Connect / LED-Watch.com modern LED watch review

In recent years, LED wristwatches have seen a resurgence in popularity more than any other obsolete technology. A few companies today are manufacturing modern LED watches, and some of them, given the general quality of today's manufacturing, are actually pretty decent for the price. Here I review a product from one of the more well-known sellers, and one of only two or three that have offered a real wire-bond LED display on their watches.
The last 15 minutes or so is just ranting about their less-than-great website, so feel free to skip that...

[@vladchan]

Who knew in the 70s that leds will be powering our light bulbs. The difference is literally night and day.

[@officialsimonharris]

They're actually improving the newer (modern) PCB type modules all the time, the ones I have now are able to take 2 X 2016 batteries and run at 6 volts which is very bright, they have many more functions than the old wire bonded ones, seconds, year, 12/24hr mode ect. Nobody anywhere can make the old wire bonded ones any more because the components no longer exist (the digits) - the last ones known to exist after scouring many many component factories in China were the ones used in this watch, I bought most of the last ones available and when I tried to buy more they were all gone because Fossil had found the factory and bought all of them for a watch they produced about 7 years ago. This watch has now sold out, I do have a handful of spare wire bonded modules available and have now moved on to newer model watches like the TX which has just arrived in stock and is very nicely manufactured.

[@themaritimegirl]

+Simon Harris Hi Simon, good to hear from you. I still wear this watch every day, it's been half a decade now! Could stand a polish now, but still working perfect. The TX8 sounds like an impressive unit. You think there may someday be the possibility of variants in other display colors? I know you used to offer the TX watches in blue. I'm personally not a fan of blue LEDs, but I think yellow, green, or white could look great. It's a shame that nobody makes wire-bond LED displays anymore (and that the last ones made were rather unreliable), as I do love how they look. I'll probably keep buying off the remaining modules from you whenever mine fails, haha. You say you looked all over China for your stock of wire-bond modules... Have you looked at Russia? Russia made ungodly amounts of obsolete technology well into the 1990s, including calculators with wire-bond displays. They may very well have NOS wire-bond watch modules lying around.

[@officialsimonharris]

+themaritimeman Other colors are possible but determined by market considerations, Red is the most popular color by far, blue would be my next choice to do because the blue modules now are much brighter and more reliable than the ones from say 7-8 years ago but because they are such a niche product it would take too long to sell the amount I would need to have made.

[@davidalameda1]

How can I set the time in this watch?

[@AkaWilf]

I have one of the Connect Space watches with the vintage display and must say I am a little disappointed with its rather dim display. I returned it for inspection only to be told it was working correctly. However, I do have an original 1976 Saturn LED watch which is excellent, and even has auto dimming on its crystal clear red display too. This was an eBay purchase from Canada in 2004 and is still running on the supplied batteries! (Although, I must admit it's had minimal use). I still have my Trafalgar LED from 1976, but unfortunately it stopped working after I forgot to remove it at the swimming pool...

[@themaritimegirl]

Indeed, the vintage-style display is not terribly bright. Fine for indoor use, but can be hard to see outdoors or in otherwise bright lighting. The modern-style display is a lot brighter, but of course it doesn't look nearly as cool. Nice, I really like the design of the Saturn watches. The Trafalgar watches are cool, too.

[@jakupsundoe6226]

I think unfortunately the company has gone under, unless you still have contact. I found one of their driver watches online and the instructions say they should do both 24 and 12 hour modes but I can only get mine to do 24 hour.

[@JessHull]

Your review of the website is the best part, had me lol'ing.

[@ssnoc]

Great video, very informative - thanks.

[@CosmicKangaroo]

I wear a Casio W-800H watch, it's nothing too special but its by far one of my favorite watches, pretty reliable too. My last one (which was the same one) I owned for a long while (replaced the strap about once) until the plastic holes for the bar to clip into broke off. What do you think of the Pebble smartwatch and other smartwatches? these LED watches look pretty interesting.

[@themaritimegirl]

I have a Casio DB-36 which I bought new and wore for several years. I replaced the strap on it, too. Interestingly enough the aftermarket strap I replaced it with has held up much better than the original Casio strap. :P I have no opinion on smartwatches; I've never looked into them or read about them at all.

[@CosmicKangaroo]

***** The original casio strap on my old one the rubber wore out and one day half of the strap fell off and the one I replaced it with is still in good condition, although it literally feels like hard plastic from my years of wearing it.

[@MrPleers]

I used to have a Fossil LED watch. Although it looked realy nice, I hated the fact that it needed battery change every few month's. There is much to say for LCD. My Braun BN0106 needs a battery change once every 2 years and a couple of month's. And the display is always on.

[@manuelrojas7845]

Tengo a la venta Pulsar Led 14k de la Time Computer. Le he colocado sus 4 baterías y no prende. Lo vendo aún así.

