Here’s another of those arty watches from Tokyoflash Japan.  The Kisai Optical Illusion Watch has a touchscreen for accessing the four main functions.  Like those optical illusion posters from years ago, the time display is buried in a pattern of high-resolution digital lines.  Once you’ve trained your eyes, you’ll be able to see the time.  Until you’ve trained them, or perhaps if you never do,  there’s a button that clears up the background lines when touched.  The Optical Illusion is a limited-edition watch with a mineral crystal lens with either a natural or green face and a stainless band and clasp available in silver or black.  The watch is $199, but it’s available for $179 with free shipping until Friday January 27th, 2012 at 11:30 am (Japan time).

Filed in categories: News, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: Watches and Clocks

Kisai Optical Illusion Touchscreen Watch from Tokyoflash Japan originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 25, 2012 at 8:26 am.

Filed under kooky but useful, the Happy Hour wrist watch not only tells time, but also allows you to pop open a beer with the strap buckle. Priced from $69.95 – $99.95, these watches feature a leather strap with a patented stainless steel bottle-opening buckle. I’m sure the college crowd would love this watch, but would you wear one?

Filed in categories: News, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: Beverage, Watches and Clocks

Pop open a cold one with your watch originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 5, 2012 at 9:30 am.

The Dip Switch Click Watch from Watchismo has a bank of working dip switches that control various watch functions. The switches will toggle a bar graph metered time display, 12 hour and 24 hour digital time display, month, date, day of week and backlight. The watch has a stainless steel casing measuring 42mm x 35mm and is available in several colors for $139.99 – $149.99.

Filed in categories: News, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: Watches and Clocks

Earn +1 Geek Points with this Dip Switch Wrist Watch originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on December 29, 2011 at 1:00 pm.

I really like watches, especially unusual ones.  The Phosphor Appear Black Crystal Watch with Black Gloss Leather Strap is certainly unusual.  It reminds me of eInk screens in a way.  Instead of using LEDs to show the time, these watches turn over crystals to show a clear side or a colored side to create the digits.  When Phosphor offered a watch to The Gadgeteer, I asked if I could try a black one.  I thought the black would be more discreet than the red I’d normally choose.   Turns out these watches are anything but discreet.

Most images in this review can be clicked for an enlarged view.

The watch arrived in an elegant black faux-leather box with the Phosphor name embossed in silver.  The top opens up to reveal the very shiny, sparkly watch on a black velvet pillow.  You also get a couple of booklets stored in a cunning compartment on the bottom of the hinged lid.

This is a big, heavy watch.  It’s very sparkly and attention-getting.  It’s not the watch for the shy, retiring lady.

The silver-colored case measures about 1.5″ wide X 1.75″ long (including the strap attachment arms), and it’s about 0.5″ thick.  It measures about 9.3″ from end to end.  The watch weighed 2.8 oz on my kitchen scale.  That doesn’t sound like much, but it is a very heavy watch.  You may need to do some curls to strengthen your arm to wear this one.

The numerals are very large on this watch; each measures about 0.5″ long.  Even older eyes won’t have a problem telling time on this watch.

The case back is marked stainless steel, but I can’t find anything that tells me what the rest of the case is made of.  The case bezel is encrusted with pavéd clear Swarovski crystals.  The black face is also covered with clear Swarovski crystals.  There’s a small Phosphor logo near the top left of the face.  The above photo shows the watch in the off position; time isn’t displayed and all crystals are turned to the clear side.  You can still see which crystals are used to display the time if you look closely.

The padded strap is made of very supple, shiny black leather.  I believe this is true patent leather.  I’d only ever seen the vinyl that passes for patent leather before, and this watchband is much nicer and much more flexible than the fake stuff.  The strap is about 0.75″ wide.  The band can be adjusted to fit a wrist between about 5.5″ to 7.5″.

Click on any of the photos showing the watch face and closely inspect the face.  You’ll see that the black numbers are made up of little bars with black crystals on one side and clear crystals on the other.  I’m going to quote Phosphor here, because they can best explain how these watches function.  ”Driven by Micro-Magnetic Mechanical Digital (M3D) technology, the Phosphor Appear watch utilizes miniature-sized rotors adorned with Swarovski™ crystals that revolve to reveal numerical or chronological information. With each minute, an electrical pulse generates an electromagnetic field that changes the position of the crystals on the face of the watch, to elegantly display the passing time, while producing a distinctive sound unique to the Phosphor Appear digital watch line.”

