Watch this Wednesday: Nixie Wristwatch

Last week you asked us no questions and we told you no lies with the "The Truth Detector Watch". This week we're kicking it Cold War style with the Nixie Wristwatch.

What it is
Nixie Tubes use glowing bottles of ionized gas to form letters and digits, and are usually found in gear from the former Soviet Union (as opposed to the drab LEDs that litter our gadgets and home electronics). Now they've made it onto the real estate of your wrist with a Nixie Wristwatch.

Why we like it

It doesn�t get more geeky than this, a watch with Krusty brand batteries?

To view the time simply press the button on the front of the watch to illuminate the Nixie Tubes. Daylight viewing is good, and nighttime viewing is �like a beacon�.

Where to get it and how much
These went for $495.00 assembled, looks like they�re currently sold out�but a new model is supposedly in development and nearing completion.

[Al Iasid @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Thanks for "like a beacon" - my first laugh since I voted.

[Mal Adjust @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

You have got to be kidding me. Five-hundred bucks for this ugly piece-of-shite?

Yeah, it looks Cold War, alright. Then again, so does Bulgaria.

[You have got to be kidding @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Am I missing something? Does this watch blow you twice a day? $500... ?

[XiozTzu @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Where do you get Krusty Brand Batteries?

[tweaq @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

if you go to the site, they have a gif that you print on avery lables

[jps @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

note also how it takes up like 3/4 of your arm. not much of a wristwatch to begin with.

[a rodin @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Back ten or fifteen years ago a nixie tube watch used to sell for ~75 roubles in Russia / former SU (comparable to a decent entry-level automatic watch, like Poljot) --- so I kind of fail to understand where is that $500 tag coming from. Krusty Brand avery tag?

[kyle @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

...the batteries are almost as cool as the watch

[gfweb @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

no big step forward! this is how the original digital watches were done in the late 70s...i had three of 'em

[Ryan Sand @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Hah! I laughed my butt off at the "Krusty Battery"
Well, considering they are sold out (@$500) that should tell us tightass wannabe's something about consumer appeal...

[Ryan Sand @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Hah! I laughed my butt off at the "Krusty Battery"
Well, considering they are sold out (@$500) that should tell us tightass wannabe's something about consumer appeal...

[Dave Boyd @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

You guys are missing the point. I suspect you don't remember nixies that well, if at all. Nobody here ever had a Nixie wristwatch; nobody ever made them as a consumer item. Before LCD watches, there were LED watches, which had bright red blocky numerals and looked like these: http://www.ledwatches.net/

There were also VFD displays, which were also in a tube but used a different technology. These are still in use in desk calculators and car clocks and such.

But the display tubes in this watch are another, earlier, much more clunky and fragile and hard-to-use technology - the Nixie Tube. They were invented to replace mechanical numeric displays. They require high voltages to operate, have a limited life-span, use lots of current, were expensive to make -- the LED which replaced them was superior in every way except (arguably) one: looks. The digits in a nixie tube are formed from stamped metal, and are shaped like actual numerals, instead of boxy approximations. They glow a lambent orange, and are impressive artifacts from the days before integrated circuits were invented. Here's a good site to look at to see what they really look like: http://www.sphere.bc.ca/test/nixies.html

Why is the watch so expensive?
The subminiature tubes that were used in this wristwatch were made long ago, and are relatively hard to find, even for Nixies -- like finding rare light bulbs made fifty years ago. They haven't been manufactured since the Seventies, and that was in the former Soviet block states -- the West switched to LEDs even before that. Finding them in quantity and purchasing them is a chore. Designing a high-voltage power supply for a wristwatch was a non-trivial task for the maker, Jeff Thomas. He's an engineer with real work to do -- these were a labor of love for him, and each one was carefully hand-assembled using off-the-shelf parts, no custom all-in-one ICs. Plus, as an exceeding rarity, the (tiny) market for them easily bore his asking price.

