No vibration...what a missed opportunity! The reason that I got into smartwatches is the vibration wake-up alarm
I'd guess it's likely battery and size consideration.
Casio F-B100W-1A
131–140 of 407 posts
Re: Casio F-B100W-1A
#132How are they getting 2 years on a CR2016? Is that with step tracking and Bluetooth disabled?
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.
Re: Casio F-B100W-1A
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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.
Re: Casio F-B100W-1A
#134I would love a watch in the F-91W form factor that does heart rate and sleep tracking. Maybe one 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.
Re: Casio F-B100W-1A
#135One 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 f…
OK, but who would use 12h time ? I never understood, this seems so backwards.
Re: Casio F-B100W-1A
#136The 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.
Re: Casio F-B100W-1A
#137Great. Now, please re-release nokia 3310
Re: Casio F-B100W-1A
#138Here 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.…
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. Of…
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Re: Casio F-B100W-1A
#139[deleted]
Re: Casio F-B100W-1A
#140One 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.
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.
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.