If you watch closely, you can actually see the little bars flip as the time changes.  The “distinctive sound” is the sound of the bars moving.  You hear a definite “click” sound as they flip.  You’ll best be able to see and hear the bars change in the seconds mode.

You use the two buttons on the right-side of the case to adjust the time and to change modes.  You can turn the time off; the crystals all turn to clear and the watch becomes a bracelet.  You can also toggle the watch between time mode and seconds mode.

A strong shock to the watch might cause the little rotors to get knocked out of position.  The watch detects this and automatically corrects the position of the rotors to the correct time. If you ever notice that one of the rotors is out of position, simply change modes and the watch should correct itself.

When the watch arrived at my house a couple of weeks ago, it was 1 minute slower than my clock.  I adjusted the time to match my clock.  The watch time still agrees with the clock.  I’m pleased with the accuracy.

My daughter Rachel is once again my watch model.   You can see that this is a very large watch when you see it on her small wrist.  It’s good that the watchband has two strap keepers, because she has a lot of extra band that needs to be corralled.

If you know a lady who loves unusual watches and who isn’t afraid of a shiny, attention-getting piece of jewelry, consider the Phosphor Appear watch for her.  You can choose black strap/black numbers, red strap/red numbers, white strap/black numbers, and pink strap/pink numbers versions with the crystal-encrusted bezel for $249.  If she’d prefer a little less bling, there are versions available with plain metal bezels for $199 to $210.

Filed in categories: Reviews, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: Watches and Clocks

Phosphor Appear Black Crystal Watch with Black Gloss Leather Strap Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 29, 2011 at 9:00 am.

Most watches require the time to be set manually.  Some watches have the functionality to auto set to the correct time when it receives a signal from an atomic clock.  The Citizen Eco-Drive Satellite Wave watch gets its time differently.  Like its name, this Citizen watch gets the time directly from satellites orbiting the earth.   No need to worry about batteries because the Eco-Drive technology inside runs off the sun or any light source.  With the Satellite Wave, you’ll have the correct time whether you’re in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, stuck in the Sahara or lost in the Artic Circle.  That is if you have $3,000 to spare before this limited edition watch runs out. Check out the video after the jump.

Filed in categories: News, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: Watches and Clocks

Atomic time is so yesterday . . . originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 16, 2011 at 12:00 pm.

Swatch has teamed up with Kidrobot, an art-driven toy and lifestyle brand, to create a series of eight Kidrobot for Swatch watches.  The watches are based on the unisex Gents model watch, and each watch comes with a coordinating Dunny, the bunny-like 3″ toy.  The eight artists who designed these watches are: Gary Baseman, Jeremyville, Frank Kozik, Joe Ledbetter, MAD, Tara McPherson, SSUR, and Tilt.  The eight models are available at Swatch and at points-of-sale around the world.  Each watch and Dunny set is $70.

Filed in categories: News, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: Swatch, Watches and Clocks

Kidrobot for Swatch Watches originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 3, 2011 at 8:07 am.

The Kisai Rogue Touch LED watch started out as a concept on the Tokyoflash Design Studio Blog less than a year ago, and it’s now available for purchase.  Tokyoflash Japan says  the Rogue Touch has “time, date, alarm, dual time zones, animation feature, LCD ‘always on’ display, and LED backlight at a touch.  The watch has a perfectly round form since there are no buttons on the case.”  The watch has a polished gunmetal-colored case and band and a slightly recessed mineral crystal lens.  The watch has four touch “hot zones” (top, bottom, left, and right) that switch between modes; touch and hold on a hot zone to enter setup mode for that function.  The touch screen has a lock mode to prevent accidental input.  The Rogue Touch is available with a “natural” background with blue LEDs, blue background with blue LEDs, red background/red LEDs, or green background/green LEDs.  Tokyoflash is offering a special discounted price for a short time after release.  If you order before Sept. 30 at 10 am (Japan time), you can get the Rogue Touch for $179 and free shipping.  The normal price for the watch is $199.

Filed in categories: News, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: Watches and Clocks

Tokyoflash Japan Announces Their First Touchscreen Watch originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 29, 2011 at 2:00 pm.

