an eye out on reverb in the next year or so
Korg did it right - budget off-the-shelf processor, most of the money spent on the UI, wildly optimistic prices, no nostalgic ties.
The expensive part of a modern synth isn't the DSP board, it's the industrial design and tooling needed to build the rest of the hardware.
The CZ series was workable, but there really aren't many passionate nostalgic buyers waiting to drop a few hundred - minimum - on an expensive reissue.
Agreed. My knowledge/experience with synths is limited but between DSPs that're as available as ketchup and Kleenex for the past few decades and an LLM there's not much to rolling one's one. A watch on the other hand is higher LOE
There's not much to rolling one's own FM synth, either, and there are dozens of successful commercial products built on it.
I don't think I buy that argument (that there aren't enough people interested in it).
It's not quite in the ball park of something like the DX 7 or several of the better known analog synths, which have nearly all seen re-issues, mini-versions, software emulations, etc., often several. Damned near every Roland synth from that era has seen a re-issue and official plugin. Yamaha has been more measured in their re-issue plays, but the DX did get a reface DX, along with the CS, CP and YC. FM synthesis has been wildly successful in nostalgia synths as well as novel takes on the idea (e.g. the Elektron FM groove box) and Korg's Opsix (I have two of them, the first gen small one and the big expensive one made in Japan), and Yamaha still ships FM synthesis engines in their high end workstations. And, there's at least four plugins that emulate the CZ (I'm working on a fifth to be released in another month or two).
I don't think all that would exist without some demand. I have a soft spot for early digital synths, and I think a lot of other folks do, too. I don't like to buy from Behringer, but it's the only hardware option out there right now aside from the real thing (I own a real CZ 101, but I wouldn't want to take it out of the studio).
AudioPilz (Bad Gear) even made a video demanding it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb8nMZE-bb0
> I don't think I buy that argument (that there aren't enough people interested in it).
That you can buy them on ebay all day long for less than most cheap synths costs new argues against it being viable.
The prices are pretty similar to Yamaha DX series synths on eBay right now (starting at about $300 and going on up to $700 for working specimens, depending on model and condition).
Not really. XZ1000 $300-600. DX7 $700-1000.
According to what I can dig up, the original MSRP of the DX7 was $1995. The original MSRP of the Casio CZ 101 was $395. So, by my reckoning, the CZ has a higher collector value than the DX7 based on relative price change over the years.
Edit: But also, the CZ was generally more comparable to lower-end DX synths, like the DX27 or DX9. It was a budget synth in its day, while the DX7 was the pinnacle of digital synthesis for at least a year or two after release, everyone had to have one.
The core of the vintage remake market is "Always wanted this, still can only afford a clone" which is where Behringer lives.
There's also a "Always wanted this, can finally afford it now that I'm rich" niche for the high-end remakes from Korg and occasionally Moog etc.
There isn't a huge "Bought this forty years ago because I couldn't afford anything better and would quite like a modern remake" segment.
Casio do still make pianos and Casiotone keys which include samples and some CZ and VZ series sounds. (I don't know if they're sampled or DSP.)
Hell you can often even find the Korg Volca FM for under 100 bucks and it’s a patch compatible DX7 clone.
I have a Casio CZ-5000, the 61 key version with sequencer. It’s well made but given its age I’m not sure I’d want to take that to a gig either.
There is always https://busycircuits.com/pages/alm042
>I don't think I buy that argument (that there aren't enough people interested in it). >I don't think all that would exist without some demand.
What we old synth nerds need to understand is that there are always new synth nerds leaving the worlds music schools, quite often with a fat wad of disposable income/parents cash, and they want to build their own little studios to make the next mega-hit.
This is the driving force behind Behringer and all the re-issuing goings-on and such.
But the synth world is a fashion scene. Devices and techniques and engines go in and out of fashion.
The recent Gearmulator releases have lit a serious fire under the DSP-synth world precisely because folks really want these old synths, and I suppose its quite fun to take the real DSP firmware and emulate them:
https://github.com/dsp56300/gearmulator
(Disclaimer: have worked professionally in the synth world for decades, I have my biases and also new releases on the horizon ..)
>Korg did it right - budget off-the-shelf processor, most of the money spent on the UI, wildly optimistic prices, no nostalgic ties.
Korg does put out "nostalgic" remakes of analog synths just as well: MS-20 (complete with patch board), Arp 2600, as well as digital versions like the Korg multi/poly virtual analog.
This is where Behringer absolutely shine - about a decade ago they established a fully automated mega-factory in Malaysia designed around Siemens’ Xcelerator portfolio, PLM/MES software, and Digital Twin technology.
Korg 2600 - ~ €1000 Behringer 2600 - €300
CZ Series doesn't have much cachet simply because phase distortion synthesis was the 'we have FM Synthesis at home' cheap alternative to 4 OP FM Synthesis in the 80s. About the only USP they have in that arena is the fact they're responsible for the 'Reese Bass' sound - the 'Wilhelm Scream' of Techno if you will.
Malaysia? I don't think that intended land use went forward, check again?
They refurbed their Chinese on OTOH.
You're absolutely right, I had Malaysia in my head for some reason. Music Tribe City is in Zhongshan, China
https://www.musicradar.com/news/behringers-mindblowing-new-f...
you can have cz samples in the upcoming Casio SXC-1 ! toy sampler is the new toy synthesizer
I have a real CZ 101. And, I've implemented a synth engine that emulates it quite closely.
But, I still want a modern Casio CZ. I just think it'd be neat.
The sampler is cool, though.
A lot of Japanese companies leave piles on the table. One often unnoticed reality of Japanese imports and exports, at least in modern days, is that Japan as a whole has total double standards on those, requiring over the top perfection for imports but exports are almost on take it or leave it basis. Even Nintendo products are at barely acceptable levels if the standards for imports were applied to e.g. en-US editions. It's a miracle that Japanese products have substantial sales volumes and good reputations at all. It's quite unlike Chinese engineering of today.
You make it sound like their exports are subpar. They're excellent.
The oddity I see isn't that quality isn't great, but that developments and company public relations feedback loops are almost open looped in the global scope, only closed in domestic Japanese scope, as if the entire global part were a surplus sale. It somehow works but it's a bit weird, and it looks to me that this open loop setup is causing a lot of tiny but accumulative pains for a lot of Japanese products, which is just ... unfortunate, I guess.
There are Japanese companies that focus on quality, Grand Seiko and Credor (Seiko) watches are finished to a high degree by hand. They have used urushi lacquer, hand polishing, hand enameled dials, and all kinds of other high end finishing techniques.
Hopefully because they’re focusing on having relevance in the future. It’s sad as a gen Xer to see Japanese electronics companies fading away.
They ate American manufacturing's lunch and now China is eating theirs. The circle of life, or something. But, yeah, I have fond feelings for a lot of Japanese brands, not just electronics (my favorite car since childhood is a Nissan Z, speaking of Japanese companies on the ropes).
It's a really good question why Casio didn't continue making synths after the 80s. It's possible that the entire CZ-line was intended to be a one-off response to Yamaha's breakaway success with the DX7. After the CZ-line, it looks like Casio tried to keep up with Yamaha for a few years, but exited the market after Yamaha launched the SY-line. From what I understand, the CZ-series were great sellers then, but even with all of the nostalgia they'd never move large numbers now.
For what it's worth, Yamaha aren't particularly nostalgic about their cult-classic synths either. I guess that from their perspective, the DX7 and CZ-101 were already obsolete within a few short years. By 1990 the sound had already become quite dated, and technology had moved on. Now that they've become popular again as a cult-classic, the margin just isn't there anymore because of the market share of software, or cheap independent FM/PD synths.
Shameless plug, in case anyone is interested, I've done some work reverse-engineering some of these synths:
- https://github.com/ajxs/casio_cz101_rom_disassembly
- https://ajxs.me/blog/uCOM-87_The_Strangest_Architecture_Youv...
Awesome. When I was researching the CZ 101 (still am, actually), I spent some time reading the MAME implementation, including the NEC upd933 chip emulation. I was going to say I'm surprised I didn't find your docs, but it looks like they were all published late last year which is precisely when I was doing my research (I used the holiday to work on some projects I'd been stewing on in the back of my mind, and a phase distortion plugin was one of them).
I don't know why I find that era of synth so enjoyable and interesting, but I do. I love every FM synth, but that side of things feels pretty well covered by existing tools. Korg makes the OpSix (and I have two), Yamaha has the reface DX and I think their workstations still ship an AFM engine, and there are at least a half dozen plugins that are mostly quite accurate, and a handful of other hardware options.
