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Thin Is Definitely In: CES Sees Launch of CST-01 E-Ink Watch

By Ray Hu - January 11, 2013

in Tech | Product Design | Kickstarter

Say what you want about IDEO, but no one can deny that some brilliant folks roam their open-plan workspaces, including Dave Vondle and Jerry O'Leary. The longtime colleagues at the firm's Chicago office have just launched a side project under the name Central Standard Timing on the occasion of CES 2013, handily surpassing their $200,000 crowdfunding goal for "The World's Thinnest Watch" in a day and a half.

Indeed, the CST-01 comes in at a svelte 0.8mm, and, at 12 grams, "weighs less than five pennies"—the first 500, which sold out in a matter of hours, were available for $99, or about 54.5 lbs worth of pennies. The internal electronics are laminated into the flexible stainless steel band, which accommodates a scant 0.5mm of componentry in its 'face,' "[showcasing] the most innovative qualities of E Ink's SURF segmented displays; ultra-thinness, readability, ruggedness, flexibility, and low power."

Vondle and O'Leary have also wisely chosen to forgo hardware buttons: Users set the time through the charging stand, which is a beautiful object in itself. Of course, considering that it will only take ten minutes to charge the CST-01 for a month of use, the buoy-shapped base might end up in a drawer for most of the wristwatch's 15 year lifetime (our two cents: maybe it could double as a coffee tamper?).

I haven't seen it in person but based on the images, I'm impressed by the CST-01's clean aesthetic, which feels appropriately masculine despite its bangle-like form factor, a slick hybrid of sci-fi typography and bracelet typology.

Although Central Standard Time has already moved 2,000 units of their acronymous accessory, Vondle and O'Leary will continue to refine the timepiece: the veteran designers neatly circumvented Kickstarter's prototype ban by presenting "Design Validation Units," which are past the prototype stage but not yet optimized for manufacturing.We'll be working on small modifications to everything from the stainless steel band, selection and refinement of adhesives, adjustments to the display module, refinement to the top mask in color and material choice and simplification of flexible circuits. The revisions we plan on doing will tackle key issues like making the product as waterproof as possible, optimizing scratch resistance, and ensuring that every product that comes off the line stands up to a high standard of quality. The charger will be revised to move from a 3d printed process to injection molded parts. This is something we have years of experience doing for a number of products that have come to market.

They'll have six months or so to tweak the final design, which will (tentatively) be delivered by September 2013; backers have six weeks to pre-order their CST-01 in black or white for $129. (Particularly impatient minimalists—those short on time, as it were—can throw down a G for the privilege of beta testing a prototype come March.)

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KuangYui

11 years ago

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I think nowadays watches are more like accessories rather than tools, and this super thin watch makes a great chat material.
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Philippe

11 years ago

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The design of the watchface seems like an afterthought to me. I can understand they wanted to keep it simple but with the freedom that the E-Ink display offers, they could have come up with something more interesting. Or even offer several watchfaces (who knows, maybe it'll be a future update).
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StNick

11 years ago

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First, I thought orientation would be a problem. But at the moments I really want to look at the time, e.g. at my desk (I always forget there is a clock on my desktop so I turn around to face the clock instead) or on my bike this might even be handier.

I believe I would quickly adapt to the interface although I have to acknowledge it's really controversial and therefore made me think it's not really thought through.
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Cameron

11 years ago

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To those complaining about orientation, this is actually an interesting solution. Remember how you always turn your wrist to see your watch? Now you don't have to, you can do it more naturally (which amusingly might be more annoying to always see the time?)
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Mary

11 years ago

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I like the minimalist concept and aesthetic of this product, but would be more impressive would be if the designers came up with an equally minimal environmentally impacting way of charging it than having to also manufacture and deliver to the consumer a big chunk of plastic.
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chris

11 years ago

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maybe the ugliest watch I have ever seen, sorry
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widianto

11 years ago

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it is nice project, especially all possibilities due to e-ink,
i did similar design project before the e-ink (2008) for future watch competition,
check the image@ www.widiantoutomo.blogspot.com,
the project name"camaleon", the differences only camaleon is a smart watch, combining telephone and watch.
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ville

11 years ago

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Holy Moly!

A while ago i did a similar watch as a school project.
It's cool to see this as a commercial product now.
Makes me think if we'd persisted with our project longer we might have came up with equally cool product.
And how many others have had similar concepts without bringing them to the market.

http://arkonkoski.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/ultrathin/
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andrew

11 years ago

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You wouldn't want to catch the watch on anything. It looks really sharp along the edge.
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stefano

11 years ago

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Nowadays wristwatches are almost useless, but I think a wristwatch that needs to be charged every month is surely useless. The orientation in another problem. What about the heat under the sunlight in the summer?
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bryan

11 years ago

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cool for a novelty watch. not to concerned about orientation. How often to you really look at your watch though out the day. I Look at my phone so much i see the time whenever I pick it up
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dimitrios

11 years ago

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I hope there is a choice for changing the orientation from landscape to portrait. It looks quite hard to read the time while wearing it as it is.
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Mark

11 years ago

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Seems like a big oversight to have to rotate your arm 90 degrees compared to the traditional way to read a watch.
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