The Eremos watch from Stauer features a stainless steel case (42mm diameter, 12mm thick) and a leather band.  That’s where the similarity to regular watches ends.  The Eremos is a regulator watch, which is a timepiece based on the observatory clocks of the 1800s that were so precise because they separated the hour and minutes dials.  This miniature regulator has a scrolling hour display and a sun and moon dial.  The watch works are visible through the Cotswold crystal and through the exhibition back.  It’s water-resistant to 3ATM, and it fits a 6.5-8.5″ wrist.  It’s $196 at Stauer, and it will be available 9/22.

Filed in categories: News, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: Regulator watch, Watches and Clocks

Stauer Eremos Regulator Watch originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 31, 2011 at 10:00 am.

I really love my automatic, analogue  watches, there’s just something about watching ( pun intended ) the mechanism. It’s like it’s “alive”.

That being said these look really sweet. Often Tokyoflash’s watches require an advanced degree in cryptography to tell the time but the 3D Unlimited , while very different  is easy to read.

The LCD comes in blue, red, green orange, pink   and the casing and band comes in either black or silver polished stainless steel. They sell 8 different combinations so  there should be something to suit everyone. Includes backlight and date function.

Available from Tokyoflash for around $120

( If you can’t tell from the picture the time shown is  4:54 )

Filed in categories: News, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: tokyoflash, Watches and Clocks

3D Time – Tokyoflash Style originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 11, 2011 at 3:00 pm.

We’ve all seen those fabulous watches that use color patterns to display the time, but I often wonder if telling the time with a quick glance ever is possible with one.  The Chroma Watch from Yanko Design lets you have a colorful display without requiring you to relearn how to tell time.  Yanko Design says the Munsell designation for the circle of hour markers changes every second.  (Munsell is a 3-coordinate nomenclature system to describe color by hue, value (how light or dark), and chroma (how bright or dull).)  The hands also change color, but much slower.  The Chroma Watch is a 1.5″ unisex design.  The watch body seems to be stainless, and it’s available with a black leather band for $140.  The version with a stainless steel mesh band is out of stock now, but it sells for $160.

Filed in categories: News, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: Watches and Clocks

Chroma Watch from Yanko Designs Adds Color Without Obscuring the Time originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 14, 2011 at 2:00 pm.

Are you an USB gadget collector? Here’s one for you… the USB Telephone from Brando. It’s shaped like an old time rotary dial phone… but doesn’t make calls. The rotary area is a clock and the handset is a light with 12 LEDs. The only ‘bad’ thing is that the clock is powered by 3 x R14 batteries which are NOT included. I’m not even sure what R14 batteries are. If that doesn’t scare you away, you order one for $29.00.

Filed in categories: News, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: USB, Watches and Clocks

Brando’s USB Retro Telephone doesn’t make calls, but does keep time originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 16, 2011 at 1:00 pm.

Hammacher Schlemmer is selling a watch that makes sure you always have a television remote control at hand.  The brushed stainless-steel watch is 2″ H x 1 5/8″ W x 1/2″ thick and has a 1″ wide black silicone band.  It functions as a digital timepiece with alarm, calendar, and chronograph.  Six buttons along the bezel control volume, power, channel selection, and play/rewind/fast-forward functions for televisions, DVD players, and most other devices that use IR signals.  You select the device to be controlled by entering its 3-digit code.  The Television Remote Control Watch is $99.95.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear, News, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: IR remote for A/V equipment, Watches and Clocks

Control Your TV with the Television Remote Control Watch originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 18, 2011 at 7:28 am.

You know how the latest generation iPod Nano is small enough to resemble the face of a watch?  Several manufacturers have noticed this too, but Hex Designs has developed probably the coolest looking and most functional iPod Nano watch band so far.  It’s a simple silicone band that is designed for the Nano to just pop right in and out.  It is available in nine different colors and features integrated Nano controls and audio port cover with inline orientation.  Orders will not ship until December 20th–not a bad last-minute stocking stuffer for $24.95.

Filed in categories: iPhone, iPad, iPod related, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: iPod nano, Watches and Clocks

Hex iPod Nano Watch originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 11, 2010 at 8:30 am.

I’ve seen watches with all sorts of gadgets hidden inside, but I’ve never seen one with construction tools hidden inside.  This Stanley Tape Measure Watch is sold by Brando.  You’ll find the expected watch functions – a daily alarm, hourly chime, calendar, 1/100 stop watch with split function, and an electrolumniesent backlight.  The back side of the watch has a 3-ft metal tape measure inside.  The Stanley Tape Measure Watch is $44.50 at Brando.

