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Comment by peter303 | Hacker News Reader

I have had them for 30 years. They last on average three years. Three areas of failure:

(1) The black plastic hooks to the watch bands fracture. Superglue doesnt seem to last.

(2) The watch band tears. I duct-tape it sometimes. But that is temporary. If I have some bands left over from the other failures, I can replace it.

(3) In high humidity states moisture sometimes gets into the works and shorts the electronics for good.

Just buy another. If I see a clearance sale for $10 or less, I'll keeps a spare. Targets doesnt seem to have casios anymore. But Walgreens and Walmarts does.

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Re (3): there are a lot of accounts online of divers filling their cheap Casios with some oil or paraffin, so it can stand to be submerged. I guess that if it's good enough to stand pressure and coating the surfaces of the PCB to avoid short circuits, it's good enough for high humidity places. Maybe not good enough for soap and shampoo, but still a great upgrade.

I replace the watch bands with a NATO strap and fill the casing with silicon oil.

I’ve gone through a number of F-91W bands as well (never replaced the watch itself). Then I went for an F-84W instead, and it has already held together longer than any F-91W band did. Has a slightly cleaner look, too.

So you spent 100 dollars on F-91W's over 30 years. 50 dollars could have gotten you a watch that would have lasted 30 years.

Unless you lost it or damaged it (drop, water, excessive scratches, etc, etc.) or it fell too much out of style. I suspect most 50 dollar watches don't last anywhere near 30 years in real life usage.

A gshock would very likely last 30 years in pretty much any usage situation.

"Lost it" is a real life usage situation for a watch and we don't yet have watches that return back to the owner on command.

But you’d have also spent 30 years wearing a watch that looked like a ten year old was asked to design a super hero watch

Beg your pardon? G-Shocks come in a wide variety of designs and price ranges. At a glance, mine could easily pass for an F-91W - a cheap, digital watch about as far from pretence as it is possible to get. Durable, radio sync'ed, solar cell driven, and watertight down to some ridiculous level of pressure. Just about the most functional piece of hardware I have ever owned. The unflashiest of black boxes, just there when I need it, shows me the time to the second every time, no discussion about it. And it doubles as a signaler, a very neat expression of who I am or at least would like to be. I wouldn't swap it for a Rolex even if somebody gifted one on me.

> And it doubles as a signaler, a very neat expression of who I am or at least would like to be.

This is a lot of weight for a mass-produced, low-cost piece of consumer electronics to bear.

It's not a hard weight to bear when the intended signal is "I'm a utilitarian who prefers wearing non-flashy, reliable, mass-produced, low-cost consumer electronics"

Of course, every ten years you have to replace the battery, which you can do yourself, w/ an easy-to-find part. I wonder where today's Apple Watches will be in 10 years.

This is what I wear: https://slimages.macys.com/is/image/MCY/products/6/optimized...

In concession, this is far more attractive than any G-Shock I have seen before, and indeed if you put a gun to my head and forced me to wear a GMW-B5000D-1ER I would consider it only a minor inconvenience.

Looks to be a DW5600BB, I own one of these. It's quite durable but maintains an nice understated appearance. I wore it non-stop for about a year then migrated to an Apple Watch. The G-SHOCK keeps on ticking as a backup watch, though.

You're the real super hero for this comment.

I've never had a watch last more than 10 years. My dad has an Omega that lasted over 30 years, but it was a lot more than $50.

> 50 dollars could have gotten you a watch that would have lasted 30 years.

You're not counting new batteries.

It's true that you can buy a tool to change your own. But a small, rarely used tool is very hard to keep track of.

My only grumble is the LED backlight is too weak to read the tme at night.

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