Gobots Blue & Red robot watch

There have been many different types of robot watch made. I've blogged a Gobots watch before, but this is a different style robot than before.

The Gobots watches were sold by the Tonka toy company starting in 1984. The toys were made by Impulse Ltd in Hong Kong, and were in competition with the Takara robot watches from the same era. The Gobots toys were licensed from Bandai, and after Hasbro bought Tonka, they got the toys back again. The Gobots line were present in the US market until it was phased out in 1991.

This robot design is a lot more flexible than the standard square robot watch. The arms have extra hinges, and the legs are both hinged and rotating. As with the other watches in the series, this had a magnetic connector to the strap along with a rotate to lock connection. The design makes it a muck thicker model when folded, and the LCD display is set deep into the body, with the buttons positioned below.

The watch has the standard 4 digit LCD display design, with two button operation. One button sets the time, while the other switches between the day, date, and seconds displays.

Gobots Robot Watch - red

It seems that this weekend is turning into a robot watch weekend, so here's another one!

This watch is part of the Gobots range of watches made by Impulse Ltd of Hong Kong in 1984.

The Gobots were a range of transforming robots made by the Tonka toy company in the mid 80s. The toys were actually licensed from Bandai and reverted to their ownership when Hasbro bought Tonka. The original toys were developed by Bandai division Popy of Japan, the same as the Tokima watches, and were Tonka's competition to the Takara toys entry into the American market (-the American versions of yesterday's watch). The line was eventually phased out in 1991.

The watch is a square model (like the Kronoform watches) with arms on the side and legs that fold up and cover the arms. The most unusual part of the watch is the connection to the strap which is magnetic (same as the Voltron watch from last July which was also by Impulse). Unfortunately, I'm missing the strap for this one, so I'm using it as a fridge magnet.

It uses a 4 digit basic LCD module. It has just time, date, and seconds modes, and is controlled/updated by the two buttons on the front.