Another day, another Tokyoflash watch. This one, the On Air, has an LCD screen with backlight and you tell time by reading the numerical minutes read-out as it rotates around in place of the hour hand. It is, to be fair, pretty darn ingenious.

The watch is another fan submission created by skender Asanaliev & Adilet Asanaliev, from Kyrgyzstan. Tokyoflash liked the idea so much that they actually designed and built the working watch.

It’s available now and costs $179.

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Planning a trip around the world in 80 days? Spending some time with the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? You’re going to need this $149 Tokyoflash, touchscreen pocket watch that, is as far as I can tell, unreadable by mere mortals.

The watch comes in four colors and features a touch display to scroll through the dual-time, date, and alarm features. It’s cased in a nice steel case with mineral crystal cover and, with a bit of patience, you can learn what the heck this thing actually says. It has a back-lit LCD screen that drops into a “natural” color when unlit.

This is a limited-edition model, which makes it slightly more desirable to that special someone on your Christmas list who needs a watch to match their steam-powered mechanical arm, steel top hat, and smoked-glass monocle.

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This TokyoFlash concept watch looks like it might be great for motorcyclists and other folks who have their wrists at eye-level most of the day. The watch has a digital display that is almost unreadable head on but appears, magically, when looked at at an angle.

Sadly, the watch does not yet exist but if there’s enough interest, TokyoFlash could make the timepiece a reality.

This concept wrist watch design has an LED backlight that will completely illuminate the screen at the touch of a button and in addition to this, it has built in USB memory so that you can store important files and secret documents and always have them securely located on your wrist. To access your files, simply connect the watch to your computer with the USB cable provided.

I personally really like this idea – it’s one of the first TF watches I’ve enjoyed in a long time – so here’s hoping it finally gets made. You can vote at the bottom of the project page.

Project Page

Traditionally, Tokyoflash has offered watches without LCD screens. Focusing instead on LEDs, their watches usually lit up and glowed rather than maintained a standard time registration familiar with fans of standard LCDs. But that’s all changed, now, hasn’t it?

The $179 Kisai SR2 Rogue features a selection of colored faces and uses a hybrid LCD/LED design. The LED lights the face while the LCD displays the time, a welcome respite from Tokyoflash’s traditionally bright and shiny faces.

Reading the time on Kisai Rogue SR2 is simple but creates a sense of mystique to the uninformed.

The inner ring of blocks represents hours, the gap in the ring shows the current hour, as on a clock face. The ring of large blocks represents approximate minutes, the position of the gap shows the current approximate minutes. The outer ring of small dots represents exact minutes, every fifth dot being slightly smaller to distinguish five minute groups. Just look where the gaps are!

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Acetate is the high-gloss material used to make glasses and other wearables. Tokyoflash has taken the material to interesting new heights with the Kisai RPM, releasing multiple versions of their “handmade” watch for $159. The links, case, and buttons are all hand finished and assembled and the odd limited edition colors look pretty darn cool.

This watch is powered by a rechargeable batter so you’ll have to plug it in occasionally. Time telling is achieved by noting the large pips that signify hours, the smaller pips that show 5 minute intervals and then the smallest pips that show 1-4. If that’s hard to understand, this watch is probably not for you.

Limited Edition
White

Another day, another crazy Tokyoflash watch. This model, called the Satellite, comes in black and white and separates the hours, minutes, and seconds into zones. It costs $94 and comes with a fancy rubber band. It recharges via USB. The lights spin every 15 minutes and are activated by a button on the side. The LEDs come in Blue or Green.

Easy to read at a glance, Satellite’s display separates elements of time into distinct zones.
Hours are displayed in the upper zone in the same position as hours on a clock, groups of five minutes are displayed in the lower left zone in the same position as minutes on a clock and four single minutes are shown in the lower right zone.
After touching the button, lights showing the current time will flash for a short time to direct you. For more information, take a look at the diagram above and video below.

Product Page (Black)
Product Page (White)

What can you get? Only some of the wildest watches on the planet earth, my friends. That’s all.

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Hours are displayed in the inner ring in orange, in the same position as hours on a clock face. Minutes are displayed in the outer ring in blue in three minute intervals in the same position as minutes on a clock face. Green LEDs show two single minutes at the bottom of the display. Check out the interactive operating guide below to learn more.

Interestingly, the watch is also powered via USB so you can charge it on the road. It’s an odd choice but I suppose TokyoFlash is realizing all these fancy lights take a little bit of power.

