The Uzumaki got its start as a concept by Firdaus Rohman over on the TokyoFlash Design Blog, and received enough community support to be put into production. Despite its dramatic, futuristic styling, the Uzumaki is actually an analog watch.

Two concentric rings are used to indicate hours and minutes, while a single sweep second hand rotates at all times. Adding further interest to the design of the dials is a unique acrylic lens with gradually descending circles to enhance its whirlpool effect.

The watch is available in either black or silver stainless steel finishes, with a green/black or a blue/black face. Another unusual feature for an analog watch is the electroluminescent backlight so you can read it at night.

Overall, I think the Kisai Uzumaki is one of the better watches to come from TokyoFlash in a while, sporting cool modern looks, but not sacrificing readability. If you move fast, you can grab the Uzumaki for a special discounted price of $99(USD) – now through 11:30am Japan time on May 11th. After that, the price jumps up to $129.

The Gravity LCD watch concept was created by Sam Jerichow. The watch has a small internal tilt sensor that will measure the orientation of the watch. This in turn will make the numbers tumble all over the place as you move your wrist. The numbers will fall back into place once the watch face is touched. A longer touch with half of your finger will activate the backlight, so that you can tell the time in the dark.

The design is quite minimal and sparse, but I like the overall look. This cool watch concept is currently up for voting on the TokyoFlash Design Blog and if it gets enough votes, it might be made into a real watch.

Designed by a guy named Lloyd from down under in Australia, the Hi-Five watch would incorporate a round LED display into the turntable section, with the digits being displayed like grooves in a record. The watch also would have a date mode, which is indicated by the red dot in the bottom left corner.

In addition to its novel display, the Hi-Five would incorporate an MP3 player, so it could both tell time and play whatever tracks you’d like on its virtual platter. It’s not clear if the LEDs could be used to animate the time in a spinning motion, but I think that would be a nice addition to at least offer that as a display mode.

While TokyoFlash already offers a DJ-themed watch called the Kisai RPM, I kind of like this more literal take better. The only thing not to like about this watch is that it doesn’t yet exist. If you’re like me and would like to see it produced, head on over to the TokyoFlash Design Blog and vote for the Hi-Five. Hopefully, that’ll convince them to put these into production soon.

That’s all great, but I really just love the look of this hybrid. It looks as if it just stepped off of the set of an old Sci-Fi flick. If enough people like it, Tokyoflash might really make it. If you want to vote for the Hybrid watch, head over to the Tokyoflash Design Blog and show your support.

[via Ubergizmo]

Based on a user-submitted design concept by Heather Sable, the Stencil’s case is made out of stainless steel and it comes with a leather strap. The LCD face shows the time in negative space, which can be cryptic when you first glance at it, but very easily deciphered when you understand it. The hours are in the upper half of the screen, while the minutes are at the bottom. Besides the LCD time display, it has an EL backlight, alarm and date modes.

There are two versions available. The normal version (available in several LCD colors) will light up the digits while the mirror version will light up the space separating the digits. Both watches offer a stainless steel case can be ordered with a black or white leather band. You can get yours over at TokyoFlash for $99(USD) until February 22nd at 11PM (EST). After that, the price goes up to $139.

Designed as a collaborative effort between Heather Sable & Samuel Jerichow, the V-BL47 watch is supposedly based on “Blutonian technology” from a vessel which crash-landed on Earth back in 1947. Left behind in the crash was a device determined to be a Blutonian timepiece – the inspiration for this watch. Heck, Heather even says she’s half Blutonian, and her given name is Hea’thër. Sam, on the other hand, is from Germany. Whether you buy the story or just like cool watches, you’ll want to read further.

As conceived, the V-BL47 watch would use a combination of LCD and LED technology to tell time. The glowing TRON-like display would use an always-on LCD to block out the appropriate areas of the display, while the LEDs would illuminate the display from behind. Additional LEDs would provide the glowing fiber-optic-like lines on its soft black silicone strap. I wonder if some sort of electroluminescent display would better provide the brightness shown in the concept drawings though.

At first glance, you may think this is another one of those difficult to read timepieces, but it really isn’t. Check it out. Each of the four quadrants on the face of the watch simply display a digit. The digits are distorted onto polar coordinates to fill a quarter-circle, but can be easily read once you understand what they each look like.

