Timex Beepwear Pro Watch
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Features
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The
Board
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- Diameter: 45mm
(1.77 in.)
- Thickness: 14.8mm
(.58 in.)
- Weight (including
strap and battery): metal band: 2.6oz / 74 grams leather strap: 1.5oz
/ 43 grams
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If you find yourself on the go all the time you
may have a hard time organizing all the necessary equipment to make sense
of your life. While cellular phones are everywhere, what about those who don't
always want to have to carry one or for whom it would be an inconvenience?
Timex may have a great solution for you: the Beepwear Pro watch. Here's a
quote right from their site: "It's a pager....it's a watch....it's an organizer....right
on your wrist! " Need I say more? While the watches come in a non-pro model
and several styles the unit sent to me by Timex was the Beepwear Pro #806-80011
which retails for $179 USD directly from Timex.
The Technology Behind the Beepwear Pro
The watch is equipped with an alphanumeric pager
that can receive pages in most U.S. cities. Paging service is provided by
Skytel, and at $10 a month that's a pretty reasonable rate for the convenience
afforded by wearing you pager on your wrist. If you can receive Skytel's service
in your area with a conventional pager you should have no problems with the
Beepwear Pro. An interesting feature that arises out of this service arrangement
is that the watch is automatically updated by Skytel to always have the correct
time. Imagine my surprise when I first opened up the box the watch came in
and it not only had the correct time…but also said I was in the den! How could
it possibly know I was sitting in my den? Actually, the watch said "Den" -
meaning that I was in the Denver time zone. After I got over the creepy Big
Brother feelings I was quite impressed with the fact that the watch never
needed to have its time set. Another plus is that the Skytel system is already
set to the atomic clock…and therefore you always will be too. Setting up the
watch to receive pages is accomplished using an included guide. The steps
are easily laid out and it only takes a couple of minutes to get your watch
working.
An
interesting feature of the Skytel service is that you receive news and sports
updates a couple of times a day. Want to know what the weather is like in
Atlanta tomorrow? In the evening you will receive your weather update of most
major U.S. cities. Some of my friends are sports fanatics and I became the
life of the party since I could dictate the days final scores to them merely
by reading my watch. When there were important breaking news stories the watch
also had those. As sad as the news of the Concorde crash in Paris was, it
was made more interesting to me since I was notified by my watch just after
it happened. I actually sat and waited for CNN to start reporting the news
of the crash. I doubt that Skytel will beat the major news sources regularly,
but breaking news is definitely a nice feature to have in a watch.
As I write this there is a special offer for
new signups that will allow you to have local service for $4.99 and national
coverage for $19.99. Those are only for numeric coverage. Alphanumeric is
listed as $9.99 for local coverage and there national coverage available although
I don't have exact pricing. It is my understanding that you can switch from
metro to nationwide coverage with the difference taken from your account.
So although the watch is fully alphanumeric capable you may opt for the cheaper
numeric rate, especially if you need national coverage. If you buy your watch
from the Timex Beepwear Pro website you'll get your first three months of
alphanumeric paging for free. Now that is a word I wish we heard more in the
computer/hi-tech industry!
