LifemaxTalking Solar Atomic Watch - Gents Strap 430

As others have said, this watch is a bit chunky sitting quite proud of your wrist and the strap is a bit short for men. I do have large wrists and use the second to last hole on the strap, but don't let any of that put you off! It's a nicely made Very useful piece of kit, easy to set up and great to use, highly recommended watch as far as I'm concerned, brilliant!!!

Good clear face to read,was unable set up watch via atomic setting ( signal ? Live near Dover ) set by manual setting.

This watch never worked properly from day one. I bought it for my 93 year old mum who has sight problems, and on paper it looked ideal. We left it out in the light for three days until we got something from it, and even then it was a whimper of a voice telling the time that you could hardly hear. After that it stopped working again and never worked properly since.I can't even send it back and get a voucher for my money as we gave it that much of a chance to work we let the time pass where we could return it.Avoid at all costs.

Super fast delivery time...Under 24hours!!! wow wow wow....Love the watch. Excellent face size, Quality leather strap. So comfortable to wear. This has got to be the best watch I have ever worn. And I normally wear Rotary. My eyes can actually see the time. The talking time button is just a Bonus. Can only compliment the makers of this watch and the company for 10/10 Service. Will be looking out for future products for my friends and family. Well Done, and Thank You for the high standards of this Beautiful Watch.THANK YOU SO MUCH.

Timekeeping is excelent, but so far it has not said a word!