Simply read the display in a clockwise fashion, starting on the bottom, and you can easily read the time. Your friends, on the other hand, will be completely befuddled.

The same paradigm can be used to display day and date, and a tiny dot in the middle of the display indicates when the time is PM. Now look at the watches below and see how easy it is to read them?

I’m sure if you wore one, you’d get used to it enough where you could tell time at a glance.

Again, the V-BL47 is still just a concept – but a very good one in my opinion. If you’d like to see the V-BL47 watch actually get produced, head on over to the Tokyoflash Design Blog now and cast your vote. I already did.

The watch face displays four figures, each with a lot of random-looking lines and triangles stuck on them all over the place. I tried staring at the image and trying to read off what time it was, before giving up and just peeking at the bottom of the image to read it off: 15:23.

The design was submitted by Lloyd from Australia, who explained: “I feel this design would appeal to puzzle, game and sci-fi lovers in particular. It would also suit geeks and anyone who likes quirky modern things as well as thinking ‘outside the box.’”

Here’s the key to figuring out the numbers that the figures stand for:

If you haven’t cracked the code, this is how it was done:

Extremely simple, right? But were you able to figure it out on your own? Now that you see it though, it’s actually a really easy watch to read if you know what you’re looking for.

[via Tokyoflash]

That’s what I initially thought of Tokyoflash Design Studio’s Sudoku Puzzle Watch Concept, but you don’t actually have to solve the entire puzzle from scratch with the watch – just a small portion of it.

The design itself is easy to understand enough: the face of the watch is actually a digital display showing a Sudoku puzzle grid. At least two grids from each column will have two blank spaces each. Just fill each grid up with the missing digit from 1 to 9, and you’ve got your answer. Once you figure it out, read the figures from left to right to figure out what time it is.

The Sudoku Watch Concept seems pretty complicated at first glance, but it’s a whole lot simpler than you think – especially if you’re used to solving Sudoku puzzles. And if it gets made, I’d definitely want to get my hands on one.

[via Tokyoflash]

The limited-edition Kisai Optical Illusion is a touchscreen alarm watch, with time, date, alarm, and EL backlighting. You’ll need keen eyes to make out the time, as it’s hidden in diagonally reversed lines among a maze of confusing squiggles.

If that’s too hard on your peepers, you can just press the reveal button and the watch will show the time. It comes with an animation mode as well, which alternates between the puzzling illusion and revealing the time ever 20 seconds.

While it might not look that technologically advanced, the display has one of the most complex LCD screens ever on a watch, with over 1500 tiny LCD segments which need to be addressable by its time circuits. The watch is made out of stainless steel, and it’s available in either black or silver with a natural or green display. For the next two days, you can order the Kisai Optical Illusion watch for $179 (USD). After this, you’ll end up paying $199.

Watch designs featured by Tokyoflash are usually extremely complicated, which makes reading the time off of them – which happens to be the main purpose of watches, by the way – more difficult than necessary. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised when I chanced upon the Trax MkII Concept Watch.

The watch was designed by Peter Fletcher from the UK, and draws on obvious military themes as its inspiration. That’s pretty much apparent as it uses tank-like treads to tell the time. Unlike other watch displays that flash a series of LED lights and leave all the time reading interpretation up to you, the Trax MkII tells it like it is: with good, old-fashioned digits.

As the time changes, the numbered treads move into position. Just read the numbers found between the LED illuminated brackets in the middle to know what time of day it is – in military time, of course.

On the design, Peter explains: “I wanted to come up with a watch design based on driven belts. The first thought that popped into my head when thinking about belts was caterpillar tracks and what caterpillar tracks are usually attached too. So I decided to use tanks as an inspiration for this watch concept.”

Execution of this particular design will require a fairly complex mechanism to be built, but if you’d like to see it produced some day, be sure to cast your vote over on the Tokyoflash design blog.

[via Ubergizmo via Geeky Gadgets]

Just in case you can’t tell, the FOUR watch design is all about the number four. It was submitted by Firdaus from Malaysia, who said: “I was influenced by many Japanese Tokusatsu and most of them featured henshin gadget that are very futuristic and stylish. Inspired by the shape of digit “4″ and Japanese “つ” (tsu), I came up with this watch design.”

