EleeNo EG watch
By Dan Wu 
posted Jan 5th 2005 2:14AM
posted Jan 5th 2005 2:14AM
If you don't know by now, we have quite a
fetish for watches here at Engadget, and the EleeNo EG strikes our fancy,
as gone are the clock hands or those passe LED numerals, as graphical patterns are used to tell the time. Selling for
71 bucks, we're tempted to get one, if for no other reason than to figure out how it works (we believe that it's 3:00
o'clock and some seconds on the display now, but that's just a wild guess).
12:03
How to read the watch. The top line is subdivided into 12 squares and represents hours of the day. The next line and two squares of the last line are 10 minute increments. The last square is subdivided into 10 individual minutes. So the time on the watch above is 12:03.
Yeah. To be very very very clear: 1:00 is the "least" amount of information possible and therefore the face is at its darkest. The clock gradually drains of color as it approaches 12:59, the state at which it has the most information. The top 12 squares in two rows gradually click from dark to light, in a C pattern. Those are the hours. The next 5 full squares each turn light every ten minutes to represent :10, :20, etc., and the last box with the 10 small squares turn light for :x1, :x2, etc.
no, 12:57.
So is that 12.03 AM or 12.03 PM ?
You can't tell, but if you look outside you should be able to. 12:03 AM and PM are quite different. But no, you can't tell from the watch.
I would think that it would take a while to get used to this format, until you could just glance at it and read it instantly. It is cool, but I'll stay with digital for now.
But is that 12:03 Tokyo time...I need it to be in Eastern time. How would I change the time zones? Do I need a Firewire connection?
It's a friggin joke...ok.
C'mon, it reads 10:10. Don't you know that all watches in ads are set to 10:10? It's subliminal marketing. Now where did I put my pack of Camels?
Very cool. Only two things stop me from getting one: first and foremost, it's all plastic (even, apparently, the face), so it'll scratch up like crazy. And 2, it's right-to-left, not left-to-right. Flip the LCD over and make it out of slightly more durable materials, and sign me up!
(As for the am/pm problem, my analog watch doesn't tell me the difference either, and that's OK...)
Where can i buy this watch? Or is it even out yet?
In fact, the displayed time is 12:02. The minutes grow up in the left half of the last square up to five, than make an U-turn and grow down to nine. The last "minute-square", where you may expect the ten, indicates the seconds and is always blinking. The photo was taken just in a moment when this LCD was "on". Reaching full ten minutes can be displayed definitely by changes of the larger squares, 12:60 does not exist, but 1:00 does. At 12:59 you will start to see a completely filled display whenever the second blinks, at 1:00 it changes to one filled square in the upper right corner.
Very nice idea, but with VAT and shipping too expensive, because it's really all plastic.
I have one in red, the time shown is 12:02. Also, the one pictured here is the LE gold "reverse" version where the LCD does the opposite of the other versions. Other versions would fill in the top 12 segments to indicate 12 hours, while this one has the LCD removed to indicate 12. The materials are about the quality of a $40 american watch, but the design if of course priceless. So is that worth $80? PS the backlight is pretty slick.
There's a free Widget based on the ElleNo G.
http://widgets.yahoo.com/gallery/view.php?widget=37748