Customer Reviews

Casio Men's WVM120DJ-7 Solar Atomic Metal Watch

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have owned this watch for about three months now, and love it. The solar power feature never lets the battery die. The shape of the watch makes is less easy to scratch. The screen layout is great and easy to read. Also, it has five alarm clocks to remind me to do different things. And of course, like any other Casio WaveCeptor watch, it is water proof and sets it's self and updates three times a day. This watch is priced very low for how well it functions. I highly recommend buying this product.

I bought a Casio WV-M120 (Module 3090) from Amazon in December 2009. With its stainless steel band and bezel, it is very tough and in my experience over the past six months of using it, I am completely happy with its performance. After reading the instruction book, I was a bit apprehensive about warnings it gave about the radio sensitivity of the RESIN BANDED Waveceptor watches, specifying recommended azimuthal orientation and placement on a window sill, and warning of proximity of hills or tall buildings, etc, that could affect reception of the correction signals. In six months of use, I have found that the watch performs flawlessly, consistently.

Beginning at the stroke of midnight, the watch removes the 'RCVD' indication on its dial. Thereafter, from 1am to 5am, the watch can receive up to five correction signals until one is successful. My watch has performed this routine successfully every night, without my giving it any special placement or any conscientious attention at all. It is fully and completely automatic. I always sleep wearing the watch, and every morning I see from the 'RCVD' indication on the dial that it has set itself to within a micro-second of the correct time. My bedroom is upstairs, on the N side of a 102-year-old frame house with a shake roof, nestled at the foot of 3 steep hills to the S, W, and N, with only the E facing clear to the river bend 500 feet away and, beyond, more steep high hills 2,500 ft E of the river. The point is that my Waveceptor always receives the signals at maximum level as indicated on its dial, and it has done this every night when reception begins, even though surrounded by hills, and 8 feet away from the nearest window. That stainless steel band and case definitely helps reception. I live in the Pacific NW, very close to the ocean, about 1,000 miles from Ft. Collins, Colorado, where the time correction signals are broadcast. When the watch arrived, the battery charge indicator on the dial was reading Medium, because it had been in total darkness in its box since manufacture, with no exposure to light. The watch will charge the battery via its solar cell even under a flourescent desk lamp, but it will charge 100+ times faster under direct (not through a window pane) sunlight, so I placed it outside for a couple of hours, and the indicator went to full charge in just a couple of hours. From a fully charged battery the watch will run for 8 months before the battery is completely discharged, even if it is kept in total darkness. Wearing it outside on bright sunny days, if the watch is not always covered by your sleeve, it should continue to keep itself fully charged until the rechargeable battery wears out, which should not happen for ten years or more. I write this because I have an old Casio watch in my desk drawer that has one worn out button, and that single bad button requires me to open the case and short out the contacts inside the case to reset the time and date, because that time-setting button no longer works with the case closed. But that watch is more than ten years old, and is still running on its original battery, showing a good strong display, even though it does not show the correct time. I can't change its settings without taking the case apart, which I did for two years when I wanted to change it from standard to daylight time. Since I no longer bother to open the case, it now runs 6 minutes fast. That is the watch I was using before I bought the Waveceptor. The Waveceptor can even be set to automatically turn on the dial light with a flick of your wrist, so there is no reason to use the buttons at all once it is set to your time zone and 24-hour display if you want it.

This watch works very well and I like it a lot. To maintain the time, it attempts to receive and synchronize to a government run transmitter. In the US, the transmitter it uses is in Colorado. The signal does not propagate well during the day so the watch attempts to receive it at night. In Auto Receive mode, each night, it tries up to 6 times to synchronize with the transmitter. The attempts are an hour apart. Once it has successfully received the signal, it stops trying until the next night. I live in New Hampshire and the watch usually manages to receive the signal on its first try at midnight . When that has failed, it has always managed to receive it at 2AM. The manual suggests you take the watch off at night and point it in a direction that works well but I haven't had to do this. I just wear it to bed and haven't had a problem. I have tried manually receiving the signal during the day but that has never worked.

There are a few issues with Amazon's description of this watch. It doesn't have 3, or 4, daily alarms. It actually has 5 and one of them even has an optional snooze mode. The backlight is actually EL not LED. The afterglow aspect of the illumination is very subtle and it's not even mentioned in the manual. The alarm is not as loud as I would like but is usable in an environment that isn't noisy. You probably wouldn't hear it in a crowded restaurant. I like the watch's 4 button user interface. The common button meanings are labeled on the front as "mode", "adjust", "light" and "receiving" and there are different button labels embossed on the back, "Select", "Hold Set", "Set(-)" and "Set(+)"to remind you of how the watch is adjusted.