Phase distortion just feels more neglected, so that's the one I've been spending time on. I have an excellent engine running, which is more accurate than the Arturia CZ V engine (at least compared to my actual CZ 101, maybe they were comparing against another model, but the MAME engine is also like the real CZ and not like Arturia, so I am inclined to say Arturia got sloppy), but I'm going pretty slow on the UI. Making a nice plugin UI for a synth that didn't have a nice UI is a challenge. You can't just copy the original UI if you want it to be fun to use.
Hmm I wonder what else Casio watches have been a big part of over the past 30 years that may have put a hamper on such things, I wouldn't look into it
Good point. They’re probably repurposing an F-91W line.
The (relatively new) Casiotone CT-S1000V and CT-S500 have CZ sounds included along with fun voice synthesis technology, and are recommended as a good cheap keyboard on some forums.
> basically a Raspberry Pi-like SoC
Not just Pi-like - the Wavestate is using an actual Raspberry Pi CM3 module! https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/electronic-music-icon-korg-...
One thing I've never understood (and hopefully some Casio geek can shine a light on): why do almost all old Casio models have a 24/12h time switch taking the premium spot as one of the main 4 buttons, instead of having it buried deep in the (awkward) menus. Seems to me that something like alarm or stopwatch setting or a second menu action button would have been far more useful.
In my country, 30-40 years back, people who needed a watch were those ones who travel regularly. And travel was mostly using public transport, trains and planes. Most or all of it operated using a 24h time. That button was very useful. Compare that to the mute/silence/DND physical button in iPhones today.
Also people who worked in confined spaces who wouldn’t know if it was day or night outside after a days job. My father who worked in an oil rig in Abu Dhabi used one. He gifted me one.
This was 1998.
How about just leaving it on 24h time all the time?
I just use 24h time in the afternoon.
Yes but why not just always use 24h time (or 12h if that’s what you like).
It’s a little strange that a dedicated button would be needed to switch between them, especially when the math to convert between them is so simple.
Exactly, my kids knew how to convert between the formats at a fairly young age.
OK, but who would use 12h time ? I never understood, this seems so backwards.
How about someone who was raised on 12h time and has used it for 70 years? Sure, the math to convert is pretty easy, but why?
Ok right. I didn't know people were used to that.
You didn’t know about 300 million Americans?
I doubt that anyone knows 300 million people let alone that many Americans.
I'd guess that the very large majority of people don't know that americans use 12h time, no. Why would they?
It is a bit strange, like being surprised some countries drive on the left side. xkcd 1053 of course, but people are still allowed to be surprised when someone went their entire life without picking up a fairly common factoid.
I am grappling with this but I can't.
You did not know that large parts of the world default to 12h time?
This is absolutely NOT an American thing. I am not American and have never lived there. I am 58 years old, British and Irish, and lived a decade in Nigeria and a decade in Czechia. I have travelled widely around Europe and can get by in 6 foreign languages.
12h time in real daily life is more common everywhere I have ever been. Only minor subsections of humanity -- military people, maybe -- work on the 24h clock.
I am 38 and British and use 24hr clocks exclusively. This is also very common on the continent - the French nearly always use 24hr time for everything
Thinking on, yes, I think I'd noticed that. I love the country but I've never lived there full-time, though.
Indeed (French here). 12h time is still there in spoken language sometimes, but never in writing.
In the operating room, all the wall clocks are 12 hours but all records kept by humans are 24 hour time.
I learnt English as a kid with the 12h time, but UK friends nowadays say they tend to use 24h everywhere precision is needed (e.g. transport timetables) and less and less 12h in everyday chat. I was supposing USA was the same. Obviously not.
I.e. boomers holding everyone else back again.
People who can't reliably subtract 12 from numbers. They're out there.
It's me! (But I solve it by using 24h for everything)
Americans. The U.S. has a lot of people who are unaccustomed to 24 hour time.
I knew for the imperial units but not this. This country ... let's say it always amaze me.
They use US customary, not imperial, they're slightly different sets of units.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_units
> Some advocates of the customary system saw the French Revolutionary, or metric, system as atheistic. The president of an Ohio auxiliary of the Institute wrote that the traditional units were "a just weight and a just measure, which alone are acceptable to the Lord". His organization later went so far as to publish music for a song proclaiming "down with every 'metric' scheme".
Ooh that explains a lot.
It’s the whole Anglosphere. We do it, as well as imperial measurements, to give the finger to Napoleon and his metric 10 hour long day system.
But 24-hour time is not decimal, isn't it what you guys like?
It’s not the whole Anglosphere.
24 hour time is used extensively in the UK. For example, all public transport uses 24 hour times here.
Those buttons are the menu. The idea of menus on watches is a modern ux extravagance.
I don’t have the satisfying answer as to why they dedicated a button to 12/24 hour time but my guess is that it’s simply a cool digital feature and stands out against the limitations of analog watches.
To add to it, I always kept the manuals around, because remembering the key press sequences was akin to doing combos in arcade fighting games.
A few months without doing them, and it was hopeless trying to remember how to do them again.
I always followed trial and error until I reached my target and I had the feeling that my results were much better than if I were randomly clicking buttons. That is, some memory always remained. Or the menu is well thought out and has some consistency.
The button press sequences are still combo-style; when I set one of the alarms on my ABL-100WE, it always ends in trial and error. I mean, basically it's logical, but when the buttons change what they do (e.g. when the display says "SET", the light button becomes "up"), it throws me off.
I have a 6.30AM alarm on my FW-91, and I'm too lazy to figure out how to switch it off.
15 beeps, btw, till it turns itself off for the day.
> 15 beeps, btw, till it turns itself off for the day
One thing I miss that’s not on my Fitbit is an hourly warning. When you have ADHD, it’s a huge helper.
> I'm too lazy to figure out how to switch it off.
Press MODE, then press ALARM ON/OFF.
Casio watches all have the same.
The beauty of them is that I can pick up any casio model from any year and I know how it works.
That my friend is peak design.
They had modal menus back then, they just didn't display them. You had to memorize which obscure symbols to press, to change various settings. For example, in the 1970's, HP's calculator watch required pressing ⯅• to switch between 12 hr and 24 hr modes, or A⯅A to clear an alarm.
In the 80's and 90's, when sixteen-segment and dot-matrix displays made displaying text easier, calculators started displaying menu items, so you didn't have to memorize the sequence.
Since then, we've moved on to full-color high-resolution displays that can handle any text of any language, and the menus have more-or-less switched back to memorizing a sequence of which obscure symbols to press, I guess because some people think they look cool? Sometimes there's no menu at all, and you just have to memorize finger movements.
You can bury stuff like setting the time into a menu, people will accept it. They know that there will be a way to set the time. But if the 12/24 is hidden, whatever is picked as the default will drive away a noticeable fraction of those would-be buyers who prefer the other setting. For starters, pretty much everybody who does not get pulled into a sales person interaction that's sufficiently deep to touch the subject. And that sales person interaction won't be the best possibly, you don't want to bore them with nuisance settings, you want to show off The Stopwatch (or whatever was the flagship feature of the watch in question)
> required pressing ⯅•
I don't know what clever jiggery-pokery you are trying to do, but whatever you typed, it's just turning to tofu on this Macbook, in both Chrome and Firefox.
There are menus on these watches, though. On the F91w the menu button flips through different setting modes which affect the function of the other buttons.
I spoke with a Casio engineer about this. It's so that your bending wrist can accidentally switch it to 12h time when you actually really want it on 24h time or vice versa.
+1 I use this all the time and can't live without it
Is this a joke, or an actual answer?
They could just set it to 12h mode for americans and 24h mode for the rest of the world, and hid the setting somewhere deep in the menus (hold this button for 3s, then press that button 5 times, and then the other button two times, etc.), so you could change it from american to normal display if needed, and never again press it by accident.
My F-91F I replaced the Casio module with an Ollee watch and pretty much disabled all of the features, I can sync the time when reconnecting to Bluetooth on my phone which I do about once a month.
Newish Casio user here. From what I understand, it's so that you can switch it to 24h after accidentally switching it to 12h and vice versa.
Been using Casio watches since 1983. That is exactly what it is for.
HN makes me laugh like twice a year – you're either the first or second!
you mean the first or the thirteenth.
I see what you did there
Plus, you don't have to manually convert from 24h to 12h time.
The state of American math skillz.
To be fair I've been using 24h time all my life and I still sometimes say 5 when I meant 15 (3), at least once a year.
>euroderf
Name checks out.
You are joking, but perhaps it's exactly what it's for.
Well done!
casio guy here, can confirm thanks for the laugh
You are my hero for the day.
Wearing a Casio as I type this. The "24hr" button switches 12/24 modes on the "watch" mode, when using stopwatch it starts the watch, and when using alarms it turns the alarm on/off.
