Customer Reviews

Abacus Atomic Watch

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

 

 

I was anxious to receive this watch, as I was making a trip across the international date line. I was disappointed, as day after day it lost several minutes before I even left home. Each time it required several minutes of button pushing before it would re-synch, and even then it had to "see the sky" to synch. Once on my trip, it changed by about an hour and a half, and I nearly missed a plane. It went to the bottom of my suitcase for the rest of my trip, and I've asked for a refund.

Those who have the watch knows that it is a big watch and there are sync problems. But the sync problems go away with reading the book. Once I set my watch for Chicago and the sync signal for Chicago, my watch was fine. It would sync every day and I have had no complaints since. My only complaint is lack of on-line documentation. I don't carry the book with me and I'm afraid to lose it, because I have to force a resync on my watch, pressed to many buttons and made numerous unnecessary changes. So sitting at work, I can't change anything, I have to wait until I get home and read the book.

I too got one of these on Woot and mine does not receive the much vaunted radio signal to sync with the exact official time either...maybe Woot was saddled with defective units that have nothing to do with what Amazon has to offer, but you'd think that Fossil, no discount brand they, would produce a better product and police the distribution of clunkers.

Needs an index in the instruction book listing the name of the city for the 3 letter code displayed. And a listing showing what batteries are used.

I got mine from Woot and had trouble with it from the git-go. The tiny manual is poorly written and not clear.

The watch does not reliably synch daily with the radio signal as advertised. Today for example, it is reading an hour off--possibly because it has defaulted to the DST mode. If I had to do it again, I wouldn't waste my money or time on this item.

The watch is a little larger and heavier than I had expected. It updates as advertised, but I was disappointed to find that I still have to select the time zones manually. I have been using a watch that has world times and been switching the zones manually for 20 years. I thought this watch would not only update timne, but automaticlly switch zones according to where you are in the world using the updaing systems around the world like my electric clocks at home. I do like the larger numbers, but the alarm is barely loud enough to hear and probably won't be loud enough to wake you up from sleeping.

I'm a time freak, and love atomic clocks and watches. This one has all the bells and whisles I was looking for. It is also large enough to read for those with poor eyesight. I also like the three charactor letters for day of week feature.

Be aware - this watch weighs 156 gms (5.5 oz) which is approximately double what most watches weigh. The watch body itself is equally large and awkward. Perhaps the watch needs to be that large to house all the electronics to receive the time radio signal.

I will have to take the word of the previous reviewer that the watch does not set the time zone as other atomic clocks do by using the radio signal, because my watch has yet to successfully receive a radio signal. It is currently off by 6 minutes and losing a few seconds every day.

I would return it, but I got it on woot (for $24.99). Perhaps this will make a good emergency gift for someone I do not like very much. :)