The Vacuum Fluorescent Display Watch Is The Quirkiest EVER 

This might be one of the coolest things I'd never spend 400 bucks on.

Was fully expecting a price in the thousands of dollars. For $380 there's no way I'm not going to add this to my collection as soon as possible!

Extraordinary price and battery life: pretty sure it’s worth buying just for the WTF factor. Good find, Andrew!

I tried setting my A Lange and Sohne Zeitwerk with a powerful magnet on a stick and now it’s not working properly. Terrible consumer advice from Talking Hands.

Something out of metro 2033.

All the audio heads are losing their minds for this one. Query: dude walks into a room wearing a submariner. Another dude walks in wearing this watch. Who do you want to talk to?

I just interviewed an applicant to my engineering college. He built a watch that tells the time in base-4. Rather than numbers, he displays the time on a 4 by 4 grid. I gave him a positive score.

I think this is probably the only watch/time-telling instrument that I'd ever set to 12-hour mode. What an absolutely awesome piece!

Oh boy I want this real bad. Going to have to add it to my list. I'm a sucker for these kinds of things. While actually reading the time isn't this watches forte, I have other watches for that. And as a guitarist, anything with analog tubes in it tickles my fancy especially hard. What a cool little gizmo.

That's a tenth the price I would have expected tbh

Scientist here (or wizard if you prefer):

There was a wide range of novelty watches in the early 2000s that represented time in different fashions. This reminds me of those.

Only $380?! While it isn't my style, the wow factor in and of itself is enough to justify. I was totally expecting it to be priced north of $1k, so this is certainly a welcome feature.

I own this watch and I have to say, it is really impressive, unique and really fun to wear. Telling the time is getting easier as you get accustomed to it. Becomes second nature and boy does it turn heads and start conversations.

I fully expected you to say it cost 4 thousand, not 4 hundred!

I was gutted when I saw this, went to the website, and saw that they were all sold out. Fortunately they just opened orders on the next batch so I managed to snag one. Looks wonderful.

To answer you question your question about why vfd's are not lightbulbs, it's because they're not exactly not lightbulbs. It depends on what your definition of a lightbulb is. VFD's are similar to some things people would normally consider lightbulbs, like fluorescent lamps. Which work on a kinda similar concept. A VFD will have a cathode, which you drive current through and create electrons due to something called thermionic emission (just a fancy way of saying you get something really hot and it emits energy), and an anode, which is coated with phosphor and it fluoresces when hit with said electrons. A fluorescent lamp works by driving current through mercury vapor contained in the "bulb" which then creates ultra violet light that hits the phosphor coating on the glass and create visible light. The difference is in the mechanism by which the high energy particles of choice get to the phosphor material. But yeah, they convert electricity to light, and their purpose is to create light instead of like, heat. So it's basically a light bulb. On a side note, if these truly are VFD tubes, there should not be any gas in them, hence the vacuum part of the name. Just phosphor, a tungsten filament (probably) and a graphite (probably) anode. You're thinking of nixie tubes.

Doubt I'd buy one given how hard it would be to read/use daily, but definitely an interesting piece to see. Definitely keep reviewing ones like this...way better than another clip of a sub clone of a sub clone.

VFDs are so frickin cool. Vintage hifi gear on your arm. I’m in love.

You just keep getting better and better and better: "magnet on a stick" - love it!