• About

LIVEdigitally

Dick Tracy's MP3 Player

Posted on January 23, 2005 by Jeremy Toeman

Well, it’s been about 50 years, and we still don’t have watchband communicators. Heck, my cell phone still loses signal in parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, supposedly the hotbed of technology for the world! However, thanks to New York-based Technotunes, Inc., we do have a watchband music player. The company offers a MP3-playing watch. I must admit, when I first heard the concept, it sounded a little on the janky side of the street. I may have judged too soon.

When we opened the packaging, we were nicely surprised to see the high quality of the materials, and the size of the watch itself. I think our expectations were a cheap overseas design with a standard cardboard box, no manual whatsoever, and pleather. Instead, the box looks good, and all the components are worthy of a $199 watch. Nice.

Now we naturally ignored the manual, and went straight to the task of trying to listen to our music. We pulled out the USB cable, and noticed right away the unique (or unique to us, I should say) adapter which appears to convert USB to… headphone! I plugged the cable into my laptop, and two things happened: (1) a light on the watch lit up, and (2) my PC automatically recognized a new USB drive. Both were fantastic news, let me tell you why.

The light on the watch lit up to inform me that the watch was charging over USB. I love this. To all product developers out there: if you make a portable gadget with USB support, it should be chargeable by USB! There is nothing I hate more than carrying extra power adapters on business trips, and if I’m going to have a watch that needs recharging, the LAST thing I want to have to do is remember my charger!

The fact that Windows was able to communicate with the watch as a USB drive meant that not only did I not need to install any special drivers or software, but I can simply drag and drop the MP3 files I want straight to the watch. Which is exactly what I did, and even though the device used the older USB 1.1 technology (which means a much slower transfer rate), filling 256MB with music was quick enough for me.
Well, it’s time to listen to some watch-music, so our good friend Ron has returned, sans lighter fluid (he likes fire). First Ron connected the supplied headphones, using the same plug on the watch that we connected the USB cable to before. This clever design is part of why we like the TechnOTunes product so much – most devices these days have so many inputs and outputs they’re like swiss cheese. This is how consumer electronics, gadgets or not, should be, clean and simple. To add some icing to this cake, the watch automatically recognized the fact that Ron had connected the headphones. He pushed the play button, and out came beautiful, compressed, music.Just look at the happy fella.

Next, Ron stands up to see what the “walking around, listening to my watch” experience is like. The retractable cable (again, a nice touch) wasn’t quite convenient to Ron’s tall frame, so we tried the old under-the-shirt technique. This definitely worked a lot better, but was not extremely convenient. But that’s why we brought out some other listening devices.

First up, a pair of Shure e2c headphones (our review is forthcoming) are connected to the TechnOTunes watch. As we hoped, sound quality was about what a typical MP3 player sounds like. In all fairness, my multi-hundred dollar Rio Karma sounds better with the Shure’s, but since the Karma is considered the top-of-the-line for audio quality, this isn’t a fair comparison. I think it’s fair to say you won’t be disappointed with the sound quality.

Next test: the Klipsch ProMedia Ultra 2.0 powered computer speakers (review also coming shortly). First off, these are about the best PC speakers you can buy right now, we love them, they are amazing (you can buy them here). We hooked these bad boys up to the TechnOTunes watch, and it was a party in the apartment.

Finally, and most difficult of all, we used a headphone to RCA adapter, and connected the watch to my home stereo. As a preface, it is very very hard to make any compressed music sound good coming out of a decent stereo system. I typically use the digital audio outputs from my laptop if I really want any PC-based music. I found the watch sounded a little bit hollow when hooked up in this environment, but that’s about what I expected as well. Not fair, not nice, but we wanted to be thorough.
As we’ve said before, too much convergence is not a good thing. My laundry machine does not need to play MP3s. My cell phone doesn’t either, unless it does a really good job of it, and stops dropping calls. As for a watch? I honestly don’t know. But I do know this, if there is an example of doing it right, the TechnOTunes MP3 Watch is it.

Packaging and product design is very nicely done. In fact, they have three different models, each aesthetically designed and offered in multiple colors. The unit we tried has no display or user interface, but Apple, the king of MP3 players, has recently declared this to be a good thing. Because time is random.

We expected a huge house-watch, and instead got something with a nice form factor. The clever use of a single port for USB connectivity as well as headphones is one of the smartest things we’ve seen anyone do with a digital device in a long time.

