TI Meta watch for $50 (RRP $200)!

[microbug]

The final part of the MSP430 blog back to school sale is here!. At first I felt pretty hacked off at this having bought a Chronos a few days ago. It almost seems too good to be true in terms of price - if they can afford to sell it at this price then they have at least 300% markup the rest of the time!
I was going to get it but when I looked into it, I realised you need Code Composer Studio Platuinum to program the actual watch with custom firmware, and that is in the hundreds of dollars range. For the Chronos there is an open source alternative but seemingly not for this.
Anyone have one of these?

[Dongulus]

I didn't realized that it required the platinum version of CCS for programming. Maybe they're hoping to make up for losses in selling the hardware at such a low price by forcing people to purchase CCS.

I didn't buy because I don't like the look of the watch face and I also would want more to work with than just the two small text displays. If I were interested in getting a smart watch, this certainly wouldn't be the one, even at such a discounted price.

[Fraser]

I read the developer forum and realised that the watch has little flash memory available for new firmware/re-purposing and is really designed as an 'alternative display' for devices such as mobile phones. From what was said, the unit is not really designed to be a development platform in itself. A bit of a disappointment to many, but a clever auxiliary display device all the same.

[MacAttak]

The $200 version is considerably different. http://www.metawatch.com/collection

[Dongulus]

The TI store also has this model which appears to be the Metawatch Frame available for $200. I would have bought this one if it had been on sale instead.

[Fraser]

Yes the 'Frame' looks much more useful in terms of data presentation.
How long before regular watch manufacturers start to produce watches that marry to personal electronic devices ? At the present rate of mobility solutions I don't think it will be long at all.

Isn't Apple marketing a clever watch at the moment ?

[mrflibble]

The TI store also has this model which appears to be the Metawatch Frame available for $200. I would have bought this one if it had been on sale instead.

Indeed. I was hoping for TI to have that one on sale, what with the nice mirror polymer lcd display. That one I would have grabbed for $50.  But nooooo, they had to have the doesnt-have-a-decent-display-and-also-is-butt-ugly model on sale. Ah well, that's $50 budget for another devkit. 

[Dongulus]

Samsung beat Apple to the punch. Their watch will be coming out next month for $300, and Apple hasn't given word when they plan to have theirs available. Soon available is the Kickstarter success, pebble, and Sony already has their SmartWatch available and a new one on the way.

Not sure how I feel about smart watches just yet. I expect that I'll eventually come around to get one but $300 is definitely unjustifiable for what is essentially access to information in a slightly easier manner than simply pulling my phone out of my pocket.