Filed in categories: News, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: Stanley tools, Watches and Clocks

Stanley Tape Measure Watch originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 4, 2010 at 7:30 am.

The Stauer 1930 Dashtronic Watch has a look inspired by the machine-age designs of the 1930s.  Everything – from cars to toasters – had a sleek, streamlined look then.  Even watches were influenced by the industrial designers of the period, and a new watch complication was introduced.  Instead of hands, time was displayed by a “jumping mechanism,” which displayed numerals on a dial and looked like a speedometer in a car.  This 1930 Dashtronic watch doesn’t use a real jumping mechanism, but it does look like those watches.  It has 21 jewels and is water-resistant to 3-ATM.  It has a stainless steel case and a black aligator-embossed leather band.  This is an automatic watch, meaning no winding and no batteries are needed.  It has a mineral crystal over the time dial and a clear back so you can see the watch works as they … work.  The watch case is 1.5″, and the band is 9.5″ long and fits a 7-8.5″ wrist.  The limited-edition Stauer 1930 Dashtronic Watch sells for $99.00.

Filed in categories: News, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: Automatic watch, Watches and Clocks

Stauer 1930 Dashtronic Watch originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 10, 2010 at 7:00 am.

TOKYObay will be offering a Limited Edition DIY Toolbox in time for the holiday gift buying season. This kit will give watch enthusiasts the ability to customize and assemble the main components of a classic style watch. The DIY watch kit includes two mid size classic watch faces. One with a cream dial and and one with a black dial. Four different colored straps in military canvas, sporty nylon and leather are also included. You can mix and match the bands and faces to create just the right look. Also included are nine tools for watch repair, back up batteries and watch band slug pins. This kit will retail for $210. Visit TOKYObay to add your name to the waiting list.

Filed in categories: Do-It-Yourself, News, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: DIY, Spotlight Gadgets, Watches and Clocks

DIY Watchmaking with the TOKYObay Limited Edition DIY Toolbox originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 8, 2010 at 9:00 am.

Last Winter I had reviewed the Moshi Voice Control Alarm Clock and have been using it ever since. I’ve come to rely on the ability to control my alarm clock with my voice. It’s no longer just a novelty for me. That’s why I was super excited when I learned that Moshi was offering a new model with a built in radio and two alarms. It sounded like a perfect upgrade. Let’s see if it was.

Package Contents

Clock
AC Adapter
Line in cable
Manual / Quickstart guide

The Voice Control Digital Clock Radio isn’t as flashy (literally) as the previous model I reviewed. It has a Black case with a soft rubberized texture that attracts dust and lint. The large display takes up the entire front of the clock, with a small microphone below it.

The back side has buttons for setting the date and manipulating other settings. I am wondering why the heck they didn’t include the ability to set the date with your voice, when you can change all the other setting with that method. The power jack, reset switch, line in, line out and FM antenna are also located on the back side of the clock.

Unlike the previous clock which had no visible buttons (unless you count the ones on the back for setting the date), this new clock has a bunch of buttons on the top surface. Let’s start with the top row going from left to right. The first button is the on/off switch for the radio and the alarm reset button. Buttons 1, 2 and 3 are radio channel presets. You get 3 channels for FM and 3 for AM. The two buttons on the right side are for alarm 1 and 2. Quickly pressing these buttons will toggle the alarms on and off. Holding down the buttons will initiate the alarm setting sequence.

The 2nd row of buttons includes the display brightness toggle. The display has a blue background with white letters. There are 3 brightness settings. Bright, dim and off. Off provides no light, so it won’t bother those of you that like a very dark room for sleeping. The two long bar buttons in the center are for volume adjustments and radio tuning.

The last row of buttons includes the mode button, for switching between FM, AM and Line In audio. The large bar button is your snooze, IVR, sleep off button. The button on the bottom right is the Sleep button. Pressing it will allow you to pick from 3 sleep sounds (ocean, music with white noise and night time bugs) and a sleep duration of 13, 30, 45 or 60 minutes. The sleep sound will play for that length of time and then turn off.

The speakers built into either side of the clock have surprisingly good sound for such a small radio.

The display is big and bright. I do miss the various colors that the other clock offered though…

The time of day is displayed in large digital format. Below the time are the two individual alarm settings. Each alarm can be either FM radio, AM radio or one of 3 alarm sounds (clock chimes, funky musical ditty or an alarm buzzer sound).