It has pretty critical functionality for those, I think the way its labeled on the watch face just makes it sound a little odd.
Now that I think I can't very fast come up with any feature I would want to have on third button in clock display mode. UI is 3 buttons, light, mode and one mode dependant. So I can't think what you would use it for in clock mode. So better have it work, but do something inconsequential...
Maybe it's because the United States is not the whole planet
A watch like the F-91W is a bit wonky in terms of the buttons. You're right the 24/12h makes no sense, who needs to switch between those two options regularly? The backlight button is also questionable, because it's not entirely clear what you're suppose to gain by vaguely illuminating the first 20% of display, which will be empty from midnight until 20:00.
At night it is more than sufficient. I even use it as a flashlight
It has to be extremely dark though, or maybe mine has a worse than normal backlight. Other models are much better, it's just the F-91W.
The fact that Casio is well aware that the backlight is just terrible, but haven't fixed it in close to 40 years is hilarious and just makes me love it even more.
And you specifically have an F91W? In pitch black, it maybe illuminates 2/3 of the screen for me. I can't imagine using it as a flashlight! But mine is newer, maybe the older ones have better lights.
Yes, F-91W still on its first battery. It's not a great flashlight, but it allows me to find back into bed and not run into anything
Even worse, my Casio can't even change the default mm-dd to my country's default dd-mm, keeps throwing me off.
I used to walk around with a Casio always, I would have welcomed this connectivity, but now I have a Pebble and I like the balance. Could have done without the HR monitor, and with GPS though (some features don't work without phone connection, too many I find). Other than that, perfect for me.
For me the 24h is buried... But then I can't change the default mm-dd to my country's default dd-mm, which just keeps throwing me off.
For a very long time, China and India used a mixture of the 12-hour and 24-hour formats, which meant they had to convert the time or switch between time formats multiple times par day. That was the intended use of this button.
Both countries have now officially switched to the 24-hour format.
I'm skeptical. Switching between time formats when you're used to it requires 0 cognitive effort, and certainly doesn't warrant a button. Eg in France, people use 24h time for display but talk in either 12h or 24h time depending on personal preference, so you might look at "17:00" and say "5" without even thinking about it, it's just a different name for 17.
True (and can confirm) but this assumes a lifetime's habit of interchanging the two.
It doesn't take long to learn to interchange. If you start today you won't be doing it tommorow, but if you keep it up in a few months you will. At least for the common times - you might have to think about what 10pm is if you normally go to bed before then.
It’s not quite the same when a schoolchild or a farmer has to figure out different train timetable formats depending on the railway company. It was the 1980s, and these were the first affordable watches available…
The SNCF doesn’t change its format when you travel to Brittany or Alsace.
For anyone interested in modding the F-91W there's also The Ollee Watch, a replacement PCB which adds even more "smart" features.
https://www.olleewatch.com/
The developer also recently posted on Reddit that he’ll soon be adding third party app support
Really hoping this will include the ability to sync information from the internet via the BT tethered phone. But probably not
Similar to the current weather feature that grabs the weather for the next 5 days on every sync, I just want to push the local time train schedule just once per day to my watch.
Sensor Watch is the non-phone-connected OG:
https://www.sensorwatch.net
not just OG ... also OSS as opposed to Ollee
I use one of these daily. Got the expanded screen too. I love the USB design (the side of the board fits inside a USB micro B cable).
I'm curious, which features did you code into the watch?
I added a calibration feature for the pulsometer. Lets me set how many events I want to count in order to get the answer. Allows me to turn the pulsometer into an asthmometer. Use it every day at work, makes counting respiratory frequency painless.
If I remember right, I also made some improvements to the TOTP watch faces. Even maintained the repository for a bit while Joey focused on getting the Sensor Watch Pro out. Merged a lot of stuff.
Does it offer anything out of the box or do you have to program everything? It doesn't even seem to track steps
The movement firmware is open source and it has tons of features. Highlights include temperature compensation for seconds per year accuracy, and a TOTP generator that lets you login like you're James Bond.
People have written orbital calculators for this thing. Even the Chrome jumpy dinosaur game got ported.
It has ... uuuuuh ... blackjack?
Is it did that get implemented solely so someone could say "I'll make my own watch, with blackjack and hookers"?
so where are the hookers, then?
I have one of these, there is an open source project called gshock_api that supports it. I think that makes it a much more interesting device. I don't use the app, I tag alarms in remind, and sync them from cron - works great.
https://github.com/izivkov/gshock_api
The full lifelog (what Casio calls the steps and other metrics) is an opaque binary blob, but we mostly understand it now, so you can access that too.
https://github.com/izivkov/gshock_api/pull/3
This is great, as is the CasioGShockSmartSync Android app. I wish there was an iOS app, as the official app is horrible, only works after signing up for an account, and only works if given every tracking permission possible to vacuum the maximum amount of data to the cloud.
Hmmmmmmmm. I've always been a fan of the classic Casio aesthetic, and I want to want it, but this is a strange point in the functionality-vs-price space.
A base F-91W costs less than half that, and my phone can already track steps with reasonable reliability.
An entry-level fitbit costs about the same and monitors way more stats including heart rate, SpO2. Worse battery life and appearance, but if I wanted that featureset it's probably what I'd get.
Some of us prefer looser fitting bands. Most of smart watch features are useless unless you strap it down tight. I'd bite on something like this if the form factor wasn't off.
Simple smart watches make sense for people who want accurate time who don't want to pull their phone out of their pocket for things that can be answered by looking at their wrist.
I recently thought I could probably go back to a not-smart watch to not have to charge the watch all the time, but I don't want to deal with setting the time regularly either due to quartz drift and dst. So a bluetooth watch with two years of battery life doesn't sound like a bad idea really.
Even cheap quartz movements tend to drift by ±10 seconds per year, so you'd only really set it at dst. Maybe you're thinking about automatic watches which can drift by several seconds per day, and stop if you don't use it for 24/48/X amount hours. I have to set my automatic quite frequently
It is usually 10-15s per month. And the annoying thing is you have to notice it and I prefer a watch that I don't have to double check.
±10 seconds per year would be quite an expensive quartz movement. To be that reliable anywhere it should be thermocompensated, too. This is the range of Grand Seiko 9F, Citizen Chronomaster, or Bulova Precisionist.
+/- 10 seconds a year for a quartz watch isn’t cheap. A Grand Seiko or Citizen high-accuracy quartz watch costs around $3,000 for the most basic models. A cheap quartz watch is an order of magnitude less accurate, which is still more accurate than a Rolex .
I'll probably be in the minority, but my phone can't track my steps, because I don't have it with me all the time, but my watch is on my wrist. The fitbit requires a Google account, so that's going to be a big no. The Casio might also require an account, I can't tell. The Fitbit has 10 days battery life, the Casio, 2 years.
The price is a bit high, it is basically just a watch with a step counter. I'd also argue that people who buy Casio watches might have multiple watches they switch between, so you'd only put this on when you want to count your steps, and in that case there are better and cheaper options.
Like their G-Shock watches, the actual area dedicated to showing the time is overwhelmed by superfluous elements. Must be barely 20% of the top surface that actually performs its primary function.
When I look at my watch I want to see the time, not wasted space announcing "Casio Step Tracker" or "Water Resist" ( which isn't even proper English).
I moved to Timex a few years ago as their basic digital watches have nice big numerals for the time display.
You might wanna take a look at Casio AE-1500WH.
I have it. I sometimes hate the fake screws on it, but I love it.
On the principal menu of my G-Shock, I have the time on ~80% of the screen. The rest is 8/19, WED and the seconds. Of course the time is smaller when I go to the tide screen.
And what percentage is the screen of the top surface of the watch?
Nearly 50% of today’s $45,000 Rolex Daytona is taken up by superfluous text like this.
Right, that’s why it costs $45,000 rather than just $25,000.
There are some editions of their models which don't have any of those labels and they look much better. But I think they never went far enough, and design a good looking digital g-shock with big time and date, nothing else. When I was younger, small time display was fine, but now as someone with presbyopia (like any 40+ adult) those digits are just too small.
The only thing my watch displays is the time, any three-hand watch is exclusively dedicated to timekeeping.
BIG Warning to anyone thinking about purchasing one of these
You cannot connect the watch to Bluetooth without a proprietary app, and that proprietary app will not let you use the Bluetooth feature without some bullshit called a "CASIO Account". Their privacy policy is a bit of an eyebrow-raiser too.
The absolute state of things.
Isn't that common across all watches that connect to your phone these days? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Edit: Also, not saying it's a good thing.
