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The Worst Gadgets of All Time 16

by Tom Samiljan on August 13, 2008 at 12:01 AM



MSN Direct 'Smart' Watches

Where gadgets are concerned, 'smart' usually means 'dumb,' and the supposedly smart watches by Suunto and Fossil were no exception. Launched in 2004 and powered by the wireless info-delivery service MSN Direct, the Smart watches displayed everything from horoscopes and weather to stock quotes and news on their oversized, LED displays -- for $59.95 a year. Ultimately, we'd have braked for a Dick-Tracy-style watch that played video, but not for the merely text-based information available here, which, we might add, was a pain to scroll through and hard to access, given the two or three buttons on the side of the watches and the relatively small space on the display. Also, we'd rather just get all that stuff from our cell phones. Last year, both Suunto and Fossil stopped making new Smart watches, though MSN Direct is still around and being utilized for better purposes such as GPS device updates.

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