Pokemon World Marill Talking Watch

Today's watch is a novelty children's watch, but a surprisingly high-tech one.

This watch is a novelty watch from the Nintendo Pokémon line of merchandise. The watch is a standard LCD module with 4 digits and time, date, and seconds displays, but there is an additional button which when pressed makes the noise of the Pokemon Marill. The face of the watch has a Marill design, with the LCD display in its belly. The strap is moulded plastic with the shapes of other water class Pokemon such as Psyduck, Blastoise, and Squirtle.

The unusual feature of the watch is due to the slot on the right side of the watch. With the watch, there are a set of hexagonal 'keys' with a pattern on one side. When this is inserted into the watch, you hear the sound of one of the Pokemon shown on the key. As this is the water Pokémon watch, the sound is of the water Pokémon on the key, and for the keys I have (numbers 2, 3, and 5), I get the sounds of Squirtle, Blastoise, and Tentacool. I've made a YouTube video of the watch working with the different sounds (link).

The watches were released in 2000 as a promotion with Burger King. From the keys, it seems that there were 6 different watches, and at least 5 (I'd guess 6) keys. This should mean 36 different Pokémon sounds from the keys and another 6 from the watches.

The instructions are in 3 languages - English, Spanish (or Portuguese), and German, suggesting this is a European release. These don't tell much about the maker, but it shows the watch runs on 2x AG13 batteries.

Zihotch Retro Phone Watch

It's an unusual watch that has absolutely no display, but I have a few in my  collection, and I'm blogging one today.

Today's watch is huge - possibly one of the largest I have. It was produced by the Maywa Denki company who began at the end of 1960s producing vacuum tubes. They moved on to be a company producing many unusual instruments and lifestyle products.

The Zihotch watch is manufactured by Cube Co., Ltd from Tokyo and is designed to look like an old style rotating phone dial. The watch only has the dial and a small speaker in the middle, with no other display.

To tell the time, you need to ring the speaking clock - literally! Using the dial to ring 117 (the Japanese speaking clock) makes the watch tell you the time (in Japanese). Due to this working like an old style telephone, dialling 117 takes a bit of time as the dial needs to turn itself back to the start after every digit.

There is also a morning call function (alarm) which when active you can set a time by dialing the digits of the time you need.

It was originally sold for 6,090 yen, and came in a variety of colours. I think it was initially released in 2005 (as that's when the tech blogs first seem to pick it up).

Seiko AirPro A861 - Oh! Ya? 99SS Astro Boy Limited Edition

The problem with collecting watches from the 70s and onwards is that the materials used degrade over time.

The Seiko AirPro watches are one that have suffered so need to be handled with kid gloves.

Three variations of AirPro were released and this is the A861 version which were called Robo Air. This version has a basic LCD display (with 6 digits), but talks when you press the front button, telling the time in Japanese. It also has alarm and stopwatch modes.

This one was made in 1998 (which was the first year the trademark was registered), and is a limited edition for Astro Boy. The difference between this and the basic model (which was coded SBZV007) is that the top panel is clear revealing the speaker, and there is text printed on the panel. The text says "Oh! Ya? 99SS Astro Boy" and has Astro Boy's silhouette with the copyright Tetsuka Productions. The production run was very limited with only 300 ever being released.

Astro Boy (or Tetsuwan Atomu, or Mighty Atom) was the star of a Japanese manga by Osamu Tezuka (the "God of Manga") which started in 1952. Astro Boy was a robot made by Dr Tenma to replace his son who died in a car crash, but was given to the circus after he realised the robot could never be human. Astro was then rescued by Prof Ochanomizu and ended up fighting injustice, crime, and other evils.

The full model number is A861-4010

Trafalgar Talking Watch

Today's watch is a first - it was the first British talking watch, and was just pipped to being the first talking watch by Palerma.

Unfortunately, my watch has lost it's voice (which I think is due to some loose connections for the power).

The watch is a the Trafalgar Talking Watch which was released in 1981 (there was also an improved model in 1983 but this had slide switches under the display). Trafalgar are a bit of a mystery company, as I know they were an English company, but have difficulty finding anything more.

This watch has a 6 digit LCD display, with indicators for alarm, chime, and day of the week. The main feature is that the watch will speak the time when you press the front button. The other feature is an alarm. It uses 4 x 393 (AG5) batteries which are accessed by a small plastic cover on the back.

These can have large collectors value as an improved model sold at Sotherbys for £813 (after a valuation of £80-120).

Seiko talking watch - SBJS001 (A860) round case

Today's watch is something a little unusual in my collection as you can still buy it new. (www.seiko-watch.co.jp/p_search/detail/do.php?no=SBJ001)
The watch is a Seiko SBJS001 (or sometimes just SBJ001) talking watch. The look of the watch is very distinctive with a rounded case, speaker holes on the front, and a very sci-fi appearance.
The watch uses an A860 module with a basic LCD display and no light (as it can speak the time to you in the dark).
The watch speaks the time in Japanese, with a female child-like voice, when the large silver button on the front is pressed.
The watch mode is set with the bottom left button, and appears to have time, chronograph, and alarm functions (with the voice announcing which is selected). In time mode, the other buttons set the hourly chime on or off (top right), or set the time (hold the top left).

Seiko Airpro - Robo Air A861 talking watch

In their history, Seiko has made some strange watches, and today is one of those.

The Seiko Airpro is a watch from the late 90s, early 2000s (the trademark was registered in 1998 and cancelled in 2006), in the same vein as the Reebok Pump trainers, which has a pumping mechanism and inflatable bags behind the watch which can be set to give you a comfortable fit to your wrist. There were 3 different versions of the AirPro, and this is one of them, sometimes known as the Robo Air.

The large black button that can be seen at the bottom of the watch is the rubber pump button, and the small silver button at the top is the pressure release, and this mechanism takes up most of the volume of the watch.

The watch itself is a talking watch with an LCD display (using the module A861), and only tells the time in Japanese (activated by the small black button below the display). The module also has alarm and chronograph functions, and changing the mode is also accompanied by a japanese mans voice announcing the name of the mode.

The full model number (and other codes) is:
A861-4000  A0  T14
The catalogue number is SBZV007 and was originally sold for 21,000 yen (1999)

Robo air page from the Japanese Airpro catalogue