Waveceptor Atomic Watch, what more functionality do you need?

In previous posts I discussed the underpinning atomic digital watch technology.
The Casio Waveceptor watch product line incorporate this fascinating technology. If you have been following my blog, you will undoubtedly get my view on atomic digital watches (freaking awesome!).

Typical Waveceptor watches as do other in Casio's product range receive a synchronisation signal from a number of atomic clocks located across the planet. There a two main transmitter sites in Europe, one in the UK (Rugby, Warickshare) and another in Germany (Mainflingen). There are also other atomic clocks located in the US and Japan. So as you go about your daily business, under the hood, your Waveceptor is receiving and updating itself automatically.

Casio have produced stunning looking, yet completely practical digital watches over the last few years. I particularly have my eye on the Edifice Gold 700 Series Dual Time Watch. Its roughly retailing on Amazon for about $290, which I suppose is quite reasonable. This watch is packed with functionality and is supposedly perfected for the active lifestyle. Humour sly, everyone thinks they have an active lifestyle! It was added to my wish list weeks ago, however things have been pretty tight the last while and I don't want guilt myself into buying one. Well, not just yet!

They say the Casio Edifice gold line is suppose to promote a sense of speed and intelligence. I must send Casio an email on my lunch someday asking them how the hell their digital watch promotes such. Maybe one of my followers has already done so. I am usually not the one to be fooled my such marketing spiel, but I really have to admit, it is an impressive piece of kit.

I have also seen this atomic digital watch on a number of websites that sell scuba diving equipment. So if those guys are recommending this Waveceptor watch, it is safe to presume that the watch water resistance is adequate.

Casio, a Brief History of the Electronic Calculator

Casio has become a household name for pioneering some of the most useful products such as the all-electronic calculator and the digital watch. Both of which we take for granted in the 21st century.

A young and talented lathe operator apprentice by name of Kashio Tadao began his studies at Waseda Koshu Gakka (now Waseda University) in Tokyo, Japan. Gaining experience working in a factory (whilst studying) making general everyday items such as pots, pans and bicycle generator lamps, Tadao made the decision to establish his own business (Kashio Seisakujo) subcontracting making microscope parts and gears in 1946.

Tadoa had a younger brother Toshio, who was creatively gifted with extensive electrical knowledge. Tadoa from an early age admired the pioneering efforts of Edison, who invented the light bulb, and always told his family that he wanted to become an inventor.

At this time, Tadio was a naturally gifted technician at the Ministry of Communications. He decided to leave his job at the Ministry of Communications to pursue his dream, the more ability testing and challenging job of an inventor. Toshio joined Tadoa at Kashio Seisakujo and began utilizing his natural inventiveness, trying several innovative ideas. One of which was the ring mounted cigarette holder (Yubiwa Pipe), which provided a means of smoking a cigarette down to the nub whilst doing work.

We must remember that commodities in postwar Japan where in short supply. This meant that Toshio had a potential market for his new innovation. Tadoa manufactured the holder on a lathe and the father of the two brothers marketed the product. Orders began coming in for the pipe and the product was a success.

The capital created by the Yubiwa Pipe was to be invested in a new innovation. Whilst at a business show held in Ginza, Tokyo, following the success of the Yubiwa Pipe, the brothers spotted a potential gap in the market for an all-electronic calculator. At that time, most calculators were mechanically employed by gears and required manual operation with the use of a hand crank.

Moreover, some advanced electronic calculators overseas still functioned with the use of an electric motor which made noise as the gears rotated at speed. Toshio's idea was to engineer an all-electronic circuit based calculator using a solenoid which would resolve a lot of the problems that came with the current mechanically based inventions. He wanted to make his own calculator.

Whilst working at Kashio Seisakujo on the sub contract work, Tadoa and Toshio heavily invested there evening time developing the calculator. Basic prototypes were shown to people and the feedback received helped resolve many problems. This was then iterated back into the prototypes. After a number of refined prototypes, Tadoa and Toshio finally developed Japans first electric calculator in 1954.