Ok, now let’s talk about the main attraction of this clock – voice control. I want to start out by saying that I have had pretty good luck controlling the original Moshi voice control clock. I’ve only had 2 problems with that clock. Once in awhile it will not correctly recognize an alarm time. This is almost always when I say five thirty or another time with thirty. For some reason it doesn’t always correctly recognize what I’ve said. I have learned to replace 5:30 with 4:29 or 5:31. The other issue I have is telling Moshi to turn off the alarm. I think this is mainly due to the fact that I almost always have a radio playing in the same room because I have a radio wake me up first. Then Moshi gives me an alarm to tell me that it’s really time to get moving. I’ll have to say TURN OFF ALARM 2-3 times some mornings. Other mornings it is recognized on my first try.

Ok, that was my experience with the Moshi Voice Control Alarm Clock. I was expecting the Voice Control Digital Clock Radio to have improved capability to recognize my voice commands. The clock uses IVR, which stands for Interactive Voice Response. That’s just a fancy way of saying that the clock is always listening for you to give it a command. You can either say HELLO MOSHI to get ‘her’ attention, or tap the bottom button bar (snooze/IVR/sleep). She will then ask for your command. From there you can say 1 of 11 commands:

Time – tells you the current time
Set Time – allows you to set the current time
Alarm – tells you what the alarms are set to
Set Alarm – allows you to change the alarm 1 or alarm 2 settings
Alarm Sound – plays the 3 alarm sounds
Play Sleep Sound – plays the 3 sleep sounds
Turn Off (the) Alarm – turns off the currently sounding alarm
Snooze – snoozes the current alarm for 9 minutes
Today’s Date – tells you the current date
Play Radio – turns on the radio
Help – plays the help menu

I’m very disappointed to tell you that the voice recognition capability of this clock is about 10 times worse than the other model. It’s horrible. It takes me about 5 minutes or longer to set an alarm. This is in a perfectly quiet room with me talking in a normal voice 1-2 feet away. I’ve tried talking louder, talking softer, talking farther away, talking closer. No luck. Either I have a dud clock or they’ve completely gone backwards with this upgrade.

Besides that main complaint, I should also mention that you can’t turn off a radio alarm with your voice. You have to press the snooze or on/off button to turn it off. Boo.

You also can’t set a day of the week for the alarms. Ok, I’m being picky with that complaint, but you would think it wouldn’t be that difficult to add that capability.

When it comes down to it, I can’t recommend the Moshi Voice Control Digital Clock Radio. Although it works fine as a manually operated alarm clock, the voice control feature is sorely lacking – and that would be the main reason anyone would pay $70 for this product.

Back to the drawing board Moshi… and I’m going back to using the original version.

Update 03/29/2011:
I ended my review from last August stating that I would go back to the original version of the Moshi Voice Control clock. I lied. I have continued to use this newer version and in the months since, it has worked better for me. It rarely ingores my commands or ‘hears’ incorrectly. I think this version just required a little bit more adjustment in the way I spoke to it than the original version. As is, I’m happy with this clock and will continue to use it.

Filed in categories: Reviews, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: Alarm Clock, Watches and Clocks

Moshi Voice Control Digital Clock Radio Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 30, 2010 at 9:38 pm.

Tocky is an updated version of Clocky – the mobile alarm clock. And by “mobile”, I mean that it will roll around the floor of your bedroom when the alarm goes off. The idea is that you’ll be required to drag your dead butt out of bed to chase it down to turn it off. I know that this product is supposed to be cute. But the thoughts of having to chase my alarm clock around the room as it rolls around the floor just makes me… grumpy. If you’re not a sleep deprived grouch like I am and you think Tocky sounds like fun, you can get one of you own in 4 different colors at $79. It will even play your fave MP3s or recorded messages.

Filed in categories: News, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: Spotlight Gadgets, Watches and Clocks

As if getting up in the morning weren’t bad enough… originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 19, 2010 at 9:00 am.

Before the invention of the wrist-watch, there was the pocket-watch.  Developed in the 16th century, the pocket-watch was the main portable way of telling time.  It was only after World War I that wrist-watches became popular after the design of trench-watches for the military.  Now in the 21st century, we can tell time in so many different and high tech ways including cell phones, laptops, watches that can submerge more than 300 meters, touch screen watches, and now even a watch phone.  But how can we update the outdated pocket-watch?  That’s just what TokyoFlash did with their Kisai Round Trip pocket-watch!

