Registered: Dec 1999
Location:
Posts: 54

Don't you wish you had a way to hear your palm alarms no matter where your palm PDA was?("Visor" brand of course)

Like when you leave it in your coat or purse or on the counter at home, etc.

Well here's an idea that if I had the time and more importantly the palm programming language experience that could really make this possible.

How about a program that extracts the datebook events and any other upcomming alarm events and beams them to a TIMEX Data Link watch! Then when your Visor is not nearby or even when it is in your case on your belt (where mine usually is and I still can't hear the alarms), you would then hear the alarm from your watch and text to describe the alarm.

I have some definite Ideas as to how to make this workable... please E-mail me if you have the time and knowledge. P.S. I know of several web sites that break down the protocol used to talk to the watch.

You could quickly update your watch any time you create a calendar event with an alarm or say on a weekly basis and never miss another alarm.

Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Metro Station, Hollywood and Highland
Posts: 1018

You could probably save a step by using Casio's PC Unite watch, which synchs with PalmOS and (surprise!) Casseopia PDAs.

Registered: Dec 1999
Location:
Posts: 54

Do you have this "pc unite" watch?
Does it allow you to transfer alarms to the watch?
Please elaborate on its capabilities...

I still am interested in the Timex data link option...

It is cheaper, approx $45 at walmart for iron man data link. (there are other datalink models also)

Thanks

Anyone else have comments or suggestions or ideas on how not to miss PDA alarms?

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Metro Station, Hollywood and Highland
Posts: 1018

I don't have the watch myself, but VC member John Nowak purchased the watch and reviewed it pretty thoroughly in the "Casio digital watch with IR port" thread. The link in my first post is Casio's page on the PC Unite, which gives all the specs. I would assume that it does allow you to transfer alarms to the watch, but I can't say that from personal experience.

Registered: Dec 1999
Location:
Posts: 54

If anyone is interested here is one web site containing many links to information about the protocol for the Timex DataLink watches...

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Garage/7926/

Anyone else out there have this same concern/desire to make palm alarms more reliable?

Even the ladies could make the smaller datalink watch into a "necklace" (worn under the clothing if desired) and then could still hear and respond to alarms when their PDA is in their purse (havent seen too many ladies wearing their PDA on their belt!

Registered: Mar 2000
Location: Louisville KY, USA
Posts: 43

hmmmmm

I actually own both a Visor and a Datalink watch, and I don't think it's viable to beam information from the Visor to the watch for the following reason.

The program used to move information to the watch doesn't discriminate. It beams every address, phone number, and appointment, to the watch every single time you want to make a change. Which is fine, it only takes a minute or two to do this. But beaming stuff from the Visor? If you wanted to keep your phone number list in your watch (which I do, I always have my watch on me, I don't always carry my Visor) The Visor would have to connect to your address book, and to do list, and appointments and convert them (shorten them, the datalink lines are a lot shorter) in order to follow the protocols and "completely" transmit all information to the watch every single time. If you were to "only" transmit the alarms, presumably from your calendar, I think that the datalink would loose all other info, such as phone numbers and your to do list.

Just my two cents worth

__________________
There has never been a winner who hasn't fallen, there's never been a loser that got back up.

Dave

Registered: Dec 1999
Location:
Posts: 54

Thanks for your insight on the timex datalink.

Wouldn't it be possible to have an app that extracted the first 8 or 16 characters of the alarm desc. and beam the alarms over to the watch?

As I look at the timex protocol as described in some of the links in the above URL link, I am sure that any competent programmer could make this possible with check boxes for beaming to-do's and phone #'s.

What I really want is to have a better alarm system, I am not so concerned by todo's and phone #'s.

Let's hear from you ladies... what do you do when your PDA is in your purse and an alarm goes off? Miss it?

Registered: Jan 2000
Location:
Posts: 100

nitehawk asked:
"Let's hear from you ladies... what do you do when your PDA is in your purse and an alarm goes off? Miss it?"

Yes, all the time. What's worse, I've talked to the folks at RhinoSkin about providing small D-rings on their RhinoPak cases so women could wear the cases like small "purses" across their chest and slung low, and the feedback I got at the time was that they weren't really going in that direction. ("Hello! How hard is it to add two tiny D-rings on your RhinoPak and charge extra for a thin shoulder strap???").

Since I maintain a Web site on how to pack for travel, I evaluate a LOT of bags (on my own dime, BTW)... and something like that would go a long way to help provide carrying cases for women. I have already gone through five different cases for my Visor because I'm still looking for one I can use and keep on a long-term basis. You can find similar things for cell phones (example: the Klisa, at http://www.klisa.com) but none for PDAs.

Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Mountain View, CA
Posts: 211

I have em'

I have one of the PC Unite Watches and it works great, I can beam my adresses, memos, todos, and my appointments to my watch and never miss a thing. (Yes it does have an alarm) It's got nice buttons on the face that go to schedule and adresses in an instant which makes getting info really quick & Easy. It's got some other things like time zones and a stopwatch. all in all it's great and I'd reccommend it for any visor (Or Palm) user. My only complaint though is the Backlight doesn't stay on long enough, so I can't use it as a flashlight . Oh, BTW I have also had the Timex Data Link and It is pretty good too but you need to insert information manually with their computer program, you can't just, 'beam it over' like with the PC Unite. Hope This Helps.

Registered: Nov 1999
Location: Redwood City CA
Posts: 472

quote:

---

Originally posted by nitehawk
How about a program that extracts the datebook events and any other upcomming alarm events and beams them to a TIMEX Data Link watch!

---

Registered: Dec 1999
Location:
Posts: 54

True, it does responde to a "flashing vga screen" but for laptop computers there is an LED addon module that does the communication... from my research I'm pretty sure that it will also see an IR LED.

Registered: Mar 2000
Location: Connecticut
Posts: 121

Aside from the watch ideas, I've found it helpful to have different alarm sounds. I picked up GeekSounds from http://www.freewarepalm.com. It has lots of alarms and most of them are unique and much longer in duration than the default alarms. I'm much more likely to hear the Battlestar Gallactica themesong than the beep-beep of the regular alarm. As for the watch ideas, I have a Datalink and if it's really that important, I'll just manually set a new alarm. I just don't see a need to sync my Visor with my watch. Just my $.02.

__________________
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice...

Registered: Jan 2000
Location:
Posts: 61

quote:

---

Originally posted by nitehawk
True, it does responde to a "flashing vga screen" but for laptop computers there is an LED addon module that does the communication... from my research I'm pretty sure that it will also see an IR LED.

---