Live data from Hacker News

Casio F-B100W-1A

casio.com

301–310 of 407 posts

Re: Casio F-B100W-1A

#301
post #17

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.

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.

Re: Casio F-B100W-1A

#302
post #17

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.

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.

Re: Casio F-B100W-1A

#303
post #199

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.

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 stu…

Q: How can we achieve world peace?

HN: I'd wager that with $20 in LLM tokens ...

Cracks me up every time lol

Re: Casio F-B100W-1A

#304

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

Re: Casio F-B100W-1A

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 reissu…

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…

There is always https://busycircuits.com/pages/alm042

Re: Casio F-B100W-1A

#306

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…

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 reissu…

>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.

Re: Casio F-B100W-1A

#307
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

Re: Casio F-B100W-1A

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

[deleted]

Re: Casio F-B100W-1A

#309
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Re: Casio F-B100W-1A

#310

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…

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…

You make it sound like their exports are subpar. They're excellent.
Post reply on HN