Thoughts on the Casio A168 Watch Type

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. 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.