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A Watch with Interchangeable Drop-In Faces and a More Ergonomic Way to Change Straps

Also: Why I never did get an Apple Watch

By Rain Noe - July 29, 2015

in Object Culture | Accessories | Consumer Electronics | Crowdfunding

One of the perks of a owning smartwatch is that you can quickly change the entire digital face. Now the L.A.-based Covair Watch Company is betting that consumers will want to do that with analog watches as well. Hence they've designed a watch base that will accept multiple faces that the user snaps in and out, as well as a much more ergonomic way to change a watchstrap:

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I was skeptical when I heard about the concept, but the video definitely reeled me in a bit. They do make it seem very easy to switch the faces, and I was impressed by the band-changing mechanism, which seems so simple it makes me wonder why no one else had thought of it yet.

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Now the question is whether the watch-buying public—of which I am admittedly not a member*—will cotton to it. Covair launched a Kickstarter campaign yesterday morning, and it's too early to tell if they'll hit their $55,000 target.

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*Regular readers will remember how excited I was by the Apple Watch announcement, and how I envisioned it solving a lot of my problems. But when I finally got into an Apple Store to touch a demo unit, I could not figure out how to work it. I'm either getting old or the UI is legitimately confusing. There was also no way to try one on for size.

Those setbacks combined with mixed reviews meant I couldn't justify spending the money. These days the only thing I wear on my wrist is a dog leash attached to two Shiba Inus dragging me toward a fire hydrant, and when I want to know the time on the street, I walk past a parking meter since they all now have built-in clocks.

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Michael Wendell

9 years ago

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This seems really awful. The increased complexity of the whole 'watch base' part is ridiculous. Wouldn't it be just as easy, more flexible, (and probably no more expensive) to just put band mounts on the watches themselves? This is an answer looking for a question that nobody is asking.

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  Michael Wendell
  
  9 years ago
  
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  I agree this seems basically unnecessary - for most watches, switching bands is not very difficult (or you could have a jeweller do it, if you didn't want to learn how yourself).
  
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