Alright, folks, it’s time for another watch from those purveyors of interesting time-telling mechanisms, Tokyoflash. Today we’ll take a look at one of more visually simple watches they’ve got that still has quite a trick in telling the time.
The watch in question is the Kisai Tenmetsu, which I’ve taken to thinking of as the “Stoplight watch”. This is due to it’s use of red, yellow, and green LEDs to read out the time and date.
The idea behind it is fairly simple – press a button, the lights light up, and you do some math to figure out the time and date. Why math? Well, these LEDs aren’t lighting up to form numbers – they actually represent numbers. The red LEDs represent 15 (each), yellows are 5 each, and then the greens are 1 each.
This means you need to count up each color, and then do the match to determine the time. With the button press, you’ll have the hours displayed first, then minutes, then the month, and finally the day. I was able to get the hang of it, but this is something you probably want to have as a daily wear for awhile to get it down so you can quickly figure out what the display is telling you.
With the case and bracelet made of aluminum, this is a very lightweight watch (about 100g). Combine that with a case that measures in at 23mm wide by 52mm tall (and only 10mm thin), and you have a watch that fits well, and definitely isn’t going to weigh your wrist down. There is a modicum of water resistance (30m), and the watch is powered by a standard cell.
Overall, I thought the watch was an implementation I really can’t see any brand other than TokyoFlash coming up with, and at $99, it’s very affordable. That said, I do prefer my watches to have a high level of “at a glance” readability, so that was the one personal strike it had – definitely something you want to think about with this watch.
If you’re intrigued by the watch, though, you’ll definitely want to be back here tomorrow – this watch is one that TokyoFlash provided expressly for the purposes of a giveaway (thanks, TF!), so we’ll kick that off tomorrow. tokyoflash.com
