This week’s Geek Weekly examines the Tesla Watch and its genius inventor crediting steampunk goodness.
It is important to keep an eye out for that which makes the inner geek sing joyously (whether to oneself or aloud). As a Tesla geek myself, this was a no-brainer.
Behold a Tesla Watch that has vacuum tubes on the face ready to light the way!
That’s right . . . LED powered vacuum tubes.
Anytime Nikolai Tesla – one of the world’s greatest inventors and minds – gets props it is worth noting, especially in the case of the Tesla Watch joining in to celebrate the man, the myth, the revelation.
The leather and overall design of the brass colored steel watch reflects the Victorian era that Tesla lived and worked in.
It is important to note that wristwatches were not a thing yet in those days, so the Tesla Watch is only a contemporary imagining and not something that would have been made in the times.
Then again, much of today’s fictional steampunk culture is about merging modern and futuristic takes on steam era tech so who am I to talk out.
Where Thomas Edison relied on factories full of underpaid, under-credited workers – one of which included Tesla, for a time, who made Edison’s DC power infinitely more powerful and was then refused payment and credit – Tesla formed some of the world’s greatest inventions, often on a shoestring budget.
The man made radio, wi-fi, and AC power in the 1800’s and was a modern day Da Vinci whose steampunk era designs were stolen upon his death with the US and Russians pointing to each other’s spies as to who got the goods.
But without a living Tesla, things like free telluric energy-tapped electric for the world, possibly transferred wirelessly via a Shoreham Tower, has not been brought into fruition.
Back to the Tesla Watch, we have a potentially great gift here.
To buy it for oneself, however, the ThinkGeek exclusive is asking for sixty dollars, which seems kind of steep to me.
What also gets me is the inability to invoke any good old-fashioned technical innovation to the Tesla Watch; I mean it runs on batteries!
With the watches that run wholly on movement of the arm, or the authentic for the pocket watches of the day’s windup method, there would be that antique feel.
Instead we have batteries and a cool watch key that is used to set the time and not wind up the gizmo.
Can we get a Tesla coil on there please?
Here are some specifications of what is included:
- Materials: 304 stainless steel case, glass face, and leather strap
- Not water resistant
- Batteries: SR626SW (minutes/hour), SR521SW (seconds), and CR2032 (LEDs) button cell batteries (included)
- Dimensions: Watch face 1″ diameter, total face 1.6″ diameter, 2.7″ tall including vacuum tubes
- Strap 1.2″ wide, fits a wrist 6.75″ to 8″
I still want one!