On the watch, the time is displayed on lines of LEDs in the following groups: 12×1 hour, 5×10 minutes and 1×9 minutes alongside the “4″ shape face and part of the strap, as illustrated by this image:

It took me a couple of minutes to understand how the FOUR watch face above was supposed to read 8:21. The trick is to look for the darkened LED segments and then count up from the bottom of the watch.

While I admit it’s a pretty cool and definitely futuristic timepiece to have, the way it tells time is way too complicated for me. Still, if you like the design, head on over to the Tokyoflash design blog and vote for it now.

It looks like a cross between a Cylon and some sci-fi robot from the 1950s. As usual, you’ll take some time figuring out how to tell the time on this thing, but it is just too cool not to wear. Its red LED cyclops eye even blinks to resemble the swinging motion of a pendulum, counting each second. The grid of lights that make up the robot’s body tell you the time or the current date. Rather than try and explain how to tell time on the EOBOT, I’ll leave it to Lloyd:

“Telling the time on this watch is pretty easy. The first 4 vertical rows of lights indicate the 4-digit time and date and in each row one of the lights is illuminated in either green or blue. A blue light indicates an even digit and a green light indicates an odd digit. The top light in each row represents either 0 (considered as being an even digit) or 1, the second one down 2 or 3, the third one down 4 or 5, the fourth one down 6 or 7 and the fifth one down 8 or 9. Therefore, the combination of a light’s colour and position in each row enables you to figure out which digit is being indicated.”

Makes perfect sense, except maybe for that “easy” part. Right now the EOBOT watch is a concept, but if you like it, hit up Tokyoflash to vote for it.

[via Ubergizmo]

At first glance you’ll look at the LED display on the CODEX and say “WTF time is it?” But once you understand how it works, it’s actually not that hard to read, and you can actually tell time at a glance.

Initially, you’ll just see a bunch of diagonal lines, but look closer, and you’ll realize that each triangular section of the watch’s pyramid-shaped face simply represents a number. When wearing the watch, the top and bottom sections represent hours, and the left and right sections represent minutes. Each number is just shown in a funky angular typeface, which is adjusted to the appropriate angle to fit into each section of the watch face. Look again. Make sense now?

Here’s a chart that explains what each digit looks like in its various rotated states. They kind of look like some sort of weird characters you’d see on the controls of an alien spacecraft, but once you understand what they are, they actually are pretty straightforward.

The CODEX watch was a collaborative design by a guy going by the name of Firdaus in Malaysia, and Heather Sable here in the US, and is currently up for voting over on the TokyoFlash design blog. If you’d like to see it produced, head on over and show your support.

For example, the watch above is displaying 3:45. Get it now? Fine. Here are more examples:

In keeping with its minimalist design, the watch face has four touch-sensitive zones – the top, bottom, left and right – for setting the time, date, alarm and light, all of which are activated by a prolonged touch. The On Air watch is yet another design which started out on TF’s Design Studio Blog, and based on a concept by Iskender and Adilet Asanaliev.

It’s available in either silver or black stainless steel, and in natural grey LCD with blue LED backlighting, green LCD with matching green LED backlighting, red LCD with matching red LED backlighting, or gold LCD with orange LED backlighting.

If you like what you’re (not) seeing, set an alarm within the next 13 hours reminding you to order the On Air watch from Tokyoflash. Wait longer than that and you’ll miss out on its $169 to $179 (USD) launch price, which is $20 less than its regular price.

In short, the LED Domino FX wristwatch sent in from someone named Lloyd from Australia will definitely not be for me. I think dominoes is a fun game, but using it as a design to tell the time just, well, makes things complicated. I mean, remember the Domino Clock?

But for the people who can be bothered to take some extra time out to understand how the watch works, here’s what Lloyd has to say about his design: “This watch design is based on one of my puzzle ideas and, although it looks baffling initially, is actually incredibly easy to understand. It is called Domino FX because of the 4 domino-like figures in the display. However, these are not really dominoes, but digital 8s with up to 7 spots arranged inside each.”