My bathroom scale requires gps access via my phone if I want to log data to it...
yeah that's not good! That's why I don't want to buy a "smart" fridge or any of these appliances that require Wifi access.
From my understanding, apps need location permissions if they want to scan for available bluetooth devices rather than having the user pair in the bluetooth settings app. The reason being that advertisers set up bluetooth beacons all over the place and used passive scanning in apps to collect the users location.
What's not clear to me is why they really need to be able to scan for bluetooth. Surely requesting location permissions is worse UX than having the user go to the settings app to pair.
The lowest common denominator user is more afraid of visiting the settings menu than they are of clicking allow on just about any permissions popup.
ffs all it needed to do was talk to Apple Health and I’d have bought it.
from a financial perspective they would assume one persons data is worth maybe 50$ a year (a random number) on top of maybe another 50$ in subscriptions they can sell. Assuming most such products service the business for up to 3 years, you are looking at an additional 300$ upfront that the business loses giving the data away to someone like Apple. Also the value gain from purely having such a business of subscriptions and data collection is probably another 100$ per customer. Thats close to 500$ for that thing.
Someone like Casio could just sell it for 500$ and collect their future cashflows right away. However, the customer turnout might be significantly less than 55$ they are selling it for.
So the only way to sell it for profit is to keep the data and make a subscription (which may or may not exist yet for Casio).
They could just sell it at an honest price with an honest profit. It’s an upsell from cheap F91Ws so they could have made more money just by selling me a thing that reads from Apple Health. It doesn’t even need to track steps itself.
I also disagree my email address and step data is worth $450 to them.
Let’s be honest. This thing is not innovative. It’s going to be using cheap commodity chips. Its selling point is nostalgia. I find it hard to believe it’s not already profitable at $55.
While I empathize with your feelings about lock-in, I encourage you to see that we live in an amazingly empowering era. I would wager that with $20 in credits for the LLM flavor of the week and and an equally expensive BLE-to-USB dongle (try the nRF52840 dongle), you will have the protocol reverse-engineered overnight. BLE protocols are often very low-hanging fruit for this type of effort.
Yes, it's annoying this stuff isn't open source from the get-go, but it has never been easier to open hardware up for yourself and others.
+1000.
There should be bounties for open sourcing drivers/apps like these and generally making 'clean'/better interfaces to hardware devices, now that it's so much easier.
Claude Code reverse engineered cheap (Android only) usb and wifi endoscopes here, wrote/flashed/hardware-in-the-loop developed python+arduino libraries, etc.
It's a completely new world.
@wpm, happy to fund the nRF52840 dongle if you want to try this + release code!
Have you released your reverse engineered endoscope camera work? It's something I've been thinking about doing myself, since the vendor apps leave a lot to be desired.
Yes! https://pypi.org/project/supercamera/
Feel free to contribute [0], let me know if it works with the cameras you have or not, etc.! Cheers
[0] https://github.com/Revise-Robotics/supercamera-endoscope
> There should be bounties
There are https://bounties.fulu.org
Wow, what a great idea. Thanks for the link!
Is it really as easy as you say? I have one of these Casio watches and plenty of spare Claude credits. Wouldn’t mind doing this but no idea where to begin.
Even I am curious about how people are doing this
Responding to you and @thewhitetulip
If you ask Claude how to do it, it might already give you some strategy that's reasonable (at least, it's good to see what it thinks)
Make sure to use Fable, and preferably have the Max plan (or plenty of credits)
LLMs can do very good work when they're unattended and optimize towards a goal that's unambiguous / for which you have a reference.
Generally speaking, in hardware, this means having a "rig" ie a testbed where the AI can send commands, observe output, and iterate on its own. You want autonomy, not babysitting (as much as possible)
In the case of this Casio watch, I would start by giving Claude Code context on what you're trying to achieve (read&decode messages sent probably over BLE, reverse engineer the protocol, get to a point where it can send valid messages itself). The goal should be a python/command line tool that can sniff packets, decode them, and send them. (step by step, starting with sniffing)
Get the nRF52840 USB dongle mentioned. Have Claude Code talk to the dongle. Ask it to list devices it sees. Ask it to see/detect the Casio watch. Use the proprietary Casio app and ask CC to record the sequence and decode the messages (explaining to it what you did in the app)
Also: have it do research - has this protocol been cracked/documented before? Is there an Android app for this Casio app which could be decompiled (usually more easily than the equivalent iOS app)?
Reach out if I can help - my offer for a dongle stands for anyone who wants to do this! It looks like a cool watch, it shouldn't be held hostage. :-)
Hi Greg, I am Claude Code junior specialist from Czech Republic and also huge Casio fan. I've been ignoring all bluetooth enabled models in the past, since I had a lot of negative experience with proprietary apps (Sony Music Center, Ultrahuman etc). This is not me first time thinking about reverse engineering products app, I love open hardware and I wanted to contribute to the community, but while doing my research (which Claude agrees with), I've figured out that it might not be as easy as I thought. For example, Googles Fitbit Air is according to some encrypting its traffic in a way, that it reaches Googles Cloud first, unencrypts and then reaches the app itself. How would you approach this issue? By the way, the dongle offer still stands? ;)
Offer still stands! email me (my email is in my profile)
When there’s a will, there’s a way :) I’m not immediately sure re Fitbit Air (that’s nasty if it’s e2e encrypted!), but… maybe it doesn’t pin the server certificate and you can intercept communications?
Seems like you would have fun reversing this! :) reach out!
From my experience Fable will reject this request - its pretty trigger-happy with it's safety detector for reverse engineering, even if you push it on right-to-repair. However Opus 4.8 is more than capable of doing it, with a bit of guidance.
> Wouldn’t mind doing this but no idea where to begin.
Literally just ask Claude where to begin
Having the LLM run the proprietary app through ghidra (which I think even has an MCP now), would likely give it some useful clues too
ble is just transport layer, if the actual data is encrypted, you can get nothing.
One of our device FW at first transmit raw data through gatt service, then folk at gadget bridge reverse engineer it, which does not sound good to stakeholder, so we have to encrypt the data between phone-device.
Quite possible transport is encrypted, but that can likely be overcome with some RE on the Android app. Given the price of this piece of hardware, it's likely recoverable with moderate effort. At least worth a try.
yeah, my point is "1 night and $20 of Claude token" maybe not enough.
Also you dont really need the nrf52840 dongle if you want sniffing(Also unlikely to work after the pairing process is done), you can use btsnoop on Android phone to record data, then analyze it with wireshark.
You're right, I was representing a best-case scenario with an intention to be inspiring.
And yes, the Android approach works too and I have done exactly that with Claude previously. The BLE dongle is however a platform-independent approach.
Q: How can we achieve world peace?
HN: I'd wager that with $20 in LLM tokens ...
Cracks me up every time lol
There is an Fdroid app "Casio G-Shock Smart Sync" Not sure if it supports now but most likely may support in future.
This is an unofficial app for Casio G-Shock, Edifice, and Pro Trek watches. It allows you to control your watch, sync data, and configure settings without a Casio ID. It offers a faster, privacy-focused, and more powerful alternative to the official Casio app.
Key Features check ------------------ - No Account Required: Skip the Casio ID login entirely.
From https://fdroid.gitlab.io/jekyll-fdroid/packages/org.avmedia....
While Casio app may be despicable, in Android world have a look at https://gadgetbridge.org/.
Gadgetbridge is open source provides a lot of "drivers" for different BT devices from Casio, Sony, Pebble, Garmin to Xiaomi and allows to live without monstrous in size and tracking proprietary apps.
If the watch gets any popular, it will take at most weeks for someone to vibecode open source app for this.
I complained to the relevant GDPR authority (German) and never heard back. It's blatantly illegal - overprocessing of PII - to require registration for connecting two devices owned by the same person, in the same room. There's no fathomable necessary or legitimate use.
It seems to me that it's a slightly more affordable repackaging of the ABL-100WE. The features are the same, so is battery life.
That said, I really like this because the ABL-100WE comes with metal bands and I'd really like another watch with a rubber band :)
https://www.casio.com/de/watches/casio/vintage/product.ABL-1...
Right when I started building a custom F-91W with/for my kids based on sensor watch: https://github.com/joeycastillo/second-movement
I'll take some solace in mine supporting lots more alarms (beep when school recess ends) and a bunch of geeky stuff like sunrise, moon phases, tides, and stuff.
The sensor watch is actually awesome, if only for turning a cheap casio into a super-accurate quartz watch with temperature compensation.
$39.88 at Walmart (different model): https://www.walmart.com/ip/CASIO-FITNESS-WRISTWATCH-DIGITAL-...
