Richard's blog

Tag: casio

  • Step Tracking with the Casio ABL-100WE

    Step Tracking with the Casio ABL-100WE

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    The Casio ABL-100WE range of watches look similar to the A-168 range of Casio watches with one key difference. It counts steps like several G-shock watches do but rather than have a massive case that can survive a ten meter drop onto concrete it looks "elegant", like the a-158, a-168 and other casio models.

    This is a water resistant watch, so you shouldn’t go scuba diving with it. It has a battery life of about two years, depending on how you use it. This means that in theory you can place it on your wrist and leave it there for two years, before swapping the battery for a new one.

    It has a niche use case. It’s for those that want to count their steps, but aren’t bothered about heart rate and other factors. It gives you that data on your phone via "my page" in the Life Log section. It estimates calories burned and gives you a summary of the step count per day. You can see it per hour if you want to and per week or month. If you want to you can go into the specific watch, go to life log, "Location History Records" and track your location for an hour, up to 24 hours at a time. It will then use the phone’s GPS location to create a track of where you have been during this time. You cannot tell it whether you are running, cycling, walking or other.

    More Formal

    Unlike the GBD-800, GBA-900 and GBD-200 this watch does not stick out. It is more suited to formal settings. It has more functionality than the A-158, 168 and the F-91W watches so if you’re used to watches that serve a purpose you might prefer the ABL-100WE range.

    One key limitation of the Casio Watch App is that it does not share its data with any other app. Some might see this as a bonus, others as a limitation. If you’re looking to wear this watch for Android OS or iOS step counts then this is not the device for you.

    And Finally

    Suunto, Garmin, Apple, Fitbit and others encourage you to push, and push, and push. With the Casio ABL-100WE models you walk during the day and it keeps track. At the end of the day you see that you took a certain amount of steps and that’s it. There is barely any gamification or pushing you to strive, or demotivating you with negative feedback.

    In conclusion, you can get a casio step tracking watch that isn’t a g-shock watch, if you prefer a more elegant/formal appearance for your watch.

  • Thoughts on the Casio A168 Watch Type

    Thoughts on the Casio A168 Watch Type

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Recently I decided to re-explore Casio watches like the ones I had as a child. In the process I found that they’re minimalist, but great. They tell you the time. They beep every hour if you want them to. They wake you up if you set the alarm at the desired time. Some of them last for ten years, or more.

    I experimented with several models including the F 91 and the [A168 series](https://www.casio.com/intl/watches/casio/product.A168WA-1/). The F-91 might be 19-28 CHF in cost but the precision is not that great. It needs to be resynched every few days. In contrast if you set the A168 series of watches you set it once and it’s good for days, weeks or even months.

    You may ask “But what do I care, when other watches can resync automatically using either bluetooth or the radio signal”? The short answer is “Because they’re cheap and functional”. The other answer is that these don’t measure heart rate, step count, sleep or other things. This gives us the freedom to wear a watch because we like the look.

    For weeks, months or seasons I was worrying about whether to wear the Apple, Garmin, Suunto, Fitbit or Xiaomi brand watches. With “dumb” watches, with “feature” watches, if I make a joke of it, I can wear any of them, depending on mood and context. You can wear one with a metal strap when you’re in daily life, or a g-shock watch when climbing or hiking.

    For years I felt that I had to track everything that I do but in the last year or two that desire has faded. I think that because Suunto, Apple, Garmin, Fitbit, Xiaomi and other brands all want 24/7 tracking but none of them share it with each other, the lure of wearing fitness trackers has declined. It went from being fun, to being absurd.

    Why are you wearing two watches? Who do you need the data from both? That’s the question I was asked by at least two people. When I was self-isolating it didn’t matter. Now it does.

    ## And Finally

    The F-91 is cheap but it loses sync quite fast. What struck me as really appealing about the A168WA-1YES is that the display is clear and that it feels comfortable to wear. It does little more than tell you the time, beep once an hour if you want it to, work as an alarm clock if you want, provide good lighting to see the time in the dark and keep good time for a reasonable amount of time before it needs to be synced again.

    You can wear and forget about it. That’s what a watch should be.

