A few weeks ago, I was watching ‘BBC News24′ and caught some of their gadget/technology show called ‘Click’. In one segment of the show, they talked about what little gadgets are currently falling under the eye of consumers, one of these gadgets was called the ‘Tokyo Flash Watch‘. Simply put, these watches are mosty not your conventional digital or analog (hands) watches, a Flash Watch uses an array of lights and flashy things to tell the time.
These things looked cool, so I thought i’d take a look on the web to see what I could find. To my joy I came across TOKYOFLASH Japan a website dedicated to the unique range of Flash watches. After browsing the watches, it seemed aparent you’d need a degree in mathmatics or something to actually tell the time on some of the complex visuals on these watches (look at the site, you’ll see what I mean).
I decided i’d stray not so far from the good old digital watches I’ve usually used in the past, and decided to buy myself a ‘BPM Equalizer Watch‘ (pics at bottom of Post).
This rather bulky piece of kit cost 7,900 Yen, around £35. It kinda reminds me of a retro style watch that someone from an old 70’s sci-fi show would wear, possibly as an arm mounted communication device. Either way, it does stand out even though it doesn’t have the flashy, dazzling effect of most of the other Flash watches. What the BPM watch does boast, is a funky ‘Beat Per Minute‘ (BPM) counter mode, which is pretty neat when your listening to music. You simply press the giant black button to the beat of the music your listening to, and it counts how many beats your doing a minute. On top of that, short message’s scroll accross the screen as your bopping away to help with your enthusiasm, below are a few of them.
“You are the best!”
“Stick it to em!”
“Pump this crowd!”
“They’re workin up a sweat!”
The watch also had a small handy torch light on the top side of the watch, that is usefull for reading, or finding a keyhole in the dark, but its range is limited to about 15 inces. Other than those funky and slightly handy gizmos, its just your standard watch, it tells time and if you forget, it’ll tell you what day it is. Unfortunately it does lack an alarm, so don’t expect it to get your up in the morning, that right is still reserved to my cheapo casual watch.
Overall the TokyoFlash BPM Equalizer is a pretty decent show off piece, something for the weekend, but i’d imagine not more so than some of the other watches in TOKYOFLASH Japan’s lineup.
Enjoy some pics of the BPM below.