Obviously this is completely subjective, but to me that one you linked is SO much uglier than the other. I'd hate to have that on my wrist, whereas the one this whole submission is about I'd probably buy to replace my Oura ring if it had sleep tracking, heart rate monitor etc. rather than just step count
I agree: it's horrible! But, as numerous commenters have observed, the one featured in the submission is only available at retail in England and countries other than the U.S.; on eBay it's $175 + shipping/delivery/insurance.
This: "... I'd probably buy to replace my Oura ring if it had sleep tracking, heart rate monitor etc. rather than just step count."
If it had all those other features it would cost way more than the version offered!
Upon seeing "Bluetooth" and "Daily steps" I'd assume this is another watch that requires daily charging, but wow 2y battery w/ CR2016!
Yup, the ingenuity to pull this off fascinates me every day, too.
Yes, it seems to be a repackaging of the ABL-100WE and has a long battery life. Unfortunately, their app is horrible, only works after signing up for an account, and only works if given every tracking permission possible to vacuum the maximum amount of data to the cloud.
It's almost unbelievable that a step-tracker can have 2 years battery.
Several of the G-Shock models (lacking BT and pedometer) advertise up to 10 year life.
Either way, vastly more appealing than a charge-it-daily "smartwatch" IMO.
Amazing! I was proud that my OnePlus smartwatch needs recharging only once every 5 days, but 2 years is unbelievable. The difference is partly due to the LED screen of my smartwatch, LCD is much more energy efficient.
I really like my F91W case with a Sensor Watch Pro board and accelerometer sensor.
My favorite features:
- Piezo alarm is much louder.
- Countdown time can be incremented by tapping the watch.
- LED color can be changed by adjusting RGB values.
- It features sunrise/-set and moon phase info/calendar.
- I changed the week day names to German abbreviations.
- There are lots of intriguing watch faces that you can compile into your firmware.
Sadly, the project is in some disarray as the originator apparently lost interest and the community isn't moving uniformly. Would love to see such a project for Casio with 4 buttons as this would allow for a lot more interesting use cases ... the pinnacle would be a board for their calculator watches. That would be rad.
The Sensor Watch forum on Discord is pretty active.
https://www.crowdsupply.com/oddly-specific-objects/sensor-wa...
There must be some significant creativity with limitations of the physical display layout! [1]
[1] https://www.crowdsupply.com/img/87bb/b84945f8-c8fd-4a06-9291...
They make a replacement screen too. The feature set depends on the firmware, and you pick the right firmware for your screen (or make your own, it's FOSS).
yes, of course, one should also get the custom screen. offers a little more in terms of displaying.
> Sadly, the project is in some disarray as the originator apparently lost interest and the community isn't moving uniformly.
What's going on? Can you give me more details?
only outsider info based on GitHub stats and Discord.
> Countdown time can be incremented by tapping the watch.
This one is fascinating to me. Can you set it to start a countdown timer by tapping the watch itself (not a button)? If I could, say, tap the watch to start a 30m countdown timer whenever for baking, and then change a setting to make it a 1m30s timer on tap for exercise, that would be huge for me. But maybe that's not what you meant?
If you want a Casio watch and are traveling to Japan, just get one at a second hand shop there (WonderEx, Second Street, ...). They are tend to be well stocked on the Casio cruft.
I have a Casio PHYS STR-800, nonworking. I got it two decades ago because of the large lap memory (and unusual look, too); I was doing a lot of running, including track training and such.
It short circuited one day. Put in a battery, and it drained the thing in a minute. Put in another one, same thing.
It's been sitting in the top shelf of a bathroom cabinet since like 2011.
I have two of these (wearing one right now!!) and several other cheap Casio watches. Some of my favorite purchases ever. I'm so in.
Not bad!
Only available via that link in the UK or Ireland for £55.00. Quick jump over to Ebay US? $189.62 (And FedEx will have a word after they deliver it.)
US, for now, can keep getting the unconnected F91W $25 lookalike. IIRC, the F-91W has a really small strap. Almost a "ladies watch" size.
> IIRC, the F-91W has a really small strap. Almost a "ladies watch" size.
It does. A few months ago I bought a F-91W for the nostalgia, but I have a hard time wearing it due to the tiny strap. I just ordered a bigger one strap, let's see how it works.
> And FedEx will have a word after they deliver it.
I don't understand this statement. Is there some reference I'm missing?
US tariffs and FedEx customs broker fees.
Casio has so many great, cheap, watches for which you don't accidentally change the time, reset your stop watch, or switch from between 12/24h mode every time you bend your wrist.
The F201W (which this appears to be based off of) is not one of them.
Kind of hope this is a signal the culture is moving towards an analog 2.0 movement (a merging of old school interfaces with modern tech components thoughtfully incorporated).
Yes, so exciting to "thoughtfully" disguise modern spyware tech as boutique retro accessories.
Top comment/thread in this topic is about Synthesisers which great. But focussing on the watch; does anyone know if they integrate with Apple Fitness?
I use daily a Japan exclusive model, LIW-M700D (https://www.benswatchclub.com/blog/casio-lineage-liw-m700d-r...), and lucky enough to be in range of DCF77 signal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DCF77). Hard to believe, it was less than 200 euros.
For those out of range of DCF77 and others, there are apps that simulate it on the phone, or this: https://timestation.pages.dev
If you want to retrofit your existing watch: https://www.olleewatch.com/
I got one earlier this year, pretty awesome project!
Not the first new F91W-ish model in 40 years but still neat, I hadn't heard about this one yet, thanks for sharing.
Immediate popup asking me to select my country, and when I selected Canada it tells me the page can't be found. Great UX work as always.
Step counter seems like a bizarre thing to focus in on? are people passionately tracking steps without their phones?
I am not passionate about it but I like to make sure I'm moving a lot. I like that I can at a glance just see how much that's happened each day. I have one of these. Had one a while now and its the only watch I've ever used that I've stuck with and kept using.
It's always been this way. It adds to the charm, to be realized in a few decades. Camp-chique.
Indiglo WATER RESIST 69m ALARM Chronograph
My father wears Casio watches almost exclusively, he's been tempted by a Fitbit so he can start tracking his step count, but even though I've bought him the Fitbit, he's finding the whole setup and app usage too intimidating, and so he hasn't used it.
This, in the silver ABL-100WE-2AEF model, is exactly what he wants. Same Casio, same interface, just now it has step count. He doesn't even need / want the Bluetooth.
(Me, I'll keep rocking my Pebble Time 2. Absolutely love it.)
My phone is sitting on my desk now connected to a charger - meaning any pacing I'm doing at the moment it not tracked. When I cook I often set my phone on the counter with the recipe - again while I'm moving all over. I often go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without bringing my phone.
I hate watches, but one would be better for step tracking - it is more likely to be on me to track information.
Step tracking is for health reasons. Unless you do activities you describe 12h a day, every day, whether they are counted or not doesnt move the proverbial health needle a bit
Step tracking is for people who like to pretend they are doing something healthy without actually exerting any dedicated effort above and beyond their normal routine.
"Walking briskly for 30 minutes" is a better measure of something healthy than how many steps you took.
From what I can tell health is about both quantity and quality. 30 minutes of exercise and sitting is not good for health. That is why 10,000 steps per day is so often a goal - I can do a few thousand steps in the 30 minutes of exercise, but other activities should also give steps and I want to know in general how active I am.
Just go run or go on a walk every day.
But that doesn't give me data...
I do try to get my daily exercise. However it is still interesting to know how many steps I've taken. (sometimes my daily exercise is bike or swimming which are obviously not steps)
People are, absolutely, yes! In the tech world there is an ever-growing focus on devices which can operate independently of smartphones, even to an offline/local-first extent.
The trend is trickling down into other circles as well. People are beginning to correctly identify needless hyperconverged connectivity as a burden rather than a convenience.
Of all the things "smart watches" do, the one thing beyond time that most people actually perceive daily is their tracked steps.
IE; My apple watch ais the only one that goes out of it's way to make sure I know my steps for the day, and is always "accurate". Which is nice, but gimmicky for someone like me who doesn't analyze my steps.
I imagine Casio went after similar low hanging fruit, as an acceleromater is cheap/old tech, while still being able to feature compete with something like an apple watch.
I guess it's a more complicated thing to implement (!= low hanging fruit), but I'd be more interested in sleep tracking than step tracking.
Sure, but we can't do sleep tracking well. Todays devices mostly guess and map to typical patterns. Might, might not, work reasonably for you. But chances are that if you want to track your sleep because you suspect irregularities then they are about as useful as a potato.
The Apple Watch is quite accurate (according to Apple's own research, at least), and it doesn't guess or map to typical patterns: https://www.apple.com/health/pdf/Estimating_Sleep_Stages_fro...
From other anectdata the apple watch seems to just as bad as everything else.
