Oh, so you want a Casio Ring Watch, the CRW001-1? Ha ha ha ha! I’m sorry for laughing. Did you happen to know that they were releasing it to the American market on December 26, 2024? What time? Nobody knew. No emails were sent even if you signed up for alerts.
Where? Well, if you thought that the G-Shock website was selling this ring that looks just like a G-Shock you’d be as wrong as a watch that missed its last Mutliband 6 synchronization. The Casio website was where you were supposed to go. Duh!
And if you did happen to go to the Casio website on December 26 and serendipitously saw that BUY NOW box was active, and clicked, you would have got a warning that said it was not available!
Maybe you tried again, and got it to show in your shopping cart. Then when you went to check out you got red letters saying that well um actually the item in your cart is SOLD OUT!
You thought you were getting a Casio Ring Watch. WRONG!
YOU GET NOTHING!
Thank you! Good day, sir!
Metal Injection Molding
The Casio website has quite a write up on this ring watch. They spent more time on the promotional material than they did on making more ring watches. But anyways they want you to know about how special the manufacturing process was. Here’s a quote from Casio.com:
Creating a ring-sized, full-metal version of the Casio watch’s complex form is no easy feat. To make this possible, we needed to use a special method of metal processing to inject a mixture of fine metal powders and resin into a mold. Using metal injection molding (MIM), the case, case back, and ring are molded in one piece, with even the dimpled design on the band faithfully reproduced. A special glass adhesive technique ensures a tight seal for a watch built to be water-resistant while still allowing the battery to be replaced.
Stop the press! Casio injected fine metal powders into a mold! I need to update the wikipedia entry for metal injection molding, which states:
This indication of the possibility of MIM-casting, which was implemented by Dr. Raymond E. Wiech Jr. in the 1970s, who refined MIM technology as co-founder of a California company named Parmatech, the name being condensed from the phrase “particle materials technology”. Wiech later patented his process, and it was widely adopted for manufacturing use in the 1980s.
You thought that injecting metal powders into a mold was a decades old idea? Nope. That’s why your ring finger is naked.
Seven Segment Display
Forget dot matrix LCD displays. The Casio Ring Watch CRW001-1 has a LCD that epitomizes efficiency by displaying digits by illuminating certain portions of an LCD that has only seven segments! No wasted segments on this puppy. Don’t believe me? Read what they have to say:
Even at this small size, the watch features a 7-segment LCD that displays not only the time down to the second, but also the date, dual time, and stopwatch functionality.
Wow. Apple is putting a full computer on your wrist. But Casio is putting seven segment LCD on your finger.
I still want one.
Ok, I’m being a little facetious here. As much as I’m making fun of all this, the watch is cool and I did try and buy it. I like the retro look. And even though it will probably only fit on my pinky, I would still pay the asking price if it was made available again.
And what was the asking price?
$120.
Don’t scoff. This thing sold out in quicker than the button reset on the GRP-H1000. All around the world. Guys everywhere want it! Some are tearing themselves up for not getting it.
In an article entitled, “I messed up my Casio Ring Watch order in the U.S. and it sold out in seconds,” the gentleman who runs the G-Central website recounts the harrowing tale of bungling up his CRW001-1 order. He goes through all the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Conclusion
Stay tuned because maybe they will release more. If I find out more I will relay the information onto you. But act quickly because they’re bound to sell out again!