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.

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.

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.

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.

Sensor Watch is the non-phone-connected OG:

https://www.sensorwatch.net

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"?

The developer also recently posted on Reddit that he’ll soon be adding third party app support

The sensor watch is actually awesome, if only for turning a cheap casio into a super-accurate quartz watch with temperature compensation.

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.

You might wanna take a look at Casio AE-1500WH.

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.

Yup, the ingenuity to pull this off fascinates me every day, too.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

And yet they remain so popular, curious how an egregious claim completely contrasts with reality.

...evidence that you're a terrorist

Or more recently, to some officials, showing up at a No Kings rally.

The western obssession with wrist watches popularized the mujahedin insult: "You have the watches, we have the time."

I guess Toyota Hilux drivers are next in line with similar smart rules

> 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.

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 was about to ask that - I somehow doubt it will last 2 years if you keep the step counter + Bluetooth on.

I was surprised to see it uses CR2016 batteries and still manages to get two years of advertised battery life.

Problem would be replacing it properly while maintaining it being waterproof.

I'd guess it's likely battery and size consideration.

The only thing keeping me on my apple watch is the wakeup.

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.)

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.

> 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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

A Pebble is probably the closest option. Casio doesn't seem to put much effort on their watches that have health or fitness tracking.

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.

How hard did you look?

https://www.casio.com/us/watches.filter.solar-radio_adjust-K...

You can buy that watch

To sync activity tracking data with your phone

The old Illuminator model has a much better backlight. https://www.amazon.com/Casio-F105W-1A-Illuminator-Sport-Watc...

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.

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.

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.

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?