We just don't seem to have any idea how to track sleep quality even with better devices than just a watch/whatever. Even a binary, is the person I'm attached to sleeping, is hit and miss. And with that in mind you can be pretty sure that the sleep stages etc is even worse.
The problem with sleep tracking watches is that simply wearing them alters your sleep patterns/quality.
I had this same reaction to past step counters. I keep my phone in my pocket, and it works basically perfectly as a step counter.
But then I realized that many people do not keep their phone in their pocket, especially women. For them, a watch, bracelet or ring really is the best option.
Not sure how old you are, but I am pushing 40. In order to stay healthy I need to track my steps and calories(somewhat), otherwise, I gain weight.
Tracking steps helps me stay on track.
Grandpa kept a pedometer in a little pouch for decades. I got him a Fitbit but he didn’t like that, and more recently another cheap pedometer off of Amazon.
> are people passionately tracking steps without their phones?
The least apps on my phone, the better. And the least I've got my phone on me, the better. I often leave the house without taking my phone.
I don't track my steps but the wife does... Using a watch.
Why do you automatically assume everybody on earth is as tied to his phone as you are?
You must be unfamiliar with the cult of the 10,000 steps a day.
> Step counter seems like a bizarre thing to focus in on? are people passionately tracking steps without their phones?
Yup. I go for walks specifically to leave my damn phone at home. I do bring an Apple Watch w/ airpods in case I need to take an urgent call and for podcasts, but I don't bother with texts or alerts or any other nonsense.
And while step tracking is not critical, if you have health goals that include a minimum number of steps a day I find it incredibly nice to have. I can check my counter before bed, and take the dog for a 30 minute walk if I'm behind for the day. Just a means to hold myself accountable on those crappy low energy stressful days.
Requires a dedicated app? Too bad, if this worked with a generic solution like Gadget Bridge or health connect, this would be peak.
I am going to take advantage of all the Casio expert to ask whether it is possible to invert the screen from dark background to light background in these watches. I have seen articles and tutorials online but the guy at the shop told me absolutely not. I have the ABL-100WE. Thank you
The theory is simple, it is a 90 degree rotated polarizing layer, How comfortable you are doing surgery on the delicate LCD assembly is another matter. If I were to do it I think I would buy a couple cheap watches to practice on first.
And Opinion: I wear a factory blackout casio, I like it because it does not have all that great 80's casio text all over the place (I am not sure what is wrong with me) but a downside is the inverted LCD display, it looks very cool, but is also much harder to read, I was trying to see if I could do the mod the other way, back to a light background.
My watch isn't super expensive but it's a gift so it would be a shame to ruin it. The idea of practising on a cheaper model sounds good, thanks.
Neat. Note that battery life is reasonably good (2 years) even with Bluetooth sync feature.
I was about to ask that - I somehow doubt it will last 2 years if you keep the step counter + Bluetooth on.
Bluetooth stays on only for three minutes and then turns itself off once you're done syncing stuff. I have had one for nearly two years now (ABL-100WE). Absolutely love it.
OK, but what about the step counter. Can it really last 2 years with the step counter continuously on?
I work with accelerometer chips, a lot of them have features specifically for pedometers. Keeping the accelerometer on will draw a few uA, then you can have the accelerometer keep track of the step count internally and have the main processor query it as necessary to update the step count display. When there's no motion for a while, you can also put it into a lower power sleep mode that doesn't track steps, then when it detects motion it'll wake up the main processor which will then put the accelerometer back into pedometer mode. I think 2 years on a CR2016 (90 mAh) is reasonable if Casio knows what they're doing.
If it's like the G-Shock, it's not a real step counter, it's a small accelerometer. It will trigger on every single wave when you're planing if you're windsurfing, which makes it quite useless.
Looking up some generic step counters with LCD displays, they seem to last around 6-10 months on a CR2032.
I was surprised to see it uses CR2016 batteries and still manages to get two years of advertised battery life.
Apple airtags last maybe a year on a CR2032, from experience.
I mean, airtags are doing radio stuff at a regular cadence. I've noticed they update once every 15 minutes, so they are turning the radio on to do whatever BLE triangulation they need to do 96 times per day. That's milliamps over at least a few milliseconds to wake the radio, do whatever triangulation is needed. It's amazing that they last that long considering what they are doing. I think they are using Nordic NRF54 internally so it's testament to the power efficiency those chips are capable of.
Airtags don't do any triangulation. They just send out a BLE beacon periodically to any iPhone within earshot, and also spend some time listening for new instructions that almost never happen.
They have no idea where they are or what their airtag/BLE neighbors, if present, are doing. They don't grok GNSS or wifi. There's nothing for them to triangulate or trilaterate or tri-anything when they're just sitting there.
So yes: They are indeed pretty tidy about energy consumption. They accomplish this in large part by being very simple in normal operation and leaving the heavier lifting to the world of iPhones with relatively enormous batteries that get recharged ~every day.
That's an amazing battery life these days. Love my Apple Watch, but having to charge it at least once a day, is a chore.
Might take another look at these - given the price, it's not a huge gamble to try it out for a few weeks.
I feel the same about the apple watch. All I use it for is literally tracking steps. I do not care about any other feature. If my watch fails I will just get a casio watch.
Problem would be replacing it properly while maintaining it being waterproof.
It's not waterproof, merely resistant.
With silicone gaskets this is not an issue.
I wish they would've added features like LED lighting and other improvements while keeping Solar and Atomic clock syncing. Instead of modern smart watch stuff.
These watches have cheap batteries that you can swap in two minutes. Not a big deal. Solar batteries cost a lot more money and will render this watch as e-waste in the future.
I have the ABL-100WE-1A version, it has LED backlight. all of the ABL-100WE have it. I press 3 seconds on the mode button, the watch syncs to the phone, syncs the clock and doesn't drift for a long time, and it also syncs the steps from pedometer.
just so you know, there is Casio smart sync app in fdroid that doesn't require Casio account to work
Does anybody have info about the battery life? Doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere.
> Full auto-calendar (to year 2099)
This they will need to update pretty soon
Nice! When I wanted a “dumb” smart watch many years ago, I went with a FitBit. I think it matched the features to what this Casio offers minus the HR monitor. Fast forward to now, I use a Garmin Instinct that hits the spot for me. I’ve grown accustomed to the more detailed analytics (HRV and “daily battery” are awesome). Still I’d consider a Casio with more sensors and a solid phone app to give them justice. Anyhow, I own the previous version of this watch and a few other Casios and I still like them for what they are. Gonna hold on to them until I die :)
i love the product design aspect of a product that only needs to have one thing set (in this case, the time zone), to be eternally a functional device
which is why i love gshocks, both for design but also specifically the ones with tough solar/multiband 6 (and bluetooth (optional))
they have battery lives in the range of decades (due to solar charging), set themselves (multiband 6 is using atomic clock radio signals) and via bluetooth
you can get gw-b5600-2 and gw-s5600u (auto backlight) for under $200, but usually closer to $100. there are many more models, of course
that sounds expensive, but it's insanely durable construction and battery life means it'll be the only digital watch you'll ever need to buy. and the only configuration it will ever need is the time zone.
Solar batteries typically last between 10 and 20 years depending on usage. They are very expensive unfortunately. Regular batteries are a better deal.
The batteries the gshocks use goes for about $15 or less.
Regular batteries may be a better deal but that doesn't include the process of opening the watch, replacing the battery, and then resealing the case.
I'll trade $15 and a 15 minute job once every 15 years for a 15 minute job every 5 years. And no watch with a regular battery will have auto-backlight (for the obvious reason).
And also... if you want a deal, don't buy a $100 watch with auto backlight, capable of setting its own time off of a radio, and capable of ringing your phone when you can't find it.
F91W will do! That's why they're so popular!
I service my watches every five years to keep them waterproof. And at that point I always replace the $1 battery, regardless of its condition. That way my watches are always operational.
would some Casio/watch expert know if it's possible to replace the face plate on these watches? I love the simplicity but I don't like all the text outside the watch itself like "Step tracker" and "Water Resist".
I think the appropriate way in this case is to cover it up with black tape.
the face decal is printed on the inside of the crystal (plastic). it can be removed with solvent and replaced if you find/make a replacement.
I am with you, I love the anesthetics of a Casio but hate how the face has so much text.
You could look at these two which are the original f-91 with minimal faceplate. I have the second one and I like it a lot.
https://www.casio.com/europe/watches/casio/product.F-91WB-1A...
https://www.casio.com/europe/watches/casio/product.F-91WB-8A...
https://www.nocturnaltime.com
For example, there is a "text removal" option on this one: https://www.nocturnaltime.com/shop/p/obsidian-casio-watch-ws...
