TokyoFlash Tibida LED watch -- with binary mode! Three being given away gratis

TokyoFlash sent me one of their Tibida watches to play with in January. I've been buying TokyoFlash watches for years; they embody the perfect intersection of style, impracticality and blinky lights to tickle my nerdbuttons. The Tibida is no exception.

The face is a grid of circular white discs, each over a white LED. The watch has three modes: hours (hour is spelled out as a number on the bottom grid, minutes are approximated on the 12 lights on top), minutes (vice-versa) and binary (a fine update to the traditional binary LED watch).

I'm a clockwatcher, so I like having a little cognitive load associated with checking the time -- it slows me down and makes me recognize when I'm checking the clock (again).

TokyoFlash is giving away three Tibida watches to Boing Boing readers: just email the name of the holiday that's celebrated in Japan on March 14th, and email your answer to [e-mail]. Three winners will be selected at random on Thursday March 6th 2008. Link

• [Evil Jim]

  Man I love these watches. I really gotta get one someday.

• [runasand]

  I like the black one, and “.. blinky lights to tickle my nerdbuttons.” made me smile :)

• [bikok888]

  Cry
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  dnblm GML

  ggl “BC wtch” t s mgs

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• [bikok888]

  http://japundit.com/archives/2006/04/17/2316/

  Welcome to the Alphabet Watch, or what I call Alphabet Time.

  Most watches worldwide use the common Arabic numerals 1-12 to denote the passing hours, or they use Roman numerals instead. One watch model I found on the Internnet uses Chinese characters (one could also call them Japanese kanji, since they carry the same meanings of 1-12, although the pronounciation is different, of course) for the twelve numbers [written (-), (–), (—) and so on] and the watch was made by the Diesel fashion line. Another watch I have seen uses pictures of the twelve Chinese zodiac signs (dog, rat, monkey, etc.) for the watch face markers, while another one uses pictures of the 12 Western astrology signs (Pisces, Cancer, etc.). Cool.

  The other day (it was raining, a little down time between classes), I started tinkering with watch face concepts, after waking up from a short nap, and in my brief dreamtime during the nap, I envisioned a watch with 12 letters of the English alphabet, arranged in an A-L fashion. I made a prototype in my laboratory. A friend snapped a photo.

• [TheBlessedBlogger]

  My hubbies birthday is the 21st and this is just the sort of thing he’d love. Guess I better go enter.

• [Jeff]

  Hey clock watchers, try this: stop wearing a watch. I finally gave up the watch cold turkey because I wear a phone. I tried this experiment after wearing a watch since I was born (it seems), and the weird thing is I didn’t miss it. At all. I thought I would at least look down at my wrist out of habit. Go figure.

• [techdeviant]

  I love these watches, but my wrist is super small, and I am disappointed that they don’t fit very well. :(

  The watch face is so large that it sits on my arm in a funny way, and people often tease me about wearing one of those prison tracking bracelets, heh.

• [Manooshi]

  Yellow.

• [RHB]

  very cool watches!

• [boyhowdy]

  I’m with Jeff — going watchless is the way to go. Especially for innate clockwatchers, like us.

  I work in a school, so there’s clocks everywhere; I’m the technology teacher, so there’s time in the lower right hand corner of most of my students’ field of vision at all times. When I’m in an environment that’s time-sensitive, in other words, I find that time is there already.

  When I’m on my summer music festival rounds, I can use performances to roughly track time…when I’m in the woods, I can genuinely be there, and let sequence and being trump my old need for time. If I have somewhere to be, I set my cellphone.

  I’ve been watchless now for over 8 years. The watch tan disappeared a long time ago. I never miss it.

• [hellhead]

  Those watches are sweet.

  On going watchless, I know that I could and survive. I have my cell phone and the clcok on my PC. But there is something about my watch I don’t want to give up. I love the weight ofit on my hand. I enjoy the movements of the hands.

  No, I won’t be giving up my watch for a phone.

  I say give up your phone, get a watch.

• [Scuba SM]

  I’m going to back up HellHead on this one. :p

  I almost feel like my watch is a part of me when I wear it. As for wearing one in the woods, you can use an analog watch as a compass rather easily, a fact that I enjoy waaaaay more than I should.

• [Dean]

  I’m too skinny for most watches to fit comfortably on my arm. I usually have to poke extra holes in them and strap them on extra tightly. For this reason I don’t wear watches as often as I’d like.

• [dculberson]

  Yeah, I don’t think a watch like this is worn in order to be a “clockwatcher.” It’s worn because it’s neat looking and has blinky lights.

  Jeff, this is the sort of thing where if you don’t get it now, you probably never will. It’s fashion.