Late last year, I was looking for a timer watch I could use during workouts. An Apple Watch or Fitbit seemed like the default option for many. Even though, in the early 2010s, I was a user of the Pebble watch (RIP) way before smartwatches went mainstream, I never really had a thing for smartwatches. I don’t think I ever wore my Pebble after the first few days of trying it. There wasn’t a whole lot the software could do and charging it felt like a chore. The subsequent release of the Apple Watch was most certainly cool. Though, I’ve never bought in. Yes, believe it or not, I work in tech and I’ve never had an Apple Watch. I’m aware that founders, VCs and generally anyone techy or not swear by their Watches now and I definitely get the appeal, but I’m simply hesitant to add another device to my lifestyle that will give me push notifications.
After loads of research, I stumbled upon this magnificent Hodinkee review by Jack Forster and got myself the $25 Casio AE1200WH-1A World Timer watch. 8 months later, in retrospect, it was the best $25 I ever spent.
What I originally bought as a fitness watch has really become my primary watch. In the words of Jack Forster of Hodinkee:
Like all really great tool watches – the classic Mark series pilot’s watches, for example – the AE1200WH-1A gives every indication of not having been designed, per se, at all, but like the Mark series, its pragmatism in design and execution manages to transcend simple functionality, and achieve an aesthetic all its own. This is watchmaking at its most straightforward and unpretentious; there is none of the smug sanctimony of so much modern watchmaking, where even at the entry level, it is becoming distressingly easy to find the sort of sophomorically clichéd design cues reserved in former times for things much more expensive. The plastic case and mineral glass crystal, as it turns out, reward closer scrutiny with a surprisingly rich display of somewhat muted but strangely elegant geometry, and while the AE1200WH-1A doesn’t have the broad-shouldered tough-guy vibe of the G-Shock, it has another kind of retro-tech appeal that while not apparent at first glance, becomes more pronounced and more enjoyable the longer you wear the watch. Link
I couldn’t agree more.
Some of my dream watches that I wish to own some day are in the thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars range. Doctor Strange wears one of them. But even if I ever do end up becoming wealthy enough to afford those kinds of luxuries, I actually think I might still be wearing this $25 Casio AE1200WH a whole lot.
It’s a great reminder that things that bring you joy don’t have to be expensive.