By David Ponce
Rafizah Zain, who chose the Saishin Retsu Gunmetal+Green watch.
Tom Lorimor, who chose the Tokyoflash Negative IPB watch.
Jordan Dobbs Rosa, who chose the Tokyoflash Galaxy watch.
These were all chosen at random by Paul Cooper, marketing manager at Tokyoflash from all the entries he received. Thank you all for participating, and stay tuned for other giveaways in the new year.
By David Ponce
Those of you reading OhGizmo! for a while will know we’re big fans of Tokyoflash watches. The impossibly difficult to read timepieces are as much of a geek’s badge of honor than a stylish wristwatch, and they make the best conversation starters. So, in the spirit of the Holidays, and in partnership with Tokyoflash, we’re giving away three watches… of your choice!
This contest is a little different than our previous ones, so pay attention to the details below.
How to win?: Answer the following question: “Which Tokyoflash watch would be perfect for your next space expedition?” The answer can be found at Tokyoflash’s website. When you think you know the answer, email it to “ohgizmo [at] tokyoflash [dot] com”. In the email, you can also state which watch you’d like to get, should you be one of the winners. 3 winners will be selected at random.
Who can enter?: This is open to the world.
When does it end?: Emails will not be counted after midnight, December 24th, EST. The winner will be announced the following day, the 25th, Christmas.
Once again, Happy Holidays!
By Evan Ackerman
How do you make a watch that’s impossible to read even better? You make it out of dead animal bits, that’s how. Tokyoflash has a new series of wristwatches called Waku that incorporate bands and faces made with a strip of brown leather, “croc effect” black leather, or “natural” fur from some unspecified but probably cute (cute pre-watch, anyway) animal. A series of fourteen holes poked in the leather face let LEDs shine through which, if you concentrate, you can use to decipher what time it is. Eventually, anyway… “A simple animation sparkles before the time is presented in three easy-to-read steps.” But I guess you wouldn’t buy a Tokyoflash watch if you weren’t into those sorts of shenanigans, would you?
Each watch is about $130 with either white or multicolored LEDs, available now.
[ Toykoflash Waku ] VIA [ Neatorama ]
By Andrew Liszewski
Damn you Tokyo Flash! While your obfuscated watch designs look cool and stand out in the crowd of boring analog faces, they’ve also influenced other ‘clock’ makers to make it nearly impossible to easily tell the time. Like the Chronochrome for example.
At first glance it looks like another trippy mood light, which it is, but those colored bands are also used to display the current time. Each color represents a different number, so you simply read it from left to right like a regular digital clock display. But that of course requires you to memorize what each color actually means, which sounds a bit too much like homework for my liking. The Chronochrome can also be set to cycle through the colors in various patterns, or dimmed if you’d prefer to use it as a night light. And it’s available from their website for about $73.
[ Chronochrome ] VIA [ Shiny Shiny ]
By Andrew Liszewski
Tokyoflash has always targeted the retro and design-minded when it came to their unique line of watches. But this time around they’re casting their net a little wider to include those with a gambling addiction, particularly slot jockeys. (Or anyone under the power of ‘Gamblor’ as Homer called him.) The Tokyoflash Jackpot watch has a set of 4 dot-matrix LEDs used to present the time and date, but they also double as the spinning dials in a slot machine. One button is used to set your bet and the other is used to spin the digits, and I assume as you play, the watch keeps track of your running total. Thankfully though if you have an unlucky streak the only money you’ll actually lose is the $99.99 you paid for the watch in the first place.
By Andrew Liszewski
I like complex watches that are crammed full of functionality and features as much as the next gadget blogger, but I have to admit these simple Independent Retrograde Dualtime watches from Citizen have their own unique appeal. The watches come in either a polished stainless steel (the ITR21-5053) or IP gold and black (the ITR21-5051) finish and both feature an analog watch face with a digital typeface for the hours, as well as a unique L-shaped 24-hour clock at the bottom. They’re both available from Tokyoflash with the stainless steel model selling for about $242 while the IP gold and black is just a bit more at about $271.
[ Independent Retrograde Dualtime ITR21-5053 & ITR21-5051 ] VIA [ Uncrate ]
By Andrew Liszewski
If you’re already a fan of Tokyoflash’s unique collection of obscure and hard to read watches, then you’ll no doubt like these two new additions from Nekura. But if you’re the type who can’t understand why anyone would strap anything so ugly looking to their wrist, these aren’t going to change your mind. Both watches feature full color LEDs embedded beneath the LCD display which can be switched between blue, green, cyan, red, pink and yellow or even be set to cycle through the various colors. They also each have a custom engraved, self-adjusting stainless steel wristband finished with a ‘neatly designed’ clasp.
As for telling time, the display on the Scramble (left) has twelve blocks to indicate the hours in a clockwise direction, eleven blocks in the center to represent the movement of time in groups of 5 minutes, and 4 smaller blocks on top to indicate single minutes. The Progression (right) is actually a bit easier to decipher. It has 12 blocks arranged in a circle to indicate the hours in a clockwise direction, with minutes being displayed as actual digits in the middle of the circle.
Both the Nekura Progression and the Nekura Scramble are available on the Tokyoflash website right now, for $123.29 each.
[ Nekura Progression & Scramble Watches ] VIA [ GeekAlerts ]
By Evan Ackerman
Whether or not you think it’s ugly, you have to admit that this is one pretty damn cool watch. The UR-202 Hammerhead, designed by Urwerk, brings a bunch of innovative features to an accessory that hasn’t changed that much in about a century. Okay, okay, with a few exceptions. Anyway… The first thing you’ll notice is that the UR-202 communicates the time with three hands that rotate around the center of the watch. The number blocks on the ends of each hand rotate to provide the hour, and the minute is shown by that little metal pointer, which telescopes in and out as the hands rotate, allowing for a smaller overall case since the pointers not in use are able to retract themselves as they circle back around the watch. The two dials alongside the minute bar show the moon phase, and whether it’s day or night.
The watch is powered by kinetic energy; it winds itself as you move your wrist around. Kinetic watches work best (and last longest) when they’re wound with gentle, consistent motion, and heavy wrist activity (ahem) can put a lot of strain on the mechanism. To combat this, the UR-202 contains two little turbines, which are coupled to the winding rotor. The turbines act as shock absorbers, using air pressure to cushion the movements of the rotor. A switch on the back of the watch lets you adjust the air pressure passing through the turbines to compensate for “vigorous” and “extreme” activity. They’re using air inside the watch to do all this, so the whole thing remains waterproof.
No pricing info yet, but this doesn’t look like it would be anywhere near affordable, does it?
CGI promotional video with a techno soundtrack and no additional information, after the jump.… Continue Reading
By David Ponce
As of writing, there are about 36 hours left before the deadline on our T-Shirt design contest. We’ve received a good number of entries, a few of which are actually good, but I’m sure there’s more to come. Remember, up for grabs is an Oberon watch from Tokyoflash, a Neuros OSD and $200 of cold hard cash. Plus the pride of being the one who designed the OhGizmo T-Shirt.
So, that deadline again is 11:59PM, Eastern time.
Update: As someone pointed out in an email, maybe I should have included instructions on how to submit. Just send a small snapshot to ogcontests at gmail. If we select you, be prepared to have a PSD or vector file of your design.