GW-M5610U-1ER enjoyer here. I am actually glad it is not connected to my phone, and I swap them with Garmin watches when I need to check the time and don't want to get any notifications.
Or going to meetups.
It's not very 'connected' in that sense? Just connected to your phone to sync your tracked steps.
How are they getting 2 years on a CR2016? Is that with step tracking and Bluetooth disabled?
Bluetooth is watch initiated, and only turns on 4 times a day (or when the user explicitly requests it with a button press). The pedometer is probably a special chip.
You should compare this with the F-91W that gets 7 years on the same battery, and hobbyist hardware mods that get years out of the same battery running ARM chips.
To be fair, the hobbyist hardware mod variants that do step tracking only last for days, not years AFAIK.
I had the same thought--speculating, perhaps it's like you say and we'll see a disclosure somewhere that it's "Up to 2 years, with 1 weekly Bluetooth pairing, 1 second of backlight use per day, no step counter."
Though, the CR2016 is a pretty big battery vs typical watch batteries, and in some other Casio watches are used as 10-year batteries.
I doubt that, I have a ABL-100 and its step counter cannot be turned off. It even beeps at you when you sit on your butt for too long.
However, the manual recommends to be sparing with the backlight.
Nice thing about BLE is that it can be really cheap and stateless, you don't need to keep polling. If it was sending each and every step count to the watch (or even every minute) that would be one thing, but a semi-daily sync for time and steps could easily fit in one BLE packet.
My little temperature and humidity sensors that show an LCD 2x the surface area of a watch and broadcast a BLE packet every minute lasts about 12 months on a CR2032 (~200mah). A CR2016 is ~90mah little less than half. And receiving a BLE packet takes way less energy than sending.
Then you have the on-demand stuff that costs a packet or two, like the lost phone finder -- which is what I'm most excited about.
This sucks so much. The point of the F-91W is that is a dead simple digital watch that you can get for $10.
I started browsing the UK catalog and found a PAC-MAN edition: https://www.casio.com/uk/watches/casio/product.CA-53WPC-1B/
Finally some consumer tech I am excited about in a long time.
Or you could get a $50 smartband and have so much more functionality and still recharge only once a week or two.
My favourite ’90s wristwatch. battery lifetime just amazing.
I haven’t worn wristwatch anymore, since the dawn of smart phones. All my time information has moved into that, in my pocket. That’s my only dependency.
Here is a fun fact; the US believes owning and wearing an F-91W is evidence that you're a terrorist so much so that they can place you in Guantanamo Bay without trial[0]:
> In a handful of cases the detainee's possession of a Casio watch or the wearing olive-drab clothing is cited as evidence that the detainee is an enemy combatant. No basis is given to explain why such evidence makes the detainee an enemy combatant.
This is also noted on the F-91W's Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F-91W#Usage_in_terrorism
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seton_Hall_reports#Detainees'_...
I guess Toyota Hilux drivers are next in line with similar smart rules
Well America doesn't get those, so makes sense.
(they did have one called "pickup")
How does the Tacoma differ from the Hilux? I know there are some slight styling and engine differences for different markets, but pretty sure its still mostly a Hilux.
Hilux has leaf springs and significantly higher payload capacity for technical mounts. You can uparmor a Hilux. Taco will break.
It's the same body with worse everything else.
The wording doesn’t seem to me like owning the watch was the only evidence and that was enough to put people in Guantanamo, it sounds to me like it was a contributing factor. Still a bit crazy but I don’t think they just arrested everyone with this watch.
And yet they remain so popular, curious how an egregious claim completely contrasts with reality.
> the US believes owning and wearing an F-91W is evidence that you're a terrorist
No they don't, please don't spread misinformation. If this were true, the watch itself would be banned in the country and/or nobody would sell it.
Your own source says the Pentagon refuted the author's claims because they did not have access to classified information, which I believe would suggest that there is more to the story than merely owning a very common watch and nothing else. Otherwise millions of innocent Americans would be in jail.
There is a very, very good reason this was only "in a handful of cases" and never again.
One of those reasons being you can walk into any Walmart across the country and walk out with one for about $22 USD.
It's not quite as simple as "if you have one of these you're a terrorist" of course; it's one indicator based on long-standing patterns, but never used as sole proof.
AQ training/bomb-making manuals from the 1990s–2000s recommend cheap, reliable digital watches like this as timers for IEDs as they're extremely inexpensive and widely available worldwide, durable, water resistant, and easy to modify as delay timers.
Often these guys would get picked up with two or more watches of the same model, for example. We recovered them in bomb-making facilities and on fighters throughout the GWOT. Ramzi Yousef (Philippine Airlines Flight 434) and Ahmed Ressam (the 'Millennium Bomber') both had them.
> Ramzi Yousef (Philippine Airlines Flight 434) and Ahmed Ressam (the 'Millennium Bomber') both had them.
This is like a statistics 101 question. Google says that Casio has sold over 100M F-91W's since 1989. Let's round down to an average of 2.5M a year, or 25M over the 10 peak years of the global war on terror (GWOT).
You named two terrorists who wore them. Let's say that's an understatement by 200X. Some quick math shows that the percent of terrorists who wore F-91W's is 400/25000000 = 0.0016% positive rate, or conversely a 99.9984% false positive rate. Not good!
Now I never actually took a statistics class, so maybe I got this question wrong. But it's obvious that using the possession of an F-91W as a sign of being a terrorist is a mistake.
Well, your argument might be valid but calculation of course has nothing remotely to do with truth. If we’re talking about the US, person has to be in the US/travel to US. That dramatically cuts down the amount from 25M. Second - the person has to be.. how do I put it, non white? Probably muslim. That also cuts it down by far. I can believe that people who fall in these two categories might have some subcultural groups. And in most of them they might just.. not wear Casio watches. It’s not like probability of wearing/not wearing Casio watches is equally likely for every person on earth. They have their target groups.
How many watches did Khalid El-Masri have?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri
> Khaled El-Masri is a German, Lebanese and French citizen who was mistakenly abducted by the Macedonian police in 2003, and handed over to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
> While in CIA custody, he was flown to Afghanistan, where he was held at a black site and routinely interrogated, beaten, strip-searched, raped, and subjected to other forms of torture.
> After El-Masri held hunger strikes, and was detained for four months in the "Salt Pit", the CIA admitted his arrest was a mistake and released him.
Trick question! It was actually that his name is one letter away from someone else's name, and some manager in the CIA had "a hunch":
> At the end of 2003, El-Masri travelled from his home in Ulm to go on a short vacation in Skopje. He was detained by Macedonian border officials on 31 December 2003, because his name was identical (except for variations in Roman transliteration) to that of Khalid al-Masri, who was being sought as an alleged mentor to the al-Qaeda Hamburg cell, and because of suspicion that El-Masri's German passport was a forgery.
> CIA agents discussed whether to remove El-Masri from Macedonia through an extraordinary rendition. The decision to do so was made by the head of the al Qaeda division of the CIA's Counter-Terrorism Center, Alfreda Frances Bikowsky, on the basis of "a hunch" that El-Masri was involved in terrorism; his name was similar to suspected terrorist Khalid al-Masri.
> When the Macedonian officials released El-Masri on 23 January 2004, American security officers immediately kidnapped him. El-Masri later described them as members of a "black snatch team." They beat him and sedated him for transport using a rectal suppository. "The CIA stripped, hooded, shackled and sodomized el-Masri with a suppository—in CIA parlance, subjected him to "capture shock"—as Macedonian officials stood by."
...evidence that you're a terrorist
Or more recently, to some officials, showing up at a No Kings rally.
> In a handful of cases the detainee's possession of a Casio watch or the wearing olive-drab clothing is cited as evidence that the detainee is an enemy combatant. No basis is given to explain why such evidence makes the detainee an enemy combatant.
The western obssession with wrist watches popularized the mujahedin insult: "You have the watches, we have the time."
After wearing an Apple Watch for almost a decade, the F-91W became my new "never take off" watch. For daily use, the only thing I miss from a smartwatch is a weather+temp forecast complication. Interestingly, it doesn't seem like this F-B100W-1A provides that (yet).
I would love a watch in the F-91W form factor that does heart rate and sleep tracking. Maybe one day…
I’ve seen some people put something like a Whoop on the opposite side of their watch, so theoretically the functionality is achievable, but I can’t imagine the form factor to work due to the demands on compute and battery heart rate and sleep tracking need.
Another alternative is a smart ring.
A Pebble is probably the closest option. Casio doesn't seem to put much effort on their watches that have health or fitness tracking.
Casio figured out that cheap and durable isn't a contradiction. Thirty years later the F-91W still sells because it just works.
