It's Weird Alright, But Does it Tell the Time?

The Japanese seem to share a passion for all things gadget, especially watches. They've got LED watches, binary watches, LCD watches, but regardless of the technology used, all these models share a common feature: they're quite difficult to use and tell the time in a completely different manner than a normal watch would.

Quite a good example of such an item is the EG3 model developed by the Japanese company EleeNo and presented since mid-2007 by the people from TokyoFlash, as one of the most important vendors of weird watches from Japan. This time telling device (because we really can't call this thing a watch) uses a system of colored LCD markers for indicating the exact hour, but it does so in a very particular manner, which most users might find rather tiring and well...unpractical.

Thus, in order to find out what time it is, the owner of such a watch will first have to count the LCD blocks in the top row of windows, which will provide the hour (1-12). Then he/she will have to move on to the middle row, which indicates 10 minute blocks, and finally to the bottom row, which shows single minutes. Moreover, the EG3 sports a flashing EG icon in the central window that shows the seconds.

The watch from EleeNo does have a rather interesting look, despite its rather quirky functionality. It features a brushed aluminum casing and comes with a black polyurethane strap with a clasp that works similarly to a press stud. The watch measures 26mm x 36mm x 12mm, weighs around 50 grams and accommodates a maximum wrist size of around 195 mm.

The EG3 is available in 3 models, each of them having a differently colored LCD display (Blue, Red or Green). If you're a fan of strange and unusual watches, this thing could be yours for 9800 Yen (around 80 US dollars), which is a rather affordable price to pay for watch, albeit one that's as difficult to read as this one.

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