Inside the package I found the Kisai Round Trip pocket-watch, usb charging cable, extra charging cap, a key ring, and instructions.

At first glance you might wonder how to tell the time since there’s only a black surface where the clock hands should be.  Pressing the button on the top right activates the LEDs hidden beneath the black surface to display the current time which is 10:24 PM.

Here’s a little tutorial on how to tell the time:

On the left side is a cap that can be screwed on and off.  It protects the charging port from water and dust.  The pocket-watch is water resistant to 3ATM.  Charging time is 3.5 hours and it should last you for the whole month on regular usage.

A cool feature of this pocket-watch is that you can turn on a function which tells the pocket-watch to play an animation of the LEDs every 15 minutes between 6pm and midnight.

Overall I like this pocket-watch from TokyoFlash.  The only thing that I didn’t like about it is that I have to use the key ring to connect it to anything.  I wish they made the top loop of the pocket-watch as one of those spring loaded latches.  Priced at $73.66, it might not be worth it for some.  But like all TokyoFlash watches, it has a limited run so get it while it’s still in stock!

Filed in categories: Reviews, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: LED, tokyoflash, Watches and Clocks

TokyoFlash Kisai Round Trip Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on July 25, 2010 at 11:55 am.

How would you like an inexpensive, attractive, small digital clock that never needs new batteries or power from a wall outlet? Check out the Bedol Water Clock. Just fill it up with tap water, add some lemon juice and it’s good to go for 8-12 weeks. It’s available in 4 colors and costs $16.00. They also offer a model with an alarm for $29.00.

Filed in categories: News, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: Green, Spotlight Gadgets, Watches and Clocks

Bedol Water Clock – Never Change Batteries Again originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on July 15, 2010 at 7:30 am.

If you have a need to monitor the activities of your nanny, house sitter, house cleaner, or other part-time guests and need a no-brainer contraption to do so, the motion-activated SD-V03 Color Spy Camera from Spy Gadgets can do the duty.  While I don’t have a need to monitor my kids’ nanny, I do have a desire to determine the identity of the person or persons who left a strange note on my door a few weeks ago.

Who left this obnoxious thing on my door ??

I also have wildlife in my backyard that I like to keep track of.  And, of course, I want to see if it is my dog that keeps turning  the cable box on in the middle of the night so that my “All On” button on my universal remote is rendered useless in the mornings.

This little camera looks like (and functions as) a digital LCD clock but disguises a pretty nice set of features for the buck.

Specs

5V DC (wall wart included)
Motion activated
Color MPEG4 compression D1 format (XVID codec)
30 or 15 FPS
640×480; 320×240;160×120
Flash SD card from 128M to 32G
$120

It actually took me longer than I had thought to finish this review because I kept using it and abusing it, expecting to find something  with the unit to go wrong.  I never expect anything (especially anything with an LCD screen) to work the way they are supposed to.  But I really couldn’t find anything major with the SD-V03 aside from a few nuisances; and it just works.  It even comes equipped with a 1 GB SD card to get you started.  So it really does just work right out of the box.  Following are the main features of the camera and how I thought that they fared.

Tour of the Chassis

First, the camera is disguised as an LCD digital clock, a little larger than the size of a fist.  The body has a smooth texture; it is black  plastic, but doesn’t show fingerprints and has a slick feel to it.  The business end, (the camera) is located on the front and is integrated into an innocuous slider button that looks like an adjustment for the clock.  In fact you can actually slide the camera lens up and down to achieve various vertical angles with this slider.

On the side of the front of the clock is what looks like a slider button. The camera lens, mounted therein, can be adjusted up and down.

At the rear of the clock is the AC/DC input (60Hz or 50Hz) and the slot for the SD video card.  The  biggest problem I had with the system is this slot.  While the slot provides for spring-like insertion and removal (as is found on most card readers), for this slot you have to use a stylus of some sort to fully insert the card or extract it.  The mechanism to accept the card is just too far back.

SD card fits in the slot in the rear of the unit.

But you have to use a stylus or pen to get the card all the way in and to press it to extract it back out.

