An ode to retro
Just like most, I can barely remember how I passed all my free time without a computer, internet and a smartphone. Being a kid from the 80’s it was a two channel TV, play outside, comics and books. Which probably explains why I started reading the newspaper at an early age and watched the obituary news every night on the local channel. That’s how I spend most of my days. It’s probably also why I have some jingles and commercials stuck in my head, you watch them over and over again enough times, they’ll be forever burned in your mind.
For all my love of shiny gadgets, there is one item I won’t replace for a smart version. And that is my wristwatch. I have been wearing one every day since I was 10 years old. My first one was a black digital Casio. I used to wear my watches till they stopped working and were beyond repair. I never leave the house without my wristwatch, if I forget it I have a constant feeling of missing something. The same feeling you get when you forget your smartphone.
This year a lot of wearables came on the market with the highlight being the Apple Watch presentation. Companies are doing their best to get traditional watchmakers to come work for them in an attempt to give smartwatches the same classic look as traditional watches. Wasted energy in my opinion.
Just like hard copy books are still popular and small bookstores are making a come back. The traditional wristwatch will be a classic that won’t go out of fashion. There wasn’t a moment I thought about switching over to a smartwatch. I have enough anxiety already thanks to my smartphones that vibrates and blinks all day long with new messages, emails, tweets, etc.
Give me a nice retro watch that does just what it needs to do: tell the time and make me look fashionable.
The battery usually lasts more than a year. Changing the battery is as simple as going to wherever they sell watches, wait 10 minutes and pay less than 10 euros.