Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: TELECOM Moderator Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Motorola Wristwatch Pager Message-ID: <10353@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 3 Aug 90 01:58:27 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 43 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 537, Message 1 of 11 It's hard to believe that after 40 or 50 years, Dick Tracy is still ahead of the times with his Two-Way Wrist TV. But arm's-length communications seems to be getting a little closer to reality with Motorola's announcement that it had begun national distribution of its combined wristwatch/pager this month. This combination will be sold for about a year by pager dealers, and probably by 1992 will be on sale in retail stores as well. This is a joint venture with Timex, and the product looks much like a typical black LCD watch, however it is bulkier because of the small battery which operates the pager for 45 days, and the extra buttons required to operate the pager. When messages come in, the same screen used by the timepiece will instead display the phone number of the caller on the liquid crystal screen. The unit will beep as loud as normal pagers. It operates on the Golay Sequential Coding and Post Office Standard Advisory Group Code systems, the two primary paging systems used. Motorola says they have targeted this new watch/pager combination at people who have never used a pager before. Motorola is actually second on the market with something like this: earlier this year, a company on the west coast called AT&E started marketing its own wrist pager, with similar features. With the Motorola unit at least, after you buy it, you take it to the radio paging company of your choice and they activate it, like they would any other pager. In most cases, the dealer or store selling the unit will already have an arrangement with some service provider, much as cellular phones are marketed now. The price is going to be in the $150 - $200 range, presumably if a deal is cut with the paging company. Now we can all be Dick Tracy! (Almost, anyway ... still no way to talk back to it, or see pictures on it. That'll be next, I guess.) Patrick Townson