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this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2025
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TechTakes
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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
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Casio and their target market are my kind of nerds. Taking a silly idea and an iconic design and pushing the engineering to its limits entirely for the bit is absolutely unhinged and I'm so happy they did it.
I have an analog Casio G-Shock that's the perfect beater watch - radio controlled, solar charging, I can discern the hands in the dark without glasses, and almost indestructible. It wasn't terribly expensive either.
I think Casio is threading the needle quite well with new technology. I'm sure they're exploring pure smart watches, but the core ideal is "no maintenance" - you don't have to change the battery or set the time[1]. This naturally leads to tough, energy-concious engineering, and as they make millions of watches, they have economies of scale.
The newer models have BT low energy so you can use the admittedly fiddly controls with an app. But you don't need to. It's just a complement.
[1] obviously this only applies to the more expensive models, and if your local time source supports DST
All 3 of the major Japanese manufacturers (Casio, Seiko, Citizen) have solar-powered radio sync models, but so far Casio is the best in my experience, and has the widest range of models. The Casios tend to have an auto-DST setting that relies on an internal calendar as well as the time signal. I have a chonky Seiko solar-atomic pilot's watch (with rotary slide-rule bezel!), but it doesn't have auto-DST so I have to bounce it back and forth between time zones. And it also doesn't seem to be as adept at receiving the WWVB signal as my Casios; it needs to be next to a window, while the Casios don't seem to care as long as there's not too much building mass to the east. I haven't had a chance to try a Citizen yet, but they now have solar-atomic moon-phase watches, which is tempting.
I have an analog radio-controlled solar powered watch from both Casio and Citizen. The Casio has stepper motors for the hands, which is so cool when you see the minute hand advance 1/6 tick each 20 seconds. When the second hand is used as an indicator, the minute hand doesn't move. It does on the Citizen.
That said, I'm keeping an eye out for a used or good deal on a GPS watch from Citizen. I appreciate the styling more.
Edit I used to be a watch nerd and I still follow the news for entertainment, but for personal use a solar powered, externally synced quartz watch is ideal.