I bought this item for my father after he suffered optic neuropathy leaving him with very low vision. The concept is compelling and needless to say, I would much rather products that cater for those needs exist than not. However, the execution of this product does leave quite a lot to be desired and it doesn't get enough right to recommend.Pros:Watch face design. One of the reasons for choosing this model (the 430) rather than the non-solar powered model (the 407) was the bolder hands and lettering. Indeed the design of the watch face is well executed, and my father has said that he is often able to read the time even without using the voice function. If you are buying this for somebody with some degree of vision remaining, this can be an advantage over the 407 even if you don't require the solar power feature.Cons:Solar charging. The watch comes in a low power state and the battery ships with a Medium charge. There are L(ow), M(edium) and H(igh) markers by the 6pm, 7pm, and 8pm positions to which the second hand temporarily moves when you press the 4pm button twice. The visual reading is accompanied by a series of fast beeps depending on the battery level. One indicates Low, two Medium, and three High. These beep indicators are not documented, and I learned this from a YouTube video. Useful addition, but I don't know why you wouldn't just have the watch speak the battery level. To charge the battery in full is no easy feat. It took the best part of a week of leaving the watch in window sills, under lamps overnight, and outside in the garden under the sun whenever possible. We very nearly gave up and assumed the watch was a dud when finally it began to hit the 'High' reading, intermittently. At first, the reading would show a full charge when outside but the second you stepped indoors the reading would fall back to Medium again. The battery level indicator only has three discrete readings and will not show readings in between. Therefore a reading of 'H' does not mean it's fully charged, but simply that it's rounding up if the charge is slightly above the mid-point between Medium and High. On first impressions, this comes across as if the watch will not hold a charge. Once we figured out the battery level was see-sawing around that mid-point, we persevered a little longer and after a couple more days the watch was charged long enough to "hold" a H reading. None of this was intuitive, and there was no guidance offered as to what is a normal first charge time out of the box. It saddened me that during all of this time, my father was foregoing actually wearing the watch in order to allow the maximum light exposure. He was keen to establish whether or not the watch was faulty so that if it needed to be exchanged or returned we could do that in short order. You don't want to hold on to faulty products for too long, but you just can't gauge whether the behavior is normal or not when it takes such a ridiculous amount of time and light exposure to see any change in the charge level.Atomic time: The atomic time setting feature itself also took a while to pick up a signal and to adjust the time. As I recall it was under 24 hours, but it certainly had to be left on a window sill overnight and didn't just find the right time after having been taken out of lower power mode. Once syncing to the right time, it ran fine for a few weeks. My father tells me that the time on the clock face has now gotten stuck on 1pm and fallen out of sync with the spoken time which continues to read the correct time. When double clicking the 2pm button it now says "UK time not set" which suggests the internal clock needs some sort of 're-syncing'. The instructions for doing so are far too unreasonable to expect of somebody who is blind or has low vision. The steps are almost comical and may as well include rubbing your belly and tapping your head at the same time. There was no way to instruct him over the phone so this is something I'll need to figure out in person when I visit. The fact that the spoken time is still correct is all the more confusing and indicates multiple clocks in play.Strap: We got the version with the leather strap and it was just too short. My father is not of an unusual size and has never had an issue with a stock strap before. I contacted the seller for advice about exchanging this for one of the alternative strap options. They suggested to send it back and include a note as to what we would like them to do. I don't consider that great after sales support though I am pleased they were at least willing to take the watch back. They could have offered to send out alternative straps, or a more suitable model that we could try and return the one we don't want. To have to send the product back and wait on transit time in both directions without having been given any advice to suggest the replacement would be any better a fit is rather poor. One of the things that hit my father the hardest after losing his sight was not being able to tell the time, so I didn't have the heart to leave him without a solution. I opted to buy an aftermarket strap and change it myself, thereby spending more money to replace a brand new part that the manufacturer just couldn't get right out of the box.Speech: RNIB recorded or not, the playback is distorted which does make it sound like a computerised voice. I'm not sure why a tiny speaker in my phone can sound just fine but the speaker in what is rather a bulky watch still sounds so naff.Distribution and support: From what I can tell, there are no resellers of Lifemax watches. Though you may find the products sold through multiple online outlets, these appear only to host the listings with the orders always fulfilled directly by the manufacturer. On Amazon, this is a little misleading as you see the seller as "The Good Life". It quickly becomes evident this is just Lifemax under a different name; exact same address. What all of this means is that you effectively only have one channel for after sales support and advice. I've not found Lifemax to be particularly great at doing that. I have contacted them regards the issues encountered along the way and whilst they do respond, they don't really offer any helpful advice or guidance. If their products were offered through specialist sellers, it would provide an opportunity for better point-of-sale guidance that doesn't betray an understanding of the market the product serves.In summary, the watch is a great concept but with flaws in its execution and setup/maintenance demands that are quite unreasonable for somebody who may be blind or have low vision. I find both the solar power and atomic time features to be gimmicky; if they were better executed they could in principle provide the user a "no maintenance" solution. That would be ideal for somebody with no/low vision and is indeed the value proposition of the product. However, that isn't really the reality of it and the user will need assistance from a sighted person in the beginning and thereafter if anything goes wrong. In which case, it would be a lot more straightforward if the watch just had a regular mechanism for setting the time manually and just ran off a regular battery that you would replace every few years.My advice to others: If the user has partial sight, you may be better off without these features. The biggest strength of this product is the contrast of the watch face and the bold hands. With some experimentation, I would think you can find a regular watch that offers a large enough face, bold enough hands and lettering, and with a good enough contrast to be a viable alternative. If they do not have enough sight to use the watch visually, then there are also better speaking clocks for home use which could perhaps be supplemented by a speaking keyring as a portable option. (Or just ask Siri!)For use at home, I thoroughly recommend the Communiclock from RNIB:https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0044D6X32/ref=cm_cr_ryp_prd_ttl_sol_1This product is entirely aural and has no clock face. It's not the prettiest object to have on your end table or nightstand, but it locked its signal quickly and has delivered accurate time pretty much out of the box. The sound quality is excellent, and it delivers the time in a soft natural tone with no distortion, and with an adjustable volume.Update: The watch had an unfortunate fall through which we discovered the crystal is actually a very thin glass. Shamefully, it's not even plastic which at most would have scratched. One drop and the face completely shattered and shards fell into the casing jamming up the movement of the hands. This in turn caused the watch to go out of sync and in trying to recalibrate the time I learned that you essentially have three different clocks coming to play. The talking clock, which continued to read the correct time. The internal clock which has its own record of what the time is and finally what the hands themselves actually show. I tried to follow the instructions to set the time manually and found that what the hands would actually adjust to had no bearing on the actual time being set. Fortunately, if you manage to get the hands to the 12 o'clock position (which did require a bit of brute force) and then allow the radio signal to update the watch then the clocks do all get back in sync. After getting the time sorted, we took the watch to a repairer and had a plastic crystal put in.So, we've salvaged it but unless the wearer has no sight remaining at all I honestly wouldn't bother considering it. I took my own advice and bought my dad a regular battery operated, manually set watch with a large dial and bolded numbers and hands. I intended it as a fallback to have at hand in the event of any further trouble with the LifeMax, and he simply wears that as his main watch now. I picked up this basic "low vision" model on the US site on a trip across the pond and it does the job nicely at a fraction of the cost: https://www.amazon.com/Ultima-Low-Vision-Watch-Leather/dp/B00IIOZE92/

I got this for my 90 year old dad, who has Macula Degeneration. The first one had to be returned as there was no life in it despite being left in daylight for long periods of time. The second one arrived very swiftly and we haven't looked back. This watch is ideal for someone who has limited eyesight. The only drawback is that it could have been a bit louder.

As usual Amazon came up "trumps" - the watch is exactly as advertised and very easy to set up so would highly recommend this purchase.The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars was the packaging was not up to the usual quality. I ordered this watch as a gift and when opened the packaging came in rather a "crumpled" state and looked as if it had been opened before I received it, but hey ho, the watch worked and did what it is supposed to do so bought an attractive bag to put it in and pressed out the wrinkles.