There’s an old O. Henry story, The Gift of the Kisai that recounts a tale of a young man who sells his Kisai Round Trip LED pocketwatch to buy his wife a hairbrush and his wife cuts and sells her hair to buy her husband a pocketwatch chain. The story, a classic in the oeuvre of “how-the-other-half-lives” fiction, is heartbreaking in itself, but fear not: you’ll never have to go through those privations. There are plenty of $72 LED pocket watches to go around and their affordable for even those in relationships bathed in irony and penury.

This new Tokyoflash watch charges via USB and clips to your bag or pants. You’ll also notice the maddening fact that to check the time you have to press a button and the time is told in Tokyoflash’s inimitable WTF fashion. Some specs, in case you’re curious:

Displays the time
USB rechargeable*
LED animation mode
Stainless steel case and key ring included
Case dimensions: 41 mm x 50 mm x 11 mm
Weight: 58 grams
Water resistance: 3ATM
Japanese and English instructions
One year warranty
Battery: LIR2032 standard rechargeable and replaceable watch battery
Pocket watch, key ring, USB cable and spare USB cap included.
* Charging time 3.5 hours. Each charge should last approximately 1 month. Battery lifetime will vary depending on use but is estimated at approximately 300 charges.

Kisai Escape C is the revolutionary new Bluetooth® fashion accessory from Tokyoflash Japan. Pair with your cell phone to make and receive calls hands-free, pair with your MP3 player to listen to your favorite tunes in comfort or use with applications such as Skype™ for a great chat experience. Escape C is also a stylish and versatile time piece. The time has come to Escape.

It also works as a watch, but one of those crazy watches. It costs $107 and is so maddeningly beguiling that while I find it strange, I also want to obtain it.

The organically shaped case blends perfectly into the strap of this design to create a single motion concept.
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Shades of blue and green make up the display, each of the segments indicating a unit of time. Hours on the left, groups of 10 minutes on the right and single minutes in the center.
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The line pattern that makes up the interface runs in the same direction as the strap. A natural look with an unusual display.

You can see them all here and even vote on your faves.

TokyoFlash is giving away a watch to three winners of their TokyoFlash landmark contest. The rules are pretty simple: simply create an image of a famous horological landmarks redesigned with TokyoFlash faces i.e. Big Ben with the Rogue face built-in.

Get creative and submit your own ideas for a new landmark clock to clocks@tokyoflash.com for the chance to win the watch of your choice from Tokyoflash!

You can send an image, description, news story or combination, but please keep it to less than 500 words. You can use your own way of telling the time or use the display from any of our watches.

How To Enter:

1. Email your enty of a famous landmark that has a Tokyoflash way of reading the time to clocks@tokyoflash.com
2. Closing date is 26th May 2009 when three winners will be chosen to win a watch from Tokyoflash.
3. Winners will be able to select a watch of their choice.
4. You may submit as many entries as you wish.

So this watch is supposed to look like a Japanese signature seal and lights up in odd configurations, shown here, to show you the time. It’s made of brushed metal. It’s as unreadable as any other Tokyoflash watch, so unless you really like this you’d probably be better off getting a tattoo of a watch on your wrist – at least it will be accurate and readable twice a day.

$99 from Tokyoflash.

Made from aluminum, and using multicolored LED’s to indicate the time and date, the Kisai definitely has a unique appearance. You might be reluctant to tell people that it’s a watch however, because they could ask you to tell them what time it is. Perhaps you could tell them that it’s a Geiger counter, or perhaps a device used to measure gamma radiation for space. They’d probably believe you.

Me: “Greg, what time is it?”

Greg: (stares at wrist for two minutes) “I have no idea.

The outer green dots look like this and the innermost ones look like that and then the ones in the middle move around like so, which means… I have no idea. Don’t you have your phone on you?”

I believe he was sporting the Tokyoflash Rogue (above left), which promises that…

“Once mastered, navigating the time is simple, but creates a sense of mystique to the uninformed. The outer ring of small dots represents minutes, every fifth dot being slightly smaller to distinguish five minute groups. The ring of large blocks represents rough minutes, the position of the gap indicating approximate minutes. The inner ring of blocks represents hours, the position of the gap in the ring showing the current hour as on a clock face.”

… “Once mastered” being the most important, yet overlooked part.

Thankfully, the new Keisan watch looks a little easier to read, although you’d better be ready to add small numbers together. A series of four LED strips, each containing numbers one through five, illuminate in various denominations to give you the hours and minutes.

The watch itself is made of high-grade aluminum. There are four color combinations available, all priced at $255 (and one cent).

Kisai Keisan Aluminum LED Watch [Tokyoflash.com via Tech Digest]

The guys over at Tokyoflash have just announced their first new watch for 2009, the R75. Unlike some of Tokyoflash’s other watches this one actually seems simple to read while still looking cool.