Started looking at Casios. Now I am thinking of getting W-800HD-1AVEF. Old A159W is kinda broken or pain to get right. Not really using one often, but maybe a few times in 10 years clock would be reasonable.
i want one of these but i need it bigger. i bought an F-91W last year and its so small, it barely fit on my wrist and it looked like a little girl watch on my wrist.
It's a bigger watch than the f-91w. But when the f-91w came out it was a standard size for a mans watch. Cars were a lot smaller then too.
Best feature of old Casio products is they do NOT have RF (wifi/bluetooth) , but (sadly) this one has listed bluetooth and app as a feature.
I have seen (Xiaomi) smartwatches that wont allow setting the time without an app (asking to many permissions, and forcing cloud accounts) installed on a linked phone. facepalm
Most notably, it's a bit bigger in size, so finally wearable by adults. I love the ABL100. It's my favorite Casio watch.
Damn, and I just bought a used Garmin hybrid watch, too.
I love Casio watches, perfect blend of utilitarian and nerd. Wearing my 5000U-1JF right now.
How does it do step tracking with a 2 year battery life? A purely mechanical step tracker?
I feel that the smartphone connectivity feature is a departure from the philosophy of the F-91W. Is having a smartphone for "Easy watch setting" not a flaw of the watch, rather than a feature?
I'd love if it was radio controlled and charged with solar. And without phone connectivity.
You can buy that watch
How hard did you look?
https://www.casio.com/us/watches.filter.solar-radio_adjust-K...
Nice try, Casio. However the Amazfit Neo does the same, and more features (like heart rate and sleep measuring) for a similar price. I like mine quite a lot.
Nice, still have my original Casio and Timex ones though.
The Casio app will refuse to work unless you allow it to track your location 24x7
i don't want my casio to be smart. been rocking my mq-24 for a decade
doesn't mean others can't want a smart casio, but, it's not for me :D
Does it fix the terrible backlight on the F-91W though..
The old Illuminator model has a much better backlight. https://www.amazon.com/Casio-F105W-1A-Illuminator-Sport-Watc...
The G shocks have the same new abysmal backlight.
I bought one with a slick (new) dark red face....which lights up bright pink from the one white LED on the left side of the face.
Even in the marketing/landing page for this watch which is linked in post.....they show the backlight feature, looking like it's missing an LED.
If it's the same movement as the ABL-100WE, I think it may.
The ABL-100WE has an orange light that stays on for either 1.5 or 3 seconds (configurable) and provides some decent light.
The display contrast doesn't seem to be quite as good as it used to be with older movements, though.
> A built-in motion sensor automatically tracks your daily steps, with your step count displayed on the LCD screen. Pair with your smartphone via Bluetooth® for automatic time adjustment and easy access to watch settings through the app.
I see and I was wondering why they sold it for £55 only. They collect and sell your personal data.
I'm happy with my original one, thanks.
I love the F91-W. I’ve owned a few of them. Each one had the same problem; the band would crack and break before the battery died. I foresee the same issue with the non-metal banded versions of this watch. Also the stated 2yr battery life is kind of meh in comparison to the F-91W. I’ve got an F91W that’s been running on the same battery for nearly a decade.
A lot of love here as well for the F-91W. As for the band, I use mine with a Phoenix Nato strap [1], which I suspect will last as long as the watch itself (if you are on a budget, there are plenty of PRC Nato clones out there). I wear it daily, as well as with my suit given how stylish it is in its simplicity. The only maintenance necessary is to gently run an open flame along the strap holes maybe once a year control the growth of loose nylon threads.
[1]: https://www.phoenixstraps.com
They won me over at fixing the light.
Personally not at all interested in these new features - an F-91W that needs a smartphone to operate properly is madness to me - but I do appreciate the way they implemented them, with a focus on longevity and simplicity.
Why the hell is there bluetooth in it?!
To sync activity tracking data with your phone
No vibration...what a missed opportunity! The reason that I got into smartwatches is the vibration wake-up alarm
The only thing keeping me on my apple watch is the wakeup.
I'd guess it's likely battery and size consideration.
Plenty of smartwatches are relatively thin and have vibration, and it only uses up battery when it's used. There's no excuse except they probably just wanted to cut costs.
I'm disappointed because that's what kept me from buying the Amazfit Neo, which is a similar concept to this one. Without vibration it's useless to me. They get so close to a great product and then...
Vibration is precisely what made me sell my brand new (sold out) Pebble watch. No matter the firmware or options (un)chosen, it would randomly vibrate at odd times of the day. Couldn't stand the constant distractions.
Casio G-Shock GW-M5610U back on my wrist where it belongs.
I am with you on this - with vibration alarm, it would be an instant buy. Vibration alarm on the wrist is so much less stressful in the morning, plus it doesn't wake up anyone sleeping next to you. I haven't used audio-based alarms in years.
I'm a huge fan of the Casio F-91W, have two of them on my desk right now. Maybe it's just me, but for this specific model I feel like it becoming bluetooth enabled breaks the spirit of the simplicity of the model.
But hey, seems like people are excited for that, happy for them! Mine will last another 10 years without it.
I own a F-91W and would instantly buy the newer upgrade (if it had vibration alarm and notification, which it doesn't unfortunately). It is more about the iconic design than simplicity.
this is the nokia of watches
This is the way. Gimmie the look I want with the data backend of the phone.
Can it show the date in the European format, like the GW-M5610U-1ER?
It doesn't look like it.
It's also a bump up in overall size. The OG F-91W wears very tiny on a larger wrist.
F-91W (old): 38.2 × 35.2 × 8.5 mm
F-B100W-1A (new): 41.9 × 38.1 × 8.8 mm
"... reimagined for le modern price and vendor-lock-in totale"
shame it doesn't have notifications, otherwise it would be perfect
so I guess I'm staying on my third Amazfit Bip since Pebble Time 2 has insane price
It's still powered by a coin cell so it's probably for power conservation reasons. Way cheaper to periodically power on the BT radio and sync steps to your phone than it is to constantly listen for notifications.
It's not just power, if it where, they'd fit a USB C rechargable cell in there.
Its still a cheap casio resin watch at the end of the day. If this where to be able to push/pull notifications, the watch would be completely different in cost, ui, marketing, etc.
It would go from being charming retro tech with modern features, to dime a dozen bloatware/fitness tracking hardware.
I'd argue the coin cell and the power budget limitations that come with it are part and parcel of it's nature as a cheap casio resin watch.
That's an interesting take. I wear a non-smart watch specifically because I don't want notifications or any smart features. I wore an Apple watch for years but went back to a dumb analog watch when I got tired of the distractions.
I've been thinking of going back to a smart watch and only turning on notifications for texts from my wife. This so I can leave my phone out of my hands when I'm with my son.
and as someone who want dumb watch you have tons of options compared to someone who just want small watch with notifications which will last at least one month and have real AOD
no such thing besides old Amazfit Bip and overpriced pebble time 2 exists, everything else has either no battery life or looks like brick on wrist (greetings to Garmin and Casio)
If you want a coin-cell powered watch with a couple of years battery-life, but still want notifications, the G-Shock GBD-200/300s have this feature: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCq1ei5cT_8
It's not great... but it's something?
huge dimensions comparable to bricks sold by Garmin, key new know when Casio will produce something with F-91W dimensions
if I have to choose between used Amazfit Bip for 15-20$ or pebble time 2 with worse (bigger) dimensions, worse battery life (even compared to 5+ yo Bip battery) and not even built in GPS for 200+ $ it's pretty easy choice
pebble PR team enjoy downvoting me
Great. Now, please re-release nokia 3310
NOPE! No wirelesso in my watch, and there's no way you're getting 2 years on CR2016 when we compare stuff like AirTags.
C'mon Casio, add a pulse monitor to the F-91W form factor! I would much rather that than the chunky G-SHOCK bodies that have pulse monitors
Oh, no no no thank you. Don't connect my watch to anything. Not to mention, I expect that to reduce my watch's lifetime by 10x at least.
Interestingly, though, the aesthetic reminds me a bit of my W71, which is more boxy and less angle-y than the classic F-91W.
The Amazfit Neo was already doing something very similar a few years ago, a Casio-like design, always-on monochrome display, physical buttons and a 28-day battery life, while adding notifications and basic fitness tracking.
It does. I have one, and I like it a lot.
Sadly, it's no longer made, as far as I can tell, and mine only lasts a week or so now.
So it's the suckless watch but with a built-in botnet?
Nice move! I wish it would support even more activity / health features in the future like GPS tracking, sleep tracking, etc. As a full package in the classic design it would make a great alternative to Garmin / Polar / Whoop / Oura etc.