At first glance, this may look like my seiko alpinist on a new brown leather strap but theres, something a little different with this particular strap, something that lies just beneath the surface im shane. This is relative time and today were going to talk about the strap, which is part of the timex pay collection, which is pretty much what it sounds like as it gives you a new convenient way to pay for things. You basically sync up a credit card to a chip thats within the strap, and you can use it to pay for things anywhere. You see the contactless payments symbol, its very similar to how smart watches or say mobile phones can be used to pay for things. These days, except this gives you the ability to add that to any ordinary watch, or at least any ordinary watch you can attach this strap to, and as you can see here, i attached it to my seiko ghost albinist now, because of this channel. I do try to keep up with new and interesting things in the industry, and evidently these straps were released sometime during the summer and i completely missed it. The only reason i found out about this whole thing was because i was perusing timexs site for their black friday sale, and i saw something that said: timex pay and got curious, and as someone who is a bit of a techie, i was curious enough to buy One just to check it out at the moment.
Timex only has a handful of different straps that have this ability, and there are a few watches as well that come with these straps theyre, also a bit pricey, no matter what strap youre looking at, they all cost 50 bucks and im the first one to tell You that this strap right here is not a 50 strap, if anything, its more like a 25 strap with a bit of technology and some convenience thrown in now. I can already hear some of you questioning just how much more convenient can this be than just whipping out your wallet and pulling out a credit card and, to be honest, not much, but the thing is. I said the exact same thing: when i first heard you could use a cell phone to pay for things. I thought it was kind of silly and pointless, but then i tried it and i found myself using it more and more to pay for things and, to be perfectly honest, i had some fun trying this out for the last week and got quite a few strange Looks when i was putting the back of the strap next to the credit card machine as the cashiers all realized that this wasnt an apple watch all right. So let me quickly go over this specific, strap and then well talk more about the experience and how it all works. Since these straps are a little pricey, i decided to order the one that i thought would be the most versatile, which was this brown leather number, because i was gon na test this on a couple of different watches over a period of time, and thankfully it does Have quick release straps, which also helps in swapping it out to different watch now? The strap itself is only genuine leather, but it has a nice texture to it, as well as some nice flexibility from the get go and on the rear.
You can also see sb foot tanning company, which is based out of red wing minnesota and is actually part of red wing boots and for long time, viewers. You might recognize that this is a little bit of a full circle. To my very first review, which was a timex that also had a strap by sb foot tanning company, so timex has had a collaboration with them for a while now as a source for good leather for the straps. The strap here is a little thinner than i like, and its also developed a bit more wear marks than i like in a short period of time, but i think the two kind of go hand in hand. Although the important thing is that its actually pretty comfortable to wear – and a lot of that is due to that flexibility as well as a slight taper going from 20 to 18 before you get to the buckle so id say its a good strap and i actually Like wearing it, its just that its not a 50 good, strap now as long as youre, relatively tech savvy, this isnt very hard to set up and pretty similar to setting up google pay or apple pay if youve used. Those the bad news, however, is that it does have its own specific app and you are gon na have to download that app in order to use it, and i should also point out that, as of right now, these only work with credit or debit cards issued Through chase bank, maybe theyll expand it out in the future, but right now, youre stuck with chase the one thing that surprised me was that the strap also came with this weird dongle clip reader writer thing now.
The first thing you do when you set this up is turn the strap over. You can see these little error marks and the contactless payment mark on the back of the strap and thats, where you attach this little clip thing right in between those arrow marks. After that, you plug the dongle into any usb power source and its then able to talk to your phone to complete the rest of the process wirelessly. Now you obviously have to create an account with the timex pay system, and after that you just add your credit card to it, and this is what takes the longest amount of time as it seems to be going back and forth with chase bank. Just to verify you are who you say you are once thats done. It then syncs up the chip and the strap to your credit card and youre pretty much good to go in order to use it while wearing it. You just bring this top half of the strap close to the credit card reader, where you see the contactless payment and thats pretty much it, and once you do sync up your credit card to the strap the app also lets. You know that its not actually putting your real credit card number on the strap rather encodes it with some sort of proxy number thats then connected to your account. So this way in case you happen to lose your watch. You dont have to get a whole new credit card and, along the same lines, you can also suspend or even delete that card off the strap just by using the app so on the off chance.
You happen to lose your watch, its pretty easy to remove your financial information off it and a whole lot easier than say replacing your watch and i think for us watch geeks were probably more inclined to lose our wallet before we wind up losing our watch. The app will also show you as well as notify you if you want any of the financial transactions that have happened using the chip in your strap, which could come in handy if you decide to buy one of these for your kids, so ive been using this Over the past week and havent had a problem with it, its simple easy to use, as well as being a bit convenient and to someone whos a bit of a techie. I really like the idea of this, as i think that contactless payment feature is one of the coolest things when it comes to smart watches, and it gives you the ability to add that to any watch you actually own and as a watch collector with a lot Of watches thats something i really like, and over the last week ive been running around paying for stuff with my alpinist as well as another new watch, i got now other than price. I think the biggest issue is that its all tied to one specific strap, but i could see myself putting the strap specifically on something if i think it might be useful for that particular day or even taking the strap along on vacation.
In fact, i could even see myself buying a second silicon version just for holidays, where ill be hanging out at the pool or the beach majority of the time, its easy, comfortable and convenient, although to be fair on most days, its not much harder just to whip Out a wallet and pull out a card use that – and i think that is really the achilles heel to the system at this price as its convenient but its not that much more convenient than what youd normally do. When youre talking about google or apple pay. On your cell phone, typically, you already own your phone, and you just have to turn that feature on, whereas here you have to buy a 50 strap just to get that ability and for a lot of people that just may not be worth it. So now the big question would i recommend it and thats a tricky one and i think it depends on who you are. If youre, not a big watch, collector or maybe just happen to stumble across this video because youre curious about these straps, then i would recommend it. They are a little pricey, but not terribly so. And if this strap is any indication, then i think they all should be pretty good and comfortable to wear it winds up giving you the ability to add one of the best features of a smartwatch to any watch you own. So if youre interested in it id say, go for it, however, if youre a watch geek with a large collection of watches like say me, then it may not be worth it unless you happen to wear the same watch to work or maybe to the gym.
That may be a different story, but if youre like me and youre not consistently wearing the same watch throughout the week – and you may go through a couple of watches for that period of time, the convenience for paying for things could be overridden by the inconvenience of Having to swap this strap out to different watches a couple of times a week, you could always buy multiple straps and then ill sync them up to your account, but after a while that could get pricey. However, for us watch geeks, there may be another use here, as i think these timex pace straps could make a great present to the non watch obsessed people in your life, because once again, if youre like me, you like giving watch related gifts, but not everyone appreciates Having a lot of watches so something like this could make a great gift and could go along with something that you gave someone previously as its still watch related, but its a bit techy and adds some nice convenience to peoples lives. One of the people that gave me a strange look when i used this to pay for something was my wife, because she didnt have any idea what it was, but once i explained it to her, she actually thought it was a good idea and wanted to know More – and that is a bit unusual when it comes to watch related stuff, so i think thats a good indication that normal people will like it and since this is timex, keep an eye on amazon and other local retail stores, as they may have them in stock And the prices may eventually drop and if they do, that makes it an even better idea and that wraps it up for today.
Now, as always, let me know down below what you think about this timex pay system and especially if its something you might consider getting for yourself or as a gift, and as always, you guys know what to do down below im shane. This is relative time.wtpBSzwxNQM