  • Wearing a Casio 168 For the First Time in Decades

    Wearing a Casio 168 For the First Time in Decades

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    For years I have worn increasingly complex watches. I went from a Suunto Vector to a Suunto D9 via a Suunto Ambit 2-3 Spartan and more. Eventually I have been wearing a Garmin Instinct Solar and an Apple Watch SE.

    For most of this time I was happy to wear increasingly advanced watches. I would change them every three to four years, or wait even longer. I was doing interesting sports so I settled on a single watch at a time.

    ## Changing Focus

    During the pandemic, with solitude, I got into the habit of wearing two watches at once. I was asked why and my answer was that they fed different databases. I was asked “Why do you need to feed several databases. I have asked the same question several times on this blog.

    ## Data Silos

    It has annoyed me for three years that I need to wear a Garmin for Garmin features, a Suunto or Apple Watch for Suunto and Apple features, and an Apple watch for Apple features. I find this especially absurd since all of this data is sent to our Android or iOS phones anyway, so it would be easy to setup two way synching.

    That is where the [Casio 168](https://www.galaxus.ch/en/s8/product/casio-vintage-a168wa-1yes-digital-watch-35-mm-wristwatches-245816?ip=casio+168) comes in. It gives the data and time, has a timer, an alarm clock and the hourly signal, and that’s it. It’s a very simple watch like I wore as a child in the 80s or 90s, impatiently waiting for 15:05 so that I could leave school and go home.

    ## Not Flitting Between Watches

    The reason I mention this watch specifically is that I have worn it for several days without swapping it for another. I have worn it for several days and I’m happy with it. I considered wearing another casio with a step counter but decided not to. I’m tired. I am tired that when we wear watches we are encouraged to wear them all the time, rather than because we like their shape and form factor. I am tired of having watches that oblige you to wear them, to have a full set of data.

    Having walks, hikes, bike rides and climbs is interesting, but to be tracked twenty four hours a day by mainly American companies gets tiring. For years I was happy to be tracked. I find it absurd that fitness trackers do not speak with each other so that you need to wear four trackers to have full data.

    ## Not Missed

    I am also interested to see that I don’t mind tracking my walks with Garmin or Suunto. I don’t mind not using the Suunto watch because it has less features than the Apple Watch SE when running. I don’t mind not wearing the Garmin because if I wear the Apple Watch and the SE I need to delete the data from one watch or the other in Strava.

    I still send my data to Strava but I no longer use the site. It was interesting, until it was sold to investors. When we, the clients, become the product, Strava becomes a failure. Imagine a company that decides that its paying customers b ecome the product and you see why I no longer attach any value to Strava.

    ## And Finally

    Now when I am asked “Why do you wear two watches” I will be able to answer, “Because I like the look of this one, and this one is used as a fitness tracker.” It makes more sense than wearing two fitness trackers, unless I’m a blogger reviewing two or more units at once.

    With Garmin I have the added advantage that I can track workouts with the Etreck Se which can hang from a belt clip, a bag strap or in a pocket.

  • Adult Thoughts on the Casio F-91W

    Adult Thoughts on the Casio F-91W

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    I was born in the 80s and as I grew up so did the computer industry, the digital industry and more. As watches came out with new features I would desire the latest watch with the latest features, and when a newer watch would come out I would desire the newer, innovative watch. Eventually I lost interest in watches for a decade or two. I only recovered my interest in watches when I started scuba diving. That’s when diving watches became of interest.

    As a child I owned simple Casio watches, at least one or two casio Databank watches, watches that had TV remotes that I used to prank teachers with and more. I also had watches with barometric pressure, weather, temperature and more. Usually I had to lose a watch before it was justified to get a new one so my list of owned watches was not short, but the list of actual watches was short.

    The Suunto Vector re-awakened my desire for watches. This was a watch that I could use when climbing Via Ferrata. I then moved onto the Suunto D9 Diving watch before getting a Mares Icon HD. To be clear, the Mares icon HD is a dive computer that you wear for diving, not ordinary life. It’s huge. I also owned a Suunto Ambit 2, and then an Ambit 3, A Suunto Spartan Wrist HR Baro, and then an Apple Watch series 3, which broke when indoor climbing, an Apple Watch Series 4 that eventually became useless due to the battery being so old. That watch lasted for five years on my wrist before I swapped it for an Apple Watch SE 2.