There are only two things I don't like about this watch. It is a little large. I considered getting a non-solar powered version because they are a little thinner. The watch is also described as having a metal case but it appears to me that it actually has a plastic case with a metal cover over most of it. I'm not absolutely sure about this but it certainly looks that way. Although the metal part looks fine and doesn't look cheap or anything, there are parts of the plastic case that can be seen when you are wearing the watch. Although the plastic parts are colored to go nicely with the metal, I am concerned that, in a few years, the color will have worn off and will no longer match the metal. It's possible that the color of the plastic parts goes all the way through the plastic so this won't happen but I'm guessing it's just paint. I have owned other plastic bodied watches that the paint has worn off of and changed color as a result.

I purchased this watch after wearing the older Casio WV-100 for several years. I'm pleased with the performance of the WVM120DJ-7 with one exception: The alarm on this watch is so weak that you won't even notice it going off while wearing the watch. Don't even consider trusting it to wake you up! I called Casio about this issue, and the technical support rep said that some of their watches do have a very weak alarm, and there's no fix for the problem. Sounds like this was an engineering oversight. My old WV-100 has a much louder alarm, but the case is also quite a bit thicker than this model. Maybe they just didn't allow enough space inside the case for a decent alarm.

Followup to original review: After owning this watch for close to a year, I have no complaints about its operation (except for the useless alarm), but I've found that the last link in the band on each side of the watch is not stainless steel, but silver-painted plastic. The color is wearing away so that you can see the white plastic underneath. If they're going to claim a band is stainless steel, it should be ALL stainless.

This is the second Casio Waveceptor I've owned. My first one, a WV-100, lasted me more years than I can recall; probably 7 or 8. That might just be a dead battery or something, but I figured what the hell I'll get a newer model. I've only had this one for a couple weeks, so I can't speak for its longevity, but it worked right out of the box. No hiccups so far. Also, the cool features are cool as advertised. The ones I like are that it's solar powered, radio time syncing, and has handy alarms.

The metal band is nice: each of the segments can pivot in a 180 degree arc, thus providing way more flexibility than any normal human being will ever need. It's also big, so expect to have to take some links out unless your wrist is hueg leik xbox (ok maybe not /that/ big).

I've noticed some reviews on similar watches noting that the watch has fairly specific instructions for how to place it during the signal update times AND it updates at inconvenient times. This one seems to have the same caveats. Nonetheless, neither of my watches has needed particular care to get the radio syncing to work. I suspect this is just an attempt at thorough documentation that need only be heeded when you actually run into trouble. These watches seem to have fairly robust radios.

I've owned atomic watches before, and wanted another, to have the accuracy (even a Rolex isn't more accurate). This Casio has it all: atomic reception in the U.S., England, Europe, and Asia; multiple alarms; solar power, great looks. I've had it only a couple of months, and I love it. Realistically, the solar battery won't hold a charge for months the way a $600 Citizen does, but who cares? I'm outside, in the sun, part of every day. And if it only lasts 6 or 8 or 10 years, again who cares? It's a terrific value for the money. I have another (Swiss) watch, and I alternate them, but when I have to have exact-to-the-second accuracy, this is the one I choose. If I lose it, or it gets run over by a truck, I'll simply buy another one.

I have a bunch of watches but after the battery deis, I go to the store to get a battery and usually end up buying a new watch. I love this it may have cost a little more but after having to buy 2-3 $30 watches its is worth the extra now. I will never have to worry about batteries and how often do i have to rest the time on it. and the best part about the time is when its daylight saves time i don't have to rest my watch it is done for me by the morning. on most days it will sync. up at 12:04AM or 1:04 AM and if by some chance it doesn't I can when i think aobut it. but you don't have to do it everyday tho.

This watch replaced a Casio calculator watch.

The only down side to the new one is that it lacks the four buttons which made selecting the time zone in the US trivial.

The big advantage is that it handles time zones outside the US much better. You can select a foreign city and get the time and date there, not just time there plus the time at home.

Also, it can receive time signals from England, Germany, and Japan, and automatically listens for the appropriate frequency of a European or Asian city is selected.

The ability to receive the US signal seems the same as the old watch--it seldom needs to try a second time. But I am in northern Arizona, and closer to the transmitter (in Ft. Collins, CO) than most Americans, so the watch has not been stressed in that regard yet.

I am out in the sun once in a while, and the battery charge level stays high.

I have had this watch for about a week, and so far I am really happy with it. During cloudy days, the battery charged meter goes from high to medium, but I have not noticed any effect on the performance of the watch. Setting it in the window sill on the next sunny day charges it back to a full charge in no time. I have not had it go to low charge so far. I would recommend this watch.

I really think this watch is cool! It gets its power from the sun and it sets itself by radio signals. When I got this watch it was at the medium power level. After it was in direct sunlight for about an hour or so it was on the high power level. And, it has not dropped below that setting since that time. This watch is kind of big and it is durable. It seems that it would be hard to scratch the crystal because of the way the watch is made. I really like this watch and I am glad I bought it. My sons might get one for their birthdays this year!