EleeNo EG5 Turning Wheels

My Friday watch is one that takes a little getting used to for reading the time.

As is often the case with the unusual designs, this watch is one of the Japanese watches in the SeaHope family. To be more specific, this watch is part of the EleeNo range who are there to produce watches showing 'handles time'. The EleeNo range was started in 2008 by the SeaHope founder Yasushi Kimura. There is more on the SeaHope family on my SeaHope summary page.

This model is in the EG line which is part of the Cyber family of EleeNo watches. The Cyber watches are the EleeNo digital range, while EG means that it tells the time with segmented LCDs.

This is the EG5 and has the additional name Turning Wheels. It works on the 12-5-9 principle, meaning it has 3 LCD wheels with segments that cover hours (12), 10 minutes (5), and individual minutes (9). The watch actually has 10 segments on the minutes wheel, with the last one just flashing to show the seconds progressing. Pressing the button causes the el-backlight wheels to show a turning animation before displaying the time. Time setting is done through the inset button and needs the tip of a pen (or similar) to press.

The design has a rectangular case in silver with a mirrored inverse LCD with a coloured background, and a black leather strap. It was available in a few different LCD colour and strap combinations. Many sites I've found quote this as being an LED watch with LED segments, but as far as I can see, this is purely an LCD watch with a backlight.

The back just has the text "Turning Wheels, EG5, Graphic Art by EleeNo" and the SeaHope website address.

It seems that this watch came out around 2010, and had an initial price somewhere around the $70-80 range. Outside of Japan, it has been available through the usual sites Tokyoflash and Intelligent Watches.

EleeNo EG3 Black and Green

It's been a little while since I wore one of my more cryptic time machines, so today it's another EleeNo.

The EleeNo brand is one of the sub brands of the SeaHope watch group. They are known for their range of 'handless time' watches, and have usually been seen outside of Japan under the Tokyoflash umbrella. I have an overview page for SeaHope watches, and there I give more information about the total set of watches.

This watch is the EG3 by EleeNo, which came out in 2007. It is one of a series of watches based around 9 LCD display windows in a 3x3 pattern (sometimes with an extra 4th row). The arrangement is simple with the top row showing hours, the middle row 10 minutes, and the bottom row individual minutes. To get the right number of digits, the hour windows cover 4 hours each (filling the top row of all of the windows first), the minutes in groups of threes per window, and there are two 10 minute blocks per window. As there is a spare block in terms 10 minutes, this is filled with the letters EG which flash every second.

The row below the time windows is filled with 3 buttons. The left starts time setting, and the middle activates the backlight (although I have a problem with a few of these watches that causes the light to reset the time, even with a new battery). Pressing the right button doesn't seem to do anything.

When it came out, it was sold for 9,800 yen.