Monday, March 1, 2004
Got The Time? The SPOT Watch Review
Posted by Jason Dunn in "OFF-TOPIC" @ 10:00 AM
Jan 30th, 4:00 PM – Yes, it’s definitely an hourly chime. I’m not sure if I should take it off the charging cradle yet, because I don’t want to mess up the charge. Oh what the heck, why not. Ok, so there’s no obvious battery indicator, which probably makes sense. The average person probably only cares when they need to charge it not, that it has a 90% charge. There are three buttons on the right-hand side: the top and bottom buttons cycle through the different watch faces. There are six in total, and inverted versions of each, for a total of twelve watch faces. The big middle button on the right side seems to have functionality based on the watch face loaded – on some, it just beeps and nothing happens, and on other watch faces that show the hours and minutes only, pushing the button will bring up a seconds display and the date.
Figure 1: The default watch face I'm using.
I should mention the display. It's like using DOS. This is exactly what I was expecting, but let's face it, the low resolution, grayscale thing is old school. I feel like I'm using a Palm V. :roll: I absolutely understand why they had to do this - a high-resolution colour screen would give you perhaps 60 minutes of battery life. Regardless, I haven't used a display this archaic since the mid '90s.
On the left side of the watch, the top button is the backlight – it looks like it would be fairly strong in low light, but this isn’t a PDA backlight, that’s for sure! The button on the lower left is the menu button – it cycles through Face, Time, Register, Messages, and Calendar. Those options really sum up what the SPOT watch is for. The watch is telling me to go to the MSN Direct site , so off I go.
First I log in with my passport, and now it’s asking me for the watch ID, which is conveniently located on the screen of the watch. After that, it takes me to a location page, which has automatically filled in the correct location. That’s good news! I was afraid it wasn’t going to work here, since technically the service hasn’t been launched in Canada. Now it’s showing me a coverage map – impressive!
Figure 2: It’s showing me the coverage area, which includes Calgary and quite a large distance around it, probably 30 minutes of travel by car outside the city limits. Nice!
There’s some text below the image that mentions the coverage area:
Quote: "As of October 2003, the areas covered by the FM Sub-carrier network include the top one hundred (100) U.S. Metropolitan Transit Areas (MTAs). These areas may be increased or decreased from time to time. Coverage areas are affected by reception limitations of the FM network as well as other factors, which may affect the ability to receive the FM signal. The information provided on coverage area maps is not a guarantee of service availability.”
Now it comes to the time to pay. My choices are $14.95 CND per month, or $99 CND per year. The yearly option is 50% less than paying monthly, so that’s obviously the way to go. Is $99 a good price? It’s really too early for me to tell if it’s worth the yearly fee – we’ll see. Credit info follows, and my credit card number is…nah, I’d better not put that up here. ;-) There’s a 5000 word terms of service agreement that I just can’t force myself to read through. After accepting, I’m taken to a page that tells me everything is activated, and now I can personalize the service. Now here comes the fun part!
It’s smart enough to figure out that if I’m in Calgary, I want Calgary weather. Good. It delivers today’s high/low temperature by default, along with a three-day forecast, and I have the option to add on a UV index, Wind Chill/Direction, Barometric Pressure, Humidity, and Sunrise/Sunset. I want it all! I’m travelling to Seattle in a few weeks, so I’ll add that city, and I’ll also add St. Petersburg, Russia, so I know what the weather is like when I talk to my workmates at Spb Software House.
Figure 3: The local weather in Calgary.
Figure 4: How windy is it outside? Your watch can now tell you.
Figure 5: The high/low temperature for today. There's also a screen that shows a three-day forecast, another that shows the UV index rating, and another that shows the barometric pressure. Very thorough for the weather hounds among us (my wife is one).