However, there were complications when the brothers approached the Bunshodo Corporation, a company specializing in office supplies. The Bunshodo Corporation criticized the invention, outlining the lack of multiplication functionality. The current calculator could not do continuos multiplication where the result of an initial multiplication can be multiplied by another value. The brothers went back to design, bringing there two other brothers Kazuo and Yukio to the development team. Yukio who was a mechanical engineering student aided the team by designing the plans and Tadoa and Kazuo did the production.

In 1956, six years of design, development and ironing out problems and bugs, the team were close to adding continuos multiplication to their innovation. However, Toshio decided to make a big design change that would make the calculator completely electronic. The current solenoid solution they had based their original idea on was to be swapped out with electronic relays. This had a number of benefits, one of which made mass production of the product more feasible. Indeed, the disadvantage of relays was that they were easily susceptible to fine particles and dust. Computer systems which use relays, at that time usually took up an entire room and had their own air filtering system of some sort. This presented a whole new problem domain to the project.

To overcome this, the team dramatically reduced the number of relays required and developed a new type of relay which was less susceptible to fine particles and dust. A unique interface was also developed which had 10 number keys, similar to modern calculators we have today. Typical calculators of that time had three screens, two for the input arguments and the final one for the result of the calculation. This was a revolution in itself. Furthermore, as the user entered the inputs, the screen removed the previous input numbers and replaced them with the new inputs entered by the user. The all-electronic calculator was born.

If this interested you, Atomic Digital Watch is right down your alley.

Solar Digital Atomic Watch

In my previous blog posts, I provided interesting information on Atomic Digital Watches and the Casio G Shock Brand. I would know like to take a moment out and provide a brief look at solar digital atomic watches and have a look at how they work.

So what is a solar digital atomic watch, I hear you ask? When we say a watch is solar powered it is implied that the digital watch absorbs light radiation from the sun and stores it. With the addition of atomic, we typically assume accurate time synchronization with a number of atomic time transmitters located around the world. If this is new to you, go back and read my post on atomic digital watches.

Solar powered watches a not new. They have been around years. They were typically inexpensive and for some reason the technology found its way into many kids toys i.e. GI Joe, Transformers watches (before going main stream with well known/ branded manufacturers). Many main stream watch manufacturers have implemented the technology into their products, some of which are still in the process of adding the solar technology. Citizen's watches use lithium-ion rechargeable cell to store sufficient energy to power the watch for several months/years of darkness

You will be quite astounded at the amount of energy that can be absorbed with the likes of a simple solar panel over time. Light rays are continuous and cumulative. Overtime, the energy will undoubtedly build up. I was reading an article last week which detailed the benefits of solar power to the average household. Adding a solar plate to the roof of your house would actually provide you with enough energy to heat water for relatively hot showers.

In my opinion, in the future, we will see large scale deployment of solar technology. Solar technology in watches has become very popular.

Casio atomic digital watch, a look at Casio G Shock Watch

Casio have been around for quite a while now. From its inception in April 1946 by Tadao Kashio the company has continuously produced innovative products. I had a quick read through the history section on the Casio website (over a coffee) (Casio History) and came across a picture of 14-A, the first all-electric compact calculator conceived in 1957. Have a look at the size of the thing! Who in their right mind called that compact, its a bloody desk! Launching their first watch in 1974, Casio entered the wristwatch market at a time when the watch industry had just discovered digital technology. This alone screams to me that from the beginning Casio are no late or early adopters, they are innovators.

It just goes to show how quickly we have advanced over the last half century. We now have atomic digital watches with built in calculators, barometers and solar technology that sit nice and snug on our wrist. I was cleaning my room last Monday and I just happened to find my old Casio Illuminator. It was put into one of my junk drawers. I think everyone has a junk drawer where all the stuff you don't want to throw in the trash ends up. Ironically, in my opinion, they are like a look back in time themselves providing a reminisce of past bed room cleans. To my surprise, the battery still had live and it hadn't lost to much time.

So whats the Casio product range? I think Casio have hit the nail on the head with their range of digital watches. They have a watch for every category of person. Whether you are the sporty type that spends your weekend climbing mountains in Himalayas or just a casual general Joe that sips beer watching reruns of Family Guy (like me). Furthermore, every category of watch comes packed with functionality that you may or may not use. The development of the Casio G Shock watch depicts a very interesting story, which I will briefly discuss.