[@Bluethunderboom]

I don't know that would be cool if they would manufacture the VFD (Vacuum Fluorescent Display) for all watches to see the cool color on the Seven Segments. =)

[@vwestlife]

Probably the guy who runs the company doesn't produce the web site graphics (or maybe even the entire web site) by himself and only wants to have it updated when really necessary. Also maybe most of his customer traffic is from the eBay listings, so that's what he focuses most of his attention on.

[@themaritimegirl]

Good points. I never thought about the possibility that he outsources management of the web site.

[@officialsimonharris]

+themaritimeman I did the site myself however I don't change it much because Google dropped me down the rankings last time I did so I tend to leave that site alone and also sell on eBay.

[@SofaKingQuick]

Good vid. Pronounced "Say-Koe' nor 'See-Koe'

[@manuelrojas7845]

Este Pulsar es con calculadora.

[@steffhamburg9031]

thanks man, great!

[@santioriginal]

Good and informative review of the Connect X-Ray LED watch and a good review of the website www.led-watch.com. I laughed! Not much has changed since then :) A few questions: 1. As time past on (februari 2018), would you still recommend to buy a watch from led-watch.com? 2. Do you know any other manufacturers? 3. Has the reliability/quality of the LED-watches tecnically inproved? (the reviews on Amazon/Ebay are not always very positive) 4. Is there a LED-watch that continuously shows the time instead of only 2seconds by pressing the button? Tnx!

[@themaritimegirl]

1) Yes. However, looking at their website right now, every model is apparently out of stock, so you might have to contact them and ask if they're still even selling them. 2) There are lots of Chinese companies making LED watches, although most of them are cheap plasticky things. 3) The ones on led-watch.com definitely have, since the modern LED display modules they use now are way more reliable than the old modules they were using when I bought mine. 4) Nope, because the battery in such a watch would last a day before it was dead.

[@santioriginal]

Tnx for your advice! The new TX RED LED WATCH of $89.99 looks great, a little costly, so must keep on saving money. It seems the company has a sister-website: the-led-watch-store.myshopify.com. Keep the good reviews coming! Edit: found also this website, based in Uk with new & used LED-watches: www.retro-watches.co.uk/

[@marcholbeck3286]

Something ain't right here,not by a long shot. Simon (the Connect owner who comments below) claims to have bought a quantity of1970s manufactured digits from China to use in these Connect watches. This seems extremely unlikely to me as China has no history of manufacturing any led watches in this period and therefore no reason to produce any components. Even if they did,it seems scarcely credible they would still have some lying around a quarter of a century later. If they did indeed make these digits then why not go the distance and make complete watches? Hong Kong and Korea produced led watches as did Japan in limited numbers and I doubt they would have been relying on communist China to supply them with digits. China was not the powerhouse back in the 1970s that it is today. For the sake of argument let us suppose for now that China did make digits for led watches. Simon claims to have purchased a significant proportion of the available digits,the remainder bought by Fossil at some future date, leaving no more available when Simon went to purchase more of them some time later. Why Simon left some behind seems curious to say the least as their value to the Chinese would have been almost nil and surely reflected in the price, but I will let that slide,but now comes the real problem for me. According to Simon,Fossil made their led watches around 2008/9,the inference being that Connect watches were first on the scene. This is complete nonsense and simply not true and cannot be passed off as a simple dating error on Simon's part. Fossil led watches all have a somewhat misleading 2002 stamped on the back cover but the actual watches were all made during 1998 and production ceased that Autumn. I have a pair of my own bought new in late 1998 and Easter 1999. Connect led watches with the old style digits did not appear until 2002, a minimum of 4 years after the Fossil watches had been discontinued. This delay by Connect seems rather strange even allowing for Fossil likely having greater resources to develop the module. Given that Fossil watches were manufactured in 1998 it is obvious their digits must have been purchased some time earlier and no later than 1997,given they needed time to develop the module for production. So when exactly did Simon purchase his digits? By his own admission, he initially beat Fossil to the draw which means his own digits had to have been purchased no later than 1997 and likely earlier than that. It also seems a mighty big coincidence that Fossil got wind of the existence of these digits at around the same time as Simon. My own Connect watch has a date of Dec 2004 on the actual module. It has the old style digits and I purchased the watch around 2009 on some local flea market and found it still works. I have purchased a second one much more recently from 2003 but this one has issues. The website deceptions cannot be any more accidental than Simon attempting to claim that Connect watches are older than the Fossil versions. The irregularities are at best designed to confuse and have existed for too long not to be deliberate or passed off as an oversight. It is quite clear and obvious that Connect led watches are all several years newer than Fossil led's though I really fail to see why Simon should seek to claim differently.