Spy Gear - Spy Truth Detector

I'm often attracted to gadget watches - ones which have some other feature apart from time, such as temperature, compass, etc. Today's watch has a unique extra function that I can safely say I've never seen in a watch before.

The watch is part of a range of toys called Spy Gear which I think was released by an American company called Wild Planet Toys.

It has a dot matrix LCD display which comprises of 3 lines of 7 sections, each being a matrix of 5x5 dots. It normally shows location (time zone) and seconds on the top row, time in the middle (4 digits), and date on the bottom. It has a world time feature which allows you to quickly cycle through the time zones, but no other normal watch features.

The unusual part is the 2 spy features. The first feature is a Secret Decode option where one of three codes can be chosen to be decoded. It is a simple letter substitution code where the letters are bulk shifted to start at a different point.

The second feature is the most unique - a lie detector. The front top of the watch has two metal electrodes and places to put your fingers, and these are used to measure the electrical resistance. The theory is the same as most lie detectors in that when you lie, you sweat more, reducing the resistance and so you can tell whether a lie is being told by measuring it. When the mode is active, bars full from left to right, and the more bars, the more likely it is that they are lying!

Citizen Independent 1481010 Round Dial - Red 1030 module

Today I'm wearing a watch with a similar module to yesterday's, but from an earlier range of watches.
This watch is one of the Citizen Independent 1481010 range which was sold in the late 90s to early 2000s as a collection of fashionable designs for young people. The range was the forerunner to the current Citizen Independent range (which yesterday's watch came from). If you want to know more about the 1481010 watches, check out my overview page for the full scoop (link).

This model is a round dial watch with 3-hands. It uses a Japanese 1030 module, which looks almost identical to yesterday's 1032 module.

The design is quite plain compared to most of the 1481010s, but it is incredibly shiny! The strap is a metal mesh band, and is different to the metal link strap found in other variations of this design.

The full model number is 1030-L16266, and the catalogue number is IT21-4044B. It was sold between 1997 and 1998 (it wasn't in the 1999 catalogue) for 12,000 yen, with this watch being made in 1997.

Citizen Independent Letterbox Dial

A lot of watches I have give me trouble when I try to blog as they have no model name, and sometimes have common modules. So like with today's watch, I have to make up some description based on what I think it looks like (although some sites refer to it being called Spy) .

This watch is one of the Citizen Independent range (maybe Independent Girl) and came out over the last couple of years. The Citizen Independent range came out in the late 90s to provide modern fashionable watches aimed at young adults.

In this watch, over the dial is a cover allowing you to only see a portion of the hands through a rectangular window (like peering through a letterbox). The window is narrow enough that you can only see the 3 o'clock marker and the Independent name at the 9 o'clock position. The Independent name is etched into the shiny black cover which can be lifted to reveal the whole face. When the full face is revealed, you can see it is a 3-hand dial. It is powered by a Japanese quartz 1032 module which is meant to be accurate to 20 sec/month. The plated stainless steel case is made in China. The strap is a 12mm calf leather band with buckle.

On the back of the lid there is a very intricate etching of a compass face (that I'd not actually noticed until I was examining the watch for blogging).

The full model number is 1032-003324-01, and catalogue number is BB1-040-50. It was released in Japan on 24th April 2011.

Cabane de Zucca - Blood

Today I'm wearing a very blobby watch and when I first got it, I thought it reminded me of blood cells.

My hunch was actually correct as this watch's name is Blood.

It is by Cabane de Zucca, which is a range of designer watches with the concept that 'Zucca delivers a little organic spice into our daily lives'. The brand is part of the A-net Inc group which was established in August 1996 (same year as the first Zucca watches). It is heavily linked to (and possibly owned or managed by) designer Issey Miyake (who I think I read once was behind Zucca brand).

This watch was released in 2002 and came in 3 colours, this being the black version. It has a small 3-hand dial with a yellow crown at the 8 o'clock position. The watch's face has a dotted pattern, and there is a large Z in a diamond shape towards the bottom (which must be a Zucca logo). The hands are orange, and the second hand is curved with the circular (blood cell) shape in the middle.