I'm not affiliated with him except as a customer for the NixieSat (see his webpage), which I built from a kit (having bought the actual Nixies myself for less than half of what they go for now) and which dominates my bedroom from its commanding perch on a high shelf. There's no question of what the time is from any point in the room, except maybe under the bed. Your eyes are drawn to it instantly. You can read by this thing at night, if your eyes are reasonably good. And the time is set by an integrated GPS unit and is therefore always right.

Google for "Nixie Clocks" and be amazed.

[Jim Forbes @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

"no big step forward! this is how the original digital watches were done in the late 70s...i had three of 'em"

yeah...right.

Jeff's watch is neat, but doesn't seem to be as practical as mine, which I've been wearing quite a bit since my brother built the electronics.

Hopefully the cathodecorner.com and Jeff's new watch will be in production sometime in the next year or two and you'all can buy them and impress your friends...a Nixie watch is the ultimate geek conversation piece.

[genixia @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Aside from the component costs, it's easy to underestimate the amount of time these watches take to assemble. 39 _tiny_ (0603) resistors, 29 SO-T transistors, a couple of diodes, a few capacitors and 7 SOP ICs don't just throw themselves onto a PCB. And that's the straightforward part.

The nixies are mounted in pin receptacles before being soldered, 11 per nixie. Just getting those receptacles on the 4 nixies without bending any pins takes a good 40 minutes. Since these nixies are decades old the pins have some light surface corrosion, just enough to make the receptacles a very tight fit.

The circuit design is very retro, with a 32.768KHz crystal oscillator divided down to drive decade counters to decode and count up the seconds, minutes and hours. The minutes and hours counts drive the nixies through discrete common emitter transistor drivers. All very '70s.
This design philosophy in conjunction with the confined space available within a watch results in a PCB with very close tolerances. The ~150 vias are so small that they need to be filled to prevent oscillation, and unfortunately the silkscreen 'stop' mask is bigger than the via to track clearance. It is astonishingly easy to short a track to via and agonisingly difficult to spot it. And let's not forget that the board has over 200V on it. Small clearances and 200V don't mix easily - soldering sins that would go unnoticed in 95% of projects get punished in this one. All of this adds to the amount of time required to solder, test and debug a watch.

Finally there is the mechanical assembly. Watchstrap brackets and buttons need to fabricated. The custom case needs to be drilled and tapped.

The end result is wonderful though. These watches are lovely to look at.

[Bruce Berry @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

I used to spend alot of time working on cars in the garage. You can still work on a car but
the technology has evolved to where you have to
buy entire modules or assemblies. The same is
true for the Nixie, The plasma glow discharge
is a first hand glimpse into quantum mechanics.
The look and feel of the original phenomena is
almost touchable to the human hand. Everthing
will continue to be embedded to a greater scale.
Wait till the day your boss knows you just opened the refrigerator door for another beer when you said you were at the doctors.
I do enjoy what these guys are doing, wish
I were so motivated, The primal need to earn cash still controls too much of my time.

[Bruce Berry @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

I used to spend alot of time working on cars in the garage. You can still work on a car but
the technology has evolved to where you have to
buy entire modules or assemblies. The same is
true for the Nixie, The plasma glow discharge
is a first hand glimpse into quantum mechanics.
The look and feel of the original phenomena is
almost touchable to the human hand. Everthing
will continue to be embedded to a greater scale.
Wait till the day your boss knows you just opened the refrigerator door for another beer when you said you were at the doctors.
I do enjoy what these guys are doing, wish
I were so motivated, The primal need to earn cash still controls too much of my time.

[David Forbes @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Here's a nixie watch you can buy...
Ever since I saw Jeff's watch, I've been interested in making a practical everyday version. It's finally here. See http://www.nixiewatch.com/

[Disclaimer: I make this thing.]

[Allan richards @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Hope to see the virtual Led Rotating Technology in a wristwatch soon. (see http://www.innovativedevice.com if you don't know what I mean)