    If you’re wandering why the SE 2 rather than the more expensive watches the answer is simple. I don’t like Apple watches. I think they’re designed to get you addicted to the competitions and streaks, rather than to actual fitness training.

    I also have a Garmin Instinc Solar which I think is a good watch, although because of various issues I was tempted to look elsewhere. The issue is that either the app or the watch would crash. More than once I lost workouts with this watch so I looked elsewhere but only because I began running. That’s where the 45s comes in. It’s the cheapest watch I could find for running. The GPS is mediocre on this watch and I think it’s sub-optimal.

    Recently my interest in Casio watches was revived so I bought more than one. They’re cheap so you can afford to be curious, and at least one or two children have received watches that I chose not to keep. Even a step brother bought a Casio from me, so I replaced that one with the one I actually wanted to get when I saw that the price had gone down.

    I really like the concept of Casio Watches. I like the idea that some have a battery life from 5-10 years, and that they can count steps, and use the phone to track walking routes and more. I also like that they send the data to Japan rather than the US for a change. Too many products are US based so it’s good to find European or Japanese brands.

    That’s where the Casio F-91W watch comes in. At the time of writing this blog post it costs 19 CHF on Galaxus. In the age where digital watches all do the same thing, and feed the same apps, and expect us to get addicted to the quantified self the F-91w is refreshing. It gives you the time of day, an alarm clock, hourly signal, and the ability to change the time, date, month and that’s about it. It’s an absurdely simple digital watch but it does have one feature that really stands out. The display that gives you the time of day is really clear. Within milliseconds you know the date, day of the week and time.

    ## And Finally

    If you spend 20 CHF on a watch and it lasts on your writst for 7 years then the investment was a logical one. An Apple watch lasts 16hrs before needing a charge. At a time when innovation on watches is slowing down we can afford to change course, and return to simpler times.

  • Wearing A Casio GBA-900

    Wearing A Casio GBA-900

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    For years I have worn Suunto, Garmin and Apple watches. During this time I have tracked hikes, climbing, scuba diving, snorkeling, swimming and more. Recently I felt the desire to wear a Casio watch as I used to do when I was a child.

    Over the years these “watches” have given you live information about barometric pressure, altitude, depth, and other information but with time they gave you the chance to track what you were doing by GPS. After this they started to track your steps and your heart rate 24 hours a day, except for when you’re charging. It went from being a watch that you used for the time, and to track acvities. Now they track everything.

    The only time they do not track you is when you’re charging the watches.

    The advantage of a Casio watch is that you can wear it for years in a row, without ever taking it off, except for when you’re flying, before you need to replace the battery. You get to the end of the day and you don’t need to charge it.

    Of course, you don’t need to wear it for three to five years in a row. You can take it off when you’re showering, sleeping or other. You can even take it off for a tan, if that’s what you desire.

    What sets the GBA-900 apart from other Casio and smart watches is that it gives an analogue display, rather than a digital one. it gives the time with a digital display but it’s small and hidden behind the hour and minute hands at certain times of day.

    The advantage of an analogue watch is that you know the time as fast as a digital watch, once you take some time to re-habituate yourself to reading a less precise time display. I say less precise because you need to re-learn the art of reading analogue time.

    ## Tracking

    It automatically counts the number of steps you take in a day and estimates the amount of energy you burned in a day. If you want to track a walk then it’s simple. You start the timer when you start your walk, and stop the time at the end of your walk. It then uses the time information and your phone’s location data to extrapolate the track of your walk. You can then get it to sync with the phone and keep track of your walks over time.

    ## No False Inputs

    I found that with the Xiaomi activity Band 7 and the active band eight I would get false manipulations with the touch screen. With the casio that’s impossible, due to it using button presses.

    ## Playing

    If you’re playful then, at night, you can charge the fluorescent paint on the hour and minute hands with a flashlight or your phone’s light. At night you can then check the time, by looking at the glowing hands, rather than pressing a button.

    ## Beep Beep

    Do you remember that 80s or 90s sound. The Beep beep that we would hear once an hour, every hour? This watch allows you to live with that signal notification. It could be useful, if you want to keep track of time, without constantly staring at your watch. “Beep beep”, time for lunch soon.