Personally, I would probably be happy enough with a watch-based USB drive! Even if I didn’t use the music features, not having to carry an extra USB memory stick around is a great idea. The TechnOTunes watch does a good job in the drive to convergence. Convergence should mean something very simple: by combining the devices I normally carry into a single device, my life gets better. Most other devices seem to make my life worse.

The watch is $199, available directly from their site.

 

  • TechnOTunes home page
  • The Gadgeteer’s review
  • Share this:

    • Email
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Reddit

    Related

    Posted in General, Product Reviews | 1 Comment
    « dmp3 CD ripping services review
    Review of Klipsch ProMedia Ultra 2.0 Powered Speakers »

    One thought on “Dick Tracy's MP3 Player”

    1. celine says:
      April 17, 2007 at 7:56 am

      I need help in using my MP3 watch! I want to download WMA files to the watch – can you help?

      Reply

    Leave a comment Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    About

    Jeremy Toeman is a seasoned Product leader with over 20 years experience in the convergence of digital media, mobile entertainment, social entertainment, smart TV and consumer technology. Prior ventures and projects include CNET, Viggle/Dijit/Nextguide, Sling Media, VUDU, Clicker, DivX, Rovi, Mediabolic, Boxee, and many other consumer technology companies. This blog represents his personal opinion and outlook on things.

    Recent Posts

    • Back on the wagon/horse?
    • 11 Tips for Startups Pitching Big Companies
    • CES 2016: A New Role
    • Everything I Learned (So Far) Working For a Huge Company
    • And I’m Back…

    Archives

    Pages

    • About

    Archives

    • January 2019
    • April 2016
    • January 2016
    • December 2015
    • June 2015
    • May 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • February 2015
    • January 2015
    • December 2014
    • November 2014
    • October 2014
    • September 2014
    • August 2014
    • June 2014
    • May 2014
    • April 2014
    • March 2014
    • January 2014
    • December 2013
    • September 2013
    • August 2013
    • July 2013
    • May 2013
    • February 2013
    • January 2013
    • December 2012
    • October 2012
    • September 2012
    • August 2012
    • May 2012
    • April 2012
    • March 2012
    • February 2012
    • January 2012
    • December 2011
    • November 2011
    • October 2011
    • September 2011
    • August 2011
    • June 2011
    • March 2011
    • February 2011
    • January 2011
    • December 2010
    • November 2010
    • October 2010
    • September 2010
    • August 2010
    • July 2010
    • June 2010
    • May 2010
    • April 2010
    • March 2010
    • February 2010
    • January 2010
    • December 2009
    • October 2009
    • September 2009
    • August 2009
    • July 2009
    • June 2009
    • May 2009
    • April 2009
    • March 2009
    • February 2009
    • January 2009
    • December 2008
    • November 2008
    • October 2008
    • September 2008
    • August 2008
    • July 2008
    • June 2008
    • May 2008
    • April 2008
    • March 2008
    • February 2008
    • January 2008
    • December 2007
    • November 2007
    • October 2007
    • September 2007
    • August 2007
    • July 2007
    • June 2007
    • May 2007
    • April 2007
    • March 2007
    • February 2007
    • January 2007
    • December 2006
    • November 2006
    • October 2006
    • September 2006
    • August 2006
    • July 2006
    • June 2006
    • May 2006
    • April 2006
    • March 2006
    • February 2006
    • January 2006
    • December 2005
    • November 2005
    • October 2005
    • September 2005
    • August 2005
    • July 2005
    • June 2005
    • May 2005
    • April 2005
    • March 2005
    • February 2005
    • January 2005
    • December 2004
    • November 2004
    • October 2004
    • September 2004

    Categories

    • Convergence (81)
    • Gadgets (144)
    • Gaming (19)
    • General (999)
    • Guides (35)
    • LD Approved (72)
    • Marketing (23)
    • Mobile Technology (111)
    • Networking (22)
    • No/Low-tech (64)
    • Product Announcements (85)
    • Product Reviews (109)
    • That's Janky (93)
    • Travel (29)
    • Video/Music/Media (115)
    • Web/Internet (103)

    WordPress

    • Log in
    • WordPress

    CyberChimps WordPress Themes

    © LIVEdigitally
    loading Cancel
    Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
    Email check failed, please try again
    Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.