The bottom of the clock contains a 4-AAA battery cave.  The batteries can be used to optionally (but temporarily) hold the clock’s settings when moving the clock from room to room when not powered in.  The batteries in my unit lasted about an hour when I let them run without the AC power.  So you could actually run it without AC power for a small amount of time if needed.  It also comes with a 12V DC input in case you want to spy on your rear-seat passengers during your commute to the office.  (Or if you live off the grid.)  When you plug in the AC, it takes a few seconds for it to fully boot up and a few times it did not come up, even after 30 seconds, so I just shut it down, let it sit for a bit and eventually got it to come up.

On top of the clock are three unmarked buttons. As with most clocks, once you set up the time, you will totally forget what the buttons do, so I guess I won’t say much more about that except that they are used to set the date and time; frames per second and video resolution/size.  I might tape the button instructions to the bottom of the console to help me remember the various functions.

The two most interesting buttons are the start/stop button, which enables and disables the recording capability (again, recording only occurs when enabled and when motion is detected), and the right button which turns on and off a back light on the front panel (Which could be helpful if you use the clock on your nightstand or need it as a night light of some sort.  And you want to spy on yourself sleeping or capture those aliens when they come to do experiments on you.   Ok, whatever.)  Even without futzing with setting up the time, you can still use the camera capability right out of the box, though the timestamps on your resulting files will not be accurate.

That brings us to the rest of the front panel, the LCD screen.  It displays the date and time.

Additionally it displays whether or not a memory card is installed; whether it is being powered by the AC wall wart or batteries; the frame per second chosen, and the currently-selected video resolution.  The final item that appears on the clock is a little funny given that it is a “spy” camera-clock: a flashing movie camera icon appears when it is capturing video.  (I wasn’t able to sync up my camera with the rate of the flashing icon for the above shot to capture the icon.)  This gives you feedback and confirmation that it is working, but it might be hard to explain to your house cleaner why “that funny little clock on the book case over there keeps flashing whenever I dust the shelves”.  My primary “subject” (my dog) really isn’t that observant, though, so I’m not worried that he’ll figure that out.

Includes a back light for viewing time in the dark.

Recording Video

The video quality is pretty good depending on the resolution selected and lighting conditions.  Again, I expected something similar to the examples shown on the “Smoking Gun” taken by hidden cameras in super markets.  But this is not the case at all.  The pictures are in color, clear, and the camera auto-adjusts with various lighting conditions.   As a scene is recorded, the data is captured to AVI files.  When a file has reached 10MB, a new file is created and each file is given a file name based on the timestamp at which it started recording.  This is a nice touch for those of you who have ever dealt with large files; having them automatically split is very handy.

Snap shot of Windows' File Explorer showing contents of SD card after capturing video files. Note most files are around 10KB long. Files sizes of 0 can occur when unit is initializing.

The camera properly handles lighting conditions well and is very sensitive when detecting  movement.  This was my biggest point of skepticism: would the thing actually detect movement and record when I was not actually there staring at?  I never assume that things work.  I assumed there was a special setting that had to be “enabled” before it would “really” sense movement.  Turns out I was wrong and it does detect motion even when I’m not around staring at it.  Makes for interesting results depending on where it is placed in your house.  As it turned out, the motion detection is pretty sensitive.  When I ran it over the course of a day pointing out my window to my front door (to capture the sales people leaving notes that look deceptively like UPS notifications with a request to call them), the camera picked up a lot of otherwise non-activity as the Colorado wind tore through my front yard.  As the trees swayed and the dust blew, the camera picked up that movement and I had a lot of videos of the wind blowing.  But actually, that is how my life goes.  Ahem.  Again, though, since the action was split among 10MB files, I only had to view the first couple of seconds of each of the files to tell that nothing was going on except the wind blowing.  Kind of a bummer.  I kept imagining some evil-doer in a dark cape and sunglasses dropping off those annoying fliers.  It also captured items in the distance, such as cars out on the street as they drove by.

It also handles various lighting conditions well.  I had it pointed towards my front door when the sun was pouring in (back-lit).  Although the characters in these shots were a little burned out, they were still visible and the camera didn’t miss a movement.

Low res, shooting into the sun. This is just one frame, the video is boring so was not worth uploading the entire thing.

I noticed that the camera would also pick up scenes when there really wasn’t any movement but there were shadows cast by the moving sun.

Finally, another good test came for free.  As it happened, I wanted to create a reality show based on the squirrel house in my backyard.  I set up the camera on a ladder on about the windiest dang day of the year.  You can see the action in the video below.  A bird flies out of the tree and a big swoop of wind comes in and the ladder tipped over, spilling the camera onto the ground.  This was all captured on video and the camera kept right on filming.