Casio G-Shock watches are the pinnacle of tough watches. We don't realize how much time and effort Casio have put into developing this type of watch. Not to mention the time spent on product testing. Well not that people need to care anyway. They are truly a work of genius. The designers at Casio wanted to engineer a digital watch that would never break. Guided by a "Triple 10" development concept, the design teams sought a watch with 10-meter free-fall endurance, 10-bar water resistance and a 10-year battery life. Empirically watches are thought to be breakable items for some reason. Maybe due to early watch development that focused mainly on function, that is keeping the time, and watch endurance wasn't really a priority within the design specification. This meant that earlier watches were fragile pieces of jewellery that when dropped or put beneath water would simply break.

During the development life cycle of the Casio G Shock technology, there were 200 experimental prototypes built for endurance testing. I think that's amazing! That is rather large number of prototypes. To me this seems that the guys at Casio did not have a set in stone picture of what the final G Shock product watch would look and function like. Although, innovation is a challenging business which typically involves a great deal of trial and error. Furthermore, the structural re-engineering of parts took approximately two years. The fruits of this epic achievement brought a revolution in time piece design.

By always employing the latest technology, and continuing to re-design the conventional function of the watch, the G Shock brand has become Casio's flagship watch product.

Atomic Digital Watch, whats the hype about?

An atomic digital watch is a wristwatch that is radio controlled to keep the most accurate time on the planet. This means the owner of the wristwatch never actually has to set the time on the watch, it is done automatically. How cool is that!

So how is this possible, I hear you ask? Well without getting into gory technical detail, an atomic digital watch receives a low-frequency radio signal from a number of transmitters. Of course this depends on your location around world. If you live in the US, your digital watch can achieve perfect synchronization with the US (WWVB Atomic Clock) located near Ft. Collins in Colorado (WWVB). This station was set up and is operated by NIST - the National Institute of Standards and Technology. High five to those guys. This has a transmission radius of about 3000km, making it available across most of the US (North America). With exception, as far a I know, to Alaska and Hawaii. Don't quote me on that.

Naively assumed, it may also be interesting to note that this transmitter does not only function to update the digital watch on your wrist. It also provides the ability to synchronize the time on computers and other electrical equipment. In the background, again without boring you with the technical detail, another form of timepiece known as a Cesium clock is used. Okay, here is another one to remember when bragging to your friends in the bar. These Cesium Atomic Clocks have an accuracy of one second in 60 million years! That is to say in layman's terms, that the clock may lose/ gain a second every 60 million years (Cesium Fountain Atomic Clock). Scientists are currently working on technology to increase this accuracy to 1 second in 10 billion years (www.ntp-time-server.com). When researching this, I had to ask myself the question, does it really matter? Like, it is very unlikely that the human race will be around in a million years. However, I do concede that some technical equipment may require this accuracy. Humorously, I can picture a load of geeks standing around looking at a giant Casio thinking, How the hell can I make this more accurate!

There is another atomic clock that provides synchronization for atomic digital watches in Europe. Accurate time is available across Europe using the MSF and DCF Atomic Clock time signals transmitted from Rugby and Frankfurt, they provide the ability to synchronise the time on computers and other electrical equipment in Europe.

The European and US atomic clocks both transmit different frequencies. So, if you purchased your digital atomic watch in the US and you happen to travel outside of the Colorado transmitter radius, the wrist watch will function like a normal quartz watch. Well I suppose this would be expected. I would be straight back to the store with mine if it didn't!

This all means that your timepiece will never run slow or fast. So there is no excuse being late for work the next morning. But not only this, your watch is military synchronized. If your a tech head in anyway, you can brag about the accuracy of your digital watch at the bar, however cool or uncool that may sound! So one of the general hype factors about these category of digital watch is that they are ridiculously accurate.

Most Atomic watches have a feature that allows you to see when it was last synchronized. You can also manually tell it to search for the radio signal; otherwise the watch is programmed to look for the signal in the middle of the night when radio interference is at a minimum. How nice is that?

On conclusion, I hope that this piece was informative to you as the research was for me.