I Hear We're All Supposed To Wear Watches Now

Have you heard? Watches are suddenly cool again. After years of encouraging us to tell time using phones, the major smartphone companies are now insisting that we need watches. Fancy electronic watches that talk and flash and vibrate and know when we go to the bathroom or decide to spontaneously climb a flight of stairs. They can even call 911 when we collapse unceremoniously on the 18th floor landing. 

While some highly impressionable people will opt for mysteriously complex Dick Tracy wrist computers that require you to carry a matching $1000 telephone in your pocket, millions of others might respond to the not-so-gentle urgings of smartphone companies by purchasing a somewhat more traditional timepiece; a clever Casio, or maybe even an inexpensive Seiko 5 mechanical watch. 

If you're a tad more adventurous, you might consider the Click DIP-Switch timepiece. It's even more distinctive than most smartphone accessories, but not nearly as expensive (or capable). This clunky rectangular timepiece is capable of displaying 12 or 24 hour time, can tell you what day it is, has an almost incomprehensible "bar graph" mode, along with prehistoric backlighting for reading the time in dark caves or while buried 6 feet under. It doesn't have bluetooth, wi-fi, haptic feedback, a touch screen, heart rate monitor or even a fancy "digital crown." Heck, it doesn't even have an analog crown. 

Available from Watchismo for just over $100, in gloriously hideous silver and circuit board green/blue/red.