Made from stainless steel, this watch has a two-part display, binary on top and numerical digits on bottom. You can toggle between full binary or mixed modes where hours are shown in digits and minutes in binary or vice-versa. It comes in silver, black and gold with a choice of blue or white LEDs.

These things are a bit pricey though, coming in at $235.48. Now if that is too much for you, check out their online store. They have some of their older models on sale with up to 62 percent off.

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The Denshoku costs $247.72 and is available in white or black.

The watch shows the time in three stages. You press the button and it shows the hours, ten minutes, and then the single minutes. You can also activate animation mode that gives a Blade Runner-esque sense of style to your next board meeting.

Your Boss: So we’ve got to really pull together this quarter and get those sales numbers up. I think we have some leads and I think we’re going to be able to make it through this slump without losing any of you.
You: It’s too bad she won’t live!
Your Boss: Without losing some of you.

Unlike John Biggs or Flavor Flav, I am no timepiece purist. In fact, most watch lovers might consider me a heretic; in an age where every TV, DVD player, camera, and cellphone totes a clock, I’ve come to consider watches less of a tool, and more of an accessory. Hell, I once wore a watch with a dead battery for over a month.

As such, I’ve always been interested in TokyoFlash watches. With their varyingly complex designs of spiraling LEDs, they put the focus on the aesthetics aspect of a watch without sacrificing the time-telling functionality. Sure, it may take you a day or two to get used to each design – but each watch does the job, and looks damned good doing it.

As my first venture into the TokyoFlash collection, I opted for the S-Mode Oberon (¥16,900, or roughly $167 USD). I’ve been wearing it around town for about a week. What do I think? Read on to find out.

Initial impressions:

At 150 grams, the watch is right where I like it, weight-wise. It doesn’t feel light or cheap to the touch, nor does it feel clunky on my wrist.

The band’s default size could fit an ogre, coming it at about twice the size I needed. Though the pin-type links looked almost identical to the Fossil watches they had behind the case, the first store I took it to for a fitting looked at it like it was from the farthest reaches of space. Perhaps I shouldn’t have told them it was from Japan – I think they expected it to turn into a giant robot if they touched it the wrong way. The next store had no problem making the adjustment.

The face is quite susceptible to fingerprints which, seeing it’s glossy black, is pretty much unavoidable.

Reading it:

Because of its unique design, reading this watch requires a bit of practice. Pushing the top button once lights up the time (pushing it twice brings up the date). The outer circle is the hours – one light for each hour, 1 through 12. The inner most ring is minutes by groups of 10 – 1 dot means 10, 2 dots means 20, all the way up to 5 dots for 50. The middle ring is the single minute counter – 1 through 9. 3:26 would be 3 dots on the outside, 2 dots on inner most ring, and 6 dots on the middle ring. In the image on right, the time would be 5:19.

If it sounds complex, it’s only because its somewhat tough to put into words – after about two minutes with the watch, determining the time before the LEDs switched back off was no problem. After 2 days, it was as at-a-glance as the methods I’ve grown up using.

Reactions:

Unsure of the metric usually applied to watch reviews, I decided the best way to rate the watch would be to see what other people thought of it. Here are some of the reactions I’ve got so far:

• Girlfriend, immediately after unboxing the watch: “Oooooh. Shiny.”
• Friend, after seeing it light up the first time: “What the hell?”
• Other friend, seeing the watch for the first time, sans time display: “*knocks on watch* Is it voice activated or something?”
• Guy who adjusted the band: “So… how much weed did you have to smoke before you could read that?” (Yep – he seriously said that. You don’t know how odd it was to hear that in a fairly upscale jewelry shop.)

I showed it to a good number of people, and the reaction was fairly consistent: surprise or curiosity, followed by compliments. I’d take that as a good sign.

What I like:

• It’s a very, very sharp looking watch. I could wear out to a day on the beach, or to a dinner party.
• Comfortable weight, with a secure band
• It’s unique, without being awkward or unwieldy. It definitely gets a reaction out of people.

What I don’t:

• No way to force the time display to stay on.
• There has been at least one occasion where pressing the time display button didn’t seem to do anything. If I pressed it a second time, it worked fine.

The Verdict:

While my watch collection could be dwarfed quite easily by that of some folks around these parts, I’ve got enough of’em to get me through a week or two without repeating. That said, the Oberon now sits amongst my favorites. It’s sharp, it’s unique, and it certainly turns heads. If you’re in the market for a sub-$200 watch and are looking for something that is as much a conversation starter as it is a timepiece, the S-Mode Oberon is a solid bet.