While smartwatches are taking their places on the wrists of more people, I’m content to stay with a classic Casio design, the F-91W. Here’s why it will take more than some fancy features to pry it off my arm.
I Just Want to Tell Time
Credit:Â David Delony/How-To Geek
The main thing I want a watch for is just to tell the time without taking my phone out of my pocket. When cellphones first became ubiquitous among people other than high-powered execs and salespeople in the 2000s, there was a joke that the devices, by having digital clocks built into them, could replace wristwatches. It seemed like the comeback of the pocket watch after the popularization of the wristwatch during World War I.
Douglas Adams famously lampooned the desire for digital watches by saying that humans were so primitive they thought they were a good idea in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but that was mainly due to their limitations in the 1970s, such as needing to press a button to be able to see the time at all. Digital watch technology had much improved with LCD screens that didn’t need to be illuminated under normal light by 1989, the year the Casio F-91W was first introduced.
While in theory a phone could serve as a primary timepiece, the disadvantage is that I would have to pull it out of my pocket to tell the time. The wristwatch’s obvious convenience is that you can just look at your wrist and get back to whatever you’re doing. You don’t have to be at risk of getting shot in a trench to see the advantage of this.
The growth of the smartwatch market and the continued popularity of my beloved Casio F-91W seem to indicate that I might not be the only one who recognizes the utility of the wristwatch form factor. Watches are the original mobile technology, long before they ever became digital. Their use spread with the growth of the railroads and standard time. A lot of people are keeping this tradition alive.
Smart Watch Health Tracking Apps Seem Creepy and Anxiety-Inducing
A lot of the apps on smartwatches have to do with health and fitness. It’s part of a long association of mobile devices with health and exercise. Lots of walkers and joggers strapped on Sony Walkmen back in the ’80s, after all.
Among the most popular apps on Apple and Android smartwatches are apps to track your physical activity, and also your physical inactivity by tracking your sleep. All a Walkman ever did was play music.
I find the whole idea of having my vital signs stored by a third party, where they could be accessed, creepy. When I have my blood pressure taken in a doctor’s office, the record is private. There’s not such guarantee if I shared it with Apple or Google.
The availability of health tracking apps would likely also tempt me to keep checking them to see if something is wrong. The reason I buy a lot of technology is that I want to make things less complicated, not more. The reason that I don’t want a smartwatch is that I would probably spend more time tracking my health than would good for my mental health.
It’s not that I don’t think that being fit and healthy isn’t important, I just don’t want a watch that will yell at me for not getting my steps in.
It’s Practically Disposable
What I love about the F-91W the most is its price point, even though it’s risen since the last time I bought it. And I do have some recent experience. The unfortunate weak point of the design is the resin band, which tends to outlast the battery. They seem prone to breaking after a few years.
Still, the best part of this watch is that even though there are better-looking and more luxurious timepieces out there, the Casio’s low cost makes it almost disposable. I’m not going to cry over it if the face gets scratched or the band breaks again. I know I could probably replace the band or the battery, but the cost of the watch versus the effort to replace them makes replacement seem more economical. I’m not really a “watch person” who likes to show off fancy timepieces. The pure practicality that the F-91W exudes might still be a statement on its own,
Casio Design is Iconic Yet Practical Retro Tech
Credit:Â David Delony/How-To Geek
Maybe it’s the nostalgia factor, but the design in these older Casio devices, including the watches, seems to appeal to me. With the F91-W’s worldwide popularity, I suppose this might be part of its primary appeal. It seems like the ’80s never ended with this watch, with its seven-segment display and dim backlight. There seems to be something satisfying about pressing the side buttons.
I just happen to like a lot of Casio gear. They might be my favorite mobile tech company. The styling just looks really cool. It’s like a retro-futuristic aesthetic that was common on electronics of the era. You can see it in the company’s calculators, another one of its iconic product lines. They also managed to combine the two with their line of calculator watches, which you can also still buy.
What I appreciate most about this is that this is also a retro technology that is still practical for everyday use. You might find an old cassette Walkman from the ’80s on eBay, but you’ll likely need to disassemble it to get it working. The belts that make the cassette players run will most likely have deteriorated, so you’ll have to open them up and replace them.
I also have a Casio scientific calculator that, while newer, retains a lot of the functionality of the old calculators of the ’70s and ’80s. While Python is my main mathematical tool today, especially for things like statistics, there’s a certain tactile thrill in pressing buttons that’s missing from a lot of touchscreen devices.
When It Comes to Watches, Dumber May Be Better
There’s been a small movement of people who use “dumbphones,” or what used to be called “feature phones” before smartphones started getting popular. I’m not part of this movement mainly because it’s hard to exist in modern life full-time without a smartphone these days, but I can appreciate the desire for a less hectic lifestyle.
InI can get behind a “dumb watch” movement, if it ever got off the ground. The Casio F-91W lets me tell the time and get on with whatever I’m doing. There are no notifications to scream for my attention. Ironically, there are some features that the watch has, like alarms, timers, and stopwatches, that I’ve moved to my Android phone, because using them seems fiddly with my sausage fingers on my watch.
The Casio F-91W watch seems to show that in some cases, “dumb” tech can be good for your use. I’ll likely keep mine for as long as I can, or at least until the band breaks again. I’m sure Casio will be happy to sell me a new one yet again. The Casio F-91W is proof that some pieces of tech will never go out of style.