The strap is rubber, and follows the blood theme with large blood cell shaped blobs evenly spread down the strap. The clasp is quite unusual, as each end has a a plastic clip which fastens over a thin section on the other side of the strap.

It uses a Seiko 7N01 module, with a full model number of 7N01-0BF0. It has a catalogue number of AWDT003, and an original sale price of 12,000 yen.

Citron Quartz T493T

Today's watch is a quartz watch by Citron and has a really retro look about it!

The Citron International brand is part of the Henderson Group of companies. The group was established in 1976 and has a reputation for value and quality items, and includes brands such as Philip Mercier and pod as well as Citron International. The Citron brand is a range of watches which are meant to be constantly updated to capture the latest from the watch world.

The watch is a quartz powered 3-hand dial watch. The module is a standard Japanese movement. Design-wise it has a very angular shape, and is very similar to André Le Marquand's design for the Catena Spacesonic. The back is a bit tricky, as it looks like a screw back, but actually just pops off (which meant I scratched it a bit until I worked it out).

It has a model number of T493T, but I don't know when this model was released.

Seiko Wrist Information System UC-2001

It's time for my first Seiko of the new year, and it's a geeky high-tech one :-).

In the early 80s, various companies (such as Casio and Seiko) started releasing watches capable of storing memos or notes (-I think Seiko was first with a release in 1982). By the mid 80s, these watches had increased in complexity to be basically wrist mounted mini-computers, and the Seiko UC range from 1984/5 were one of the first to be marketed as such.

Today's UC-2001 is one of those wrist computers and was called the Wrist Information System. It is a variation on the UC-2000 designed to specifically interface with the Apple II computer (and one of the first, if not the first, computer connectable watches) . To connect with the Apple II computer you used the UC-2301 interface module which connected into the computers game port, and this module transferred data to/from the watch wirelessly. On the computer, the watch was controlled by the Time Trax II software, which was a scheduling program that could also utilize the interface module. The software would send appointments to the watch is chronological order until the watch's memory was full. The watch has 2kb of memory which can support two 1kb memos, 2kb of schedule, or a mix of both.

The UC-2000 also had two keyboard dock interfaces (UC-2100 and UC-2200) but I don't know whether they were compatible with the UC-2001. The larger dock (UC-2200) also included a thermal roll-fed printer, additional RAM, and ROM that could be used to run programs (including MS Basic), properly turning the watch into a mini screened computer.

The watch itself has a large dot matrix LCD display. The display is split into 4 rows each with 10 segments, and each segment is a 6x5 matrix of pixels. The default display uses the top row for date, second row for day, and bottom two rows for time (6 digits, but the seconds only use the bottom row). It has 4 buttons along the front for mode selection, text input, and starting data transmission to the dock. For modes, it has two memo slots (marked A and B), an alarm, and stopwatch (which shows two lines of information - elapsed time and split). Even though there is a button marked set, the time is adjusted by cycling through the modes with the last item being the setting option.

On the back, it shows a model number of UW01-0040, and this one was made in Jan 1985. The strap part number is KH002.

The original sale price was pretty steep at $500, and I have read that it wasn't sold in high numbers.

Generation LaserWatch

I was meant to be in several meetings at work today, so today's watch's special feature could have been useful.

I found the watch as a cheap purchase on Ebay, and was attracted by the laser!

The watch is by Generation I think - it is the one word that is shown to be a registered name. It is called the LaserWatch and this is due to the fact it has a built in laser!! Not a James Bond style high power laser for cutting your way to safety, but a laser pointer.

The watch looks generally normal (and a little like a G-Shock), but has an attachment on the left side which looks a little like a bomb. The attachment has 008 laser printed on it and is the home of the laser. The pointer is pretty bright, and has 5 shape options; a dot, a butterfly, a hand shaped in a victory V, a bull's head, and a star, which is selected by turning the wheel at the front of the pointer. The laser is operated by the button on the front (which is marked 'open' for some strange reason), and is integrated into the watch's circuit board.

For the watch part, it is a normal 3.5-digit LCD display, but has a large panel filling the centre of the face. The printing on the front states this watch is multi function, but it only has time, date, and seconds (so I guess the laser must count).