This swiss engineered timepiece is perfect for the paranoiac man about town who has achieved everything he ever desired, but who has friends who wish them to maintain an edge of ever-present doubt in their life.
On donning, the watch imprints the owners face into memory. Time is kept through the usual internal mechanism, but the analog hands only move when the gaze of the owner is detected as looking at the watch.
Thusly, any significant lapse existing between one look at the watch and the next, results in a hasty adjustment of the hands so as to display the right time. A movement *just* swift enough to not be definitely registered as having occurred, but not without planting some seed of doubt in the wearer's mind.-- zen_tom, Jan 25 2015 Brilliant!-- 21 Quest, Jan 25 2015 Twin brothers will need to have their faces tattooed, so the watches can tell them apart. Maybe with infrared inks so they don't look disfigured to the passing public.-- popbottle, Jan 26 2015 Would also freak out other people who look at your watch to see what time it is. [+]-- pocmloc, Jan 26 2015 This could also be marketed to quantum physicists who will appreciate a watch on which the correct time only exists while it is being observed.-- hippo, Jan 26 2015 Haha [hippo] I'm wondering whether a Heisenbourgois watch that might be attractive to the same demographic, albeit whenever it tells the right time, nobody knows where it might be.-- zen_tom, Jan 26 2015 Indeed - the instructions will need a small disclaimer, along the lines of: "The time-keeping accuracy of this watch has been deliberately reduced in order to make it easier for the owner to find it".-- hippo, Jan 26 2015 Great !-- piluso, Jan 26 2015 Each hand needs to move at most 179.9°, which hardly counts as "spinning".-- pocmloc, Jan 26 2015 //Not sure. Hands spinning round the face would be quite noticeable.// Each hand is free-spinning around its axis and has a small piece of ferrous metal at the tip. Around the edge of the watch are a series of tiny electro-magnets. When the wearer looks at the watch a capacitor energizes the correct magnet and the hand spins to that point almost instantly. Capacitor recharged by solar power while the wearer isn't looking.-- DIYMatt, Jan 26 2015 Having read all the comments here, I think it is worth pointing out that while it is impossible to know both the exact reading and location of ONE quantum watch, twins need not "have their faces tattooed so the watches can tell them apart". As we all know, when one twin observes his watch, the other twin's watch collapses the probability wave instantaneously: such that he can tell the exact time. Something which would previously not have been able to be determined before the other twin's measurement.-- not_only_but_also, Jan 29 2015 "Dude, I think your watch is broken." "Oh, nevermind." [+]-- Letsbuildafort, Jan 29 2015 Well done Papa Tom.-- blissmiss, Jan 29 2015 I'd forgotten about this gem of an idea-- hippo, Apr 22 2021 Thanks [hippo] that's very kind indeed. It's funny that in 100 years, wearable tech is still pretty much limited to telling the time. I know there's all the new smartwatches and all that - but largely speaking, the main wearable gizmo remains a time-telling device.-- zen_tom, Apr 22 2021 I wonder what the primary purpose of wearable tech really is - i.e. the primary purpose of wearing a watch appears to be so that the wearer can easily tell the time, but its real purpose might be as an 'accessory', to project some aspect of the wearer's personality, to make the wearer appear to be the kind of person who wears this kind of wristwatch. Likewise, wearing an Apple Watch allows one to do all sorts of stuff you didn't know you needed to do, but also presents you as a person who is an adopter of the latest technology, who needs to be up-to-date with news and information, etc.-- hippo, Apr 22 2021 random, halfbakery