    ## And Finally

    The Apple watch nags you about washing your hands for long enough. Garmin and Apple nag you about being too static for too long. By using a Casio watch you escape the gamification that makes Apple and Garmin so annoying to use. It was fun, until you realise how unforgiving they are, streak wise, and until you realise that they’re designed to get you adddicted, rather than interested in your own progress. I like wearing a simpler device, especially while I walk more than I cycle, hike, or other.

  • Of Casio, Suunto, Garmin and Apple

    Of Casio, Suunto, Garmin and Apple

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    These four brands create watches. Casio creates rugged watches with batteries that last for a decade or more, and pair with mobile phones to track walks and more. Suunto and Garmin have fitness/sports trackers that measure activities, whether sailing, climbing, running, walking, cycling, scuba diving or more. Apple in contrast creates fragile, mediocre watches that cost as much as mid to high range watches and yet their battery lasts for one day, if you’re lucky. I even heard that Apple watches with 4g last half a day between charges. Charging a watch twice a day is unacceptable.

    The article that triggered this reaction says that the Apple Watch encourages people to spend more on smartwatches, as if this was a good thing. It isn’t. These are throwaway products. The type of people that would buy an apple watch plan to change it every two years.

    If you pay 800 USD for a watch I’d expect to keep it for a decade or more, not two watch generations, two years.

    I might have bought two or three devices recently and the one that I am happiest with is one of the cheapest options. The Garmin Forerunner 45s. For 100 CHF you have a GPS sports tracker that tracks your runs, walks, bike rides and more. The battery does last for three or four workouts before needing a charge but it gives you all the functionality you need, for a fraction of the price, and it’s small.

    I don’t want the Apple Watch to be dominant, because I see it as a crap product, and I feel that such a product pulls down the rest of the market. I slid away from Suunto because of WearOS and I gravitate towards Garmin because it still has proprietary software for the moment. I don’t want a smart watch. I want a sports tracker. I also want it to be affordable.

  • The GBD-800 Continued

    The GBD-800 Continued

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    The GBD-800 Continued is a step counting Casio with two serious flaws. The first of these flaws is that although the GPS from the phone can be used to map walks and other activities it has to be activated at the start of a walk and deactivated at the end of the walk. If you do not deactivate the GPS it will track the drive to and from the start of the walk, to the end of the walk. This isn’t ideal unless you’re on a multi-day hike.

    The second flaw, and this is a real shame is that the watch does count every single step you take, and possibly more, but it doesn’t offload the data anywhere. It doesn’t connect to Google Fit, Apple Health or any other app. It will track your daily steps per day, and if you just want them on your watch and your phone then the watch is fine.

    What frustrates me, after playing with the GBD-200 though, is that whereas the data from the GBD-200 is exported to G-Shock Move the G-shock connected app only allows you to export step information as an image with a map and a step count. There is no way to automatically get the data out of the app for use with other apps. With the GBD-200 and Move app you can transfer to Apple Health, Strava and Google fit.

    I like the look and feel of this watch and I like to wear it but I still want my steps to be counted. For years now I have logged millions of steps so I don’t want to lose that data moving from device to device, unless that device sends the step number to another app. Out of pandemic I would not have any interest in step counts because I would be doing different activities with people, so I’d care about the activities, and people. As we’re in a pandemic I need different distractions. This is mine.

    And Finally

    When I bought the Garmin Instinct it cost 298 CHF. When I bought the Spartan it cost 473 CHF. The most expensive was the Apple watch Series 4 for 479 CHF. If Suunto had stuck to their own OS I would never have been curious about other brands and I would not flit from device to device once every two or three years. I would still be with a single brand. If we find a good cheap Casio alternative then we have a watch that lasts for years on a single battery, at a third to a quarter of the price. I see that as a win.

  • Casio GBD-800-1B – First Impressions

    Casio GBD-800-1B – First Impressions

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    For 92 CHF you can buy the Casio GBD-800-1B from conrad via Galaxus and it will track you steps 24hrs a day and map your walks without you pressing a single button. This means that you can track your life, without thinking about it.

    The problem with watches from the last five or so years is that they track steps, heart rate and more 24hrs a day, but need to be charged, and want to know what you’re doing. They invade your life. “Are you walking now”, “you should get up and walk for one minute”, “you should go to sleep.”

