Review by Chad Joan for Casio Men’s WVM120DJ-7 Solar Atomic Metal Watch
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This is the second Casio Waveceptor I’ve owned. My first one, a WV-100, lasted me more years than I can recall; probably 7 or 8. That might just be a dead battery or something, but I figured what the hell I’ll get a newer model. I’ve only had this one for a couple weeks, so I can’t speak for its longevity, but it worked right out of the box. No hiccups so far. Also, the cool features are cool as advertised. The ones I like are that it’s solar powered, radio time syncing, and has handy alarms.

The metal band is nice: each of the segments can pivot in a 180 degree arc, thus providing way more flexibility than any normal human being will ever need. It’s also big, so expect to have to take some links out unless your wrist is hueg leik xbox (ok maybe not /that/ big).

I’ve noticed some reviews on similar watches noting that the watch has fairly specific instructions for how to place it during the signal update times AND it updates at inconvenient times. This one seems to have the same caveats. Nonetheless, neither of my watches has needed particular care to get the radio syncing to work. I suspect this is just an attempt at thorough documentation that need only be heeded when you actually run into trouble. These watches seem to have fairly robust radios.

Review by True American Patriot for Casio Men’s WVM120DJ-7 Solar Atomic Metal Watch
Rating:
I bought a Casio WV-M120 (Module 3090) from Amazon in December 2009. With its stainless steel band and bezel, it is very tough and in my experience over the past six months of using it, I am completely happy with its performance. After reading the instruction book, I was a bit apprehensive about warnings it gave about the radio sensitivity of the RESIN BANDED Waveceptor watches, specifying recommended azimuthal orientation and placement on a window sill, and warning of proximity of hills or tall buildings, etc, that could affect reception of the correction signals. In six months of use, I have found that the watch performs flawlessly, consistently.

Beginning at the stroke of midnight, the watch removes the ‘RCVD’ indication on its dial. Thereafter, from 1am to 5am, the watch can receive up to five correction signals until one is successful. My watch has performed this routine successfully every night, without my giving it any special placement or any conscientious attention at all. It is fully and completely automatic. I always sleep wearing the watch, and every morning I see from the ‘RCVD’ indication on the dial that it has set itself to within a micro-second of the correct time. My bedroom is upstairs, on the N side of a 102-year-old frame house with a shake roof, nestled at the foot of 3 steep hills to the S, W, and N, with only the E facing clear to the river bend 500 feet away and, beyond, more steep high hills 2,500 ft E of the river. The point is that my Waveceptor always receives the signals at maximum level as indicated on its dial, and it has done this every night when reception begins, even though surrounded by hills, and 8 feet away from the nearest window. That stainless steel band and case definitely helps reception. I live in the Pacific NW, very close to the ocean, about 1,000 miles from Ft. Collins, Colorado, where the time correction signals are broadcast. When the watch arrived, the battery charge indicator on the dial was reading Medium, because it had been in total darkness in its box since manufacture, with no exposure to light. The watch will charge the battery via its solar cell even under a flourescent desk lamp, but it will charge 100+ times faster under direct (not through a window pane) sunlight, so I placed it outside for a couple of hours, and the indicator went to full charge in just a couple of hours. From a fully charged battery the watch will run for 8 months before the battery is completely discharged, even if it is kept in total darkness. Wearing it outside on bright sunny days, if the watch is not always covered by your sleeve, it should continue to keep itself fully charged until the rechargeable battery wears out, which should not happen for ