Meteor Vibrating Pocket Watch

Have you ever been in a meeting and wanted to know the time, but you didn’t want your talking watch to interrupt the speaker? Are you hearing impaired or deafblind and “Braille” tactile watches aren’t up your alley? Now there’s a new solution!

Browsing the ads on the Blind Bargains app (available for IOS devices in the appstore), I came across a new product that I think is truly amazing. It’s called the Meteor, and is a vibrating pocket watch. Oval in shape with a cut out where three buttons are located, the Meteor, only available in black, is a stylish pocket watch with a great set of features. To check the time with the Meteor, you can press three buttons in any order. The first is hours, the second the tens unit of minutes, and the third the ones unit of minutes. For example, if you press all three buttons, you might get: hour- two long and one short, tens- two short, ones- one long. This would mean that the time is 11:25. If you already knew that it was somewhere after eleven, however (say your meeting runs from eleven to eleven thirty), you might press only the second and third buttons. Getting the same vibrations, you would learn that there were only five minutes left in the meeting (always a pleasure to know!). More examples and further explanations of the working of this watch can be found at the AT Guys Meteor page. There, you can also click to hear an audio demonstration of the watch and order it from AT Guys, currently the only carrier of the product in the U.S. The watch costs $117 plus shipping, and comes with a two-year warranty against hardware defects. The watch is also waterproof, but it isn’t suggested you put the watch in water (I imagine it can stand up against rain, but don’t take a bath with it!).

This watch is truly revolutionary, in my opinion, because it gives a good alternative to talking and tactile watches, and provides easy access to a time piece for the deafblind, a subgroup of the blind that is often left out with the creation of so many talking products.

There are two features I would like to see added to this watch in the future. First, I would love to see it as a wristwatch, so users don’t have to worry about keeping it in their pocket. Second, an alarm and hourly report function would be a boon. I can imagine someone wearing a Meteor vibrating wristwatch, and on the hour, it vibrates to let you know what time it is. This is a function of talking watches that is very useful, and I would compare it to a grandfather clock’s hourly chimes. An alarm function would also make this product better, allowing a deafblind person to set an alarm and slip the watch under their pillow to wake up to the vibration.

Overall, the Meteor is a great product with many uses, but there are a few things that would make it more useful. But the availability of an accessible timepiece for the deafblind is really exciting, and I hope you are as excited about it as I am.