“Up to 3 spots may appear in the top half and up to 4 in the bottom half. These spots indicate which, if any, of the 7 straight lines that make up each 8 must be omitted to make the time or date visible. You know when a line must be omitted because a spot appears right next to it.”

Get it? Don’t get it? You might need to read his explanation a couple more times (and check the display on the wristwatch more than a couple of times) to get the hang of the whole concept.

[Tokyo Flash via Gadgets Matrix]

The watch is encased in stainless steel and has a futuristic touchscreen interface. It works with a hybrid combination of LCD/LEDs, so it will be easily readable during the night or day. If you need more light, just push a button and the LEDs will flare up to allow you to read the time. The screen locks after 60 seconds and can be unlocked with a swipe. It’s also got an on-screen animation and alarm clock features.

The display isn’t that hard to read. The outer ring shows the hours, while the inner one shows the minutes. My guess is that you could train yourself to read the time with a glance pretty easily. It’s available in red, blue, green, or “natural” LCD colors and sells for $149 (USD) for the next two days over at Tokyoflash. After that, the price jumps up to $169.

While I probably spent more hours playing this on my old Nokia 6200 phone than anything else, I actually remember playing a version many years earlier on my Atari 2600, called Surround, and then later with the arcade TRON Lightcycle battle.

The cool thing about the Snake Watch is that the same pixel block snake that you played the game with is the time display. Look carefully, and you’ll notice that the snake trail on the watch above spells out “12:45.” Neat. When the time is not being displayed, the snake moves around the screen constantly, to keep your eyeballs occupied, and to act as a screen saver. Not that I think a watch display actually needs a screen saver.

The watch offers up two types of digits – one where the lines are truly continuous, and another where the numbers can have dots in the middle. Definitely more legible, but not representative of the snakes’ slithering. In digits/dot mode, I guess this snake can jump!

As is always the case with designs up on the TF Design Blog, you can vote for this watch if you’d like to see it produced.

In the mean time, you can occupy your time with an actual game of Snake, right now.

I still think they were a marvel of engineering, and kind of miss the old clicking sound they used to make so you knew another minute had past. A few companies are actually making them again, and if this concept is ever produced, you could be wearing a flip clock on your wrist.

Designed by a guy named Gordon (sorry, I don’t know your last name Gordon, feel free to let us know), the Retro Flip watch is the perfect thing for those of you with retro design sensibilities.

The watch would contain a miniature version of that 1970s flip clock, set into a cylindrical oval watch body with a curved face. While Gordon has offered up the concept in a variety of modern finishes, I personally love the one with the burled wood finish. I would actually buy and wear this watch if it were produced. Though I wouldn’t look forward to “falling back” this week when daylight savings time ends and you have to flip through all of the numbers again to set the watch back one hour.

While I’m not sure of the practicality of manufacturing a flip clock in miniature, show your support for the Flip Clock over at the TokyoFlash Design Blog, and maybe if it gets enough votes, they’ll actually produce it. For now, just look at the pretty pictures.

A concept design by Peter Fletcher, the Turbine LED watch would tell the current time using a spinning turbine-like blade, with flashing LEDs on one of the blades. As the blades spin rapidly, the time would be revealed.

When I first saw this idea, I thought that building a motor into a watch to spin the turbine would eat up battery like mad. However, Peter’s concept incorporates a clever mechanical “pull cord” on the side of the watch, which provides its spinning energy instead of a motor.

At this point, the Turbine watch is only a concept, but if it manages to get enough votes over on the TokyoFlash design blog, it might someday become a real watch.

[Thanks for the tip, Peter!]

The Kisai Seven watch is most definitely inspired by Tron, and is based on an earlier concept design by Scott Galloway we featured last year.

It looks like quite an interesting addition to anyone’s watch collection. The inner ring shows the hours and the outer ring shows the minutes, in increments of 5. There are additional LED strips to decipher in order to get the exact time, but honestly, within 5 minutes is fine in most cases unless you’re Jack Bauer.

The watch is available with either blue or white LEDs, and Tokyoflash is offering the Kisai Seven for $99 (USD) for the through 10/28 at 11:00am (Japan time), but it will bump up to $139 after this.

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