    Feature Watch

    Today I thought of a new term. Feature watches. We have smart watches and more. They try to get us addicted to their apps, and to tracking everything we do. Feature watches are the opposite. You put them on, and in theory you can wear them for three years before you remove them.

    When I go for a run I will take the Garmin or the Apple watch, because they track heart rate and provide an idea of the fitness progression over time but the rest of the time I’d be happy with the Casio.

    The advantage of a feature watch was demonstrated today. I put the watch on this morning and when I decided to go for a walk the phone’s GPS tracked my movements automatically. The watch tracked the number of steps I took. When the walk the watch synced the step data with the phone app. I had a map of the walk I did, automatically.

    Initially I had been tempted by a higher spec casio, specifically the Casio Pro Trek PRT-B50. It has many of the same features minus thermometer, barometer, altimeter and compass but for 110 francs more and it is large. It is nice to have watches that fit under sleeves.

    And Finally

    Although this watch promotes itself as a step tracker it offers more than that, by allowing you to automatically track walks, hikes, runs and more, without having to press any buttons or pay attention to the walk. It starts when you start, and it ends when you end. I need to experiment with cycling and driving, to see how it reacts in those situations. I am still forming my opinion but so far it feels good.

  • Casio and Other Watches

    Casio and Other Watches

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    If we wear a Suunto, Garmin, Apple watch or Fitbit the device wants us to wear it for sleep, for every step we take, every heart beat and more. At the end of the year we do get fitness summaries but related to what we ran, swam, cycled and possibly walked. That means that for 22 hours a day we are tracking our heart rate and more for nothing.

    With fitness watches if we track walking and hiking there is a good chance that the end of year summary will ignore these activities. This means that we’re wearing an intrusive, compulsion forming device for nothing.

    For some reason I have found my interest in casio watches re-awakened. I cheap models that woke my nostalgia, and then I looked at other models. I came across the GBD-200 before I came across the GBD-800 and I wished I had come across them in the reverse order. The GBD-800 is cheaper and it’s designed for different sport intensities. If you go for a quiet walk you can select one intensity and if you go for a run you can go for another intensity. It doesn’t track heart rate or anything, other than steps.

    The GBD-200 is better suited to runners who don’t mind not tracking heart rate, and that don’t mind carrying the phone, for GPS location info.

    I’d like to conclude by saying that the Casios I mention are around 40-150 CHF, whereas Garmin Instinct, Apple Watches and others start at 300 CHF and get up to 1000 or more francs. If you’re looking to play with gadgets then casios are nice because they are more affordable, and their batteries last for years rather than a day, with Apple, to a month with Garmin, Suunto etc.

    I played with Casio in the 80s and 90s when all of their features were new, and now I am playing with them again because we’re in a pandemic, and we need a way to cope with the never-ending solitude of pandemic life. I also think these would be good gifts for nieces and nephews, as they gather a minimum of data about their users and they are hard to break.

  • Running Around in Loops

    Running Around in Loops

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Over the last week or two I decided to run and to swim. These are two sports that are easy to do if you have access either to a pool, or the right shoes. Swimming was in 14°c water for 17 and ten minutes. The first time my hands and feet were cold so I wore gloves. It’s a way of enjoying a different sport than usual. It’s a way of using different muscle groups too.

    With walking and cycling you use your legs but the upper body doesn’t do much. By swimming my upper body has the opportunity to be kept in better shape.

    Running is a very easy sport to do. You need shoes, and the motivation to go for a run. I often feel that I need to do bigger distances than I have the endurance to do. For two runs I went just one kilometre. After that, today, I went for 2.4km. This isn’t far, but it’s better than zero. I also want to preserve my knees. I stopped because I could feel pain in my knees begin.

    The Casio Moves app displays run information in a similar way to Garmin. It shows the run with colours that represent heart rate and effort. Blue for easy, green for slightly harder, orange for another zone, and red for a bigger effort. I use the data imported from the Garmin instinct exported as a TCX file from Garmin to the Casio Moves web interface. It takes seconds, and doesn’t require a Casio watch. With Garmin, Apple and Suunto you do not have this option so it’s nice.

    And finally, I will try to keep the habit of running at least one kilometre every day or two. It’s an easy habit to keep and it will keep me fitter. The advantage of running, rather than walking is that you cover the same distance in half the time. It makes the daily walk half as time consuming, once I increase my endurance.