Setting up for wildlife shots and pointing camera at wildlife habitat. Ok, it’s a squirrel house on the tree on the right in the 2nd picture. What caused the ladder to fall?

Camera still running, still recording. Takes a flipping and keeps on filming.

Resulting Files

As I mentioned, the files are chunked as needed into 10MB files, with the
timestamp used as a the filename prefix.  They are AVI files and I could read them on my Windows 7 and Windows XP boxes just fine.  When I ran them through the “GSpot” video analyzer, the CODEC reported was XVID.

Analysis of one of the files by "GSpot" video program.

A few of the files can become corrupted during initial filming and even the video showing the action of the ladder tipping over initially was corrupt (or at least I could not read them using the regular windows media player that I used for the other videos).  But I was able to save the file with the “Super” audio/video conversion software.

So the verdict?  A nice, easy-to-use camera for video action which is unobtrusive, detects motion, and is fairly rugged and reliable.  The only problems involved a few glitches when the device was turned on and in getting the SD card in and out.  I’m going to purchase a super large SD card for it and leave it running for a few days in front of my door again.  Wish they had a “no knock” law here.

Following are a few of the videos I’ve captured.

This was an attempt to capture wild life with bait placed in front of the camera to entice the wild life.  As it turned out, however, a thief managed to snipe the bait:

This is an indoor video capture that was initiated not by actual movement by an on-screen object, but by background shadows.  Nonetheless, a subject does walk into the scene:

This is another indoor capture:

This shows results of setting up the camera pointed out a front window.  The camera must shoot through the screen and window pane.  It shows visitors arriving (though none of them left obnoxious fliers).  It also shows cars in the background and trees swaying in the wind:

The SiFor SDV03: It takes a tipping and keeps on filming !

Note: This product does not advertise the fact that it can record audio because the feature is glitchy…

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear, Reviews, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: Security, Watches and Clocks

Spy Gadgets SD-V03 Color Spy Camera Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on June 14, 2010 at 11:00 am.

Seiko introduced the first e-Ink watch in 2005, and they have announced their next generation watch to be released later this year.  The new watch will have an active-matrix display and 80,000 pixels, each capable of four different shades of gray.  The Active Matrix EPD (electrophoretic display) screen will have 300 dpi resolution, which will produce a display that is much sharper and clearer than the previous watch, and the screen will be programmable.  Seiko has also greatly increased the power efficiency of the e-Ink display for this watch.  It will use only 1/100th of the power consumed by the same sized screen using current e-Book technology.  There is no pricing information available yet.  You can read the full press release here.

Filed in categories: News, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: e-Ink device, Watches and Clocks

Seiko’s “Future Now” Project Next-Gen e-Ink Watch originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on June 4, 2010 at 10:00 am.

I reviewed the the Moshi Voice Control Alarm Clock last year and am still using and love it. One of my complaints was the fact that it lacked an FM radio. Well guess what? Moshi has just released an new version of their clock that now includes a radio with 3 presets, as well as an additional alarm. Needless to say, I want one!

Filed in categories: News, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: Alarm Clock, Spotlight Gadgets, Watches and Clocks

Moshi Voice Control Alarm Clock Gets an Update originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 19, 2010 at 2:55 pm.

The Kisai Round Trip Pocket Watch is brought to you Tokyoflash, the same people that bring us all kinds of interesting watches. This one features a water resistant case, USB charging, LED animations and a unique time display of colored LEDs. The Round Trip is available for 6,900 Japanese yen ($73, €54, £48).

Filed in categories: News, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: Spotlight Gadgets, Watches and Clocks

Is that a watch in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 18, 2010 at 9:30 am.

Tokyoflash Japan has just released a new watch design, Kisai Broke. The Kisai Broke is their first watch is USB rechargeable. Touch the button and a shattering animation will light up the display. The outer ring of blocks represent hours in the same position as hours on a clock face. The inner ring of blocks represents five minute intervals in the same position as minutes on a clock face. Four single minutes are shown in the center. The Kisai Broke is available for 15,900 Japanese yen ($168, €124, £110) including delivery, exclusively from www.tokyoflash.com.

Filed in categories: News, Watches and Clocks

Tagged: Spotlight Gadgets, Watches and Clocks

Tokyoflash Releases the Kisai Broke USB Rechargeable Watch originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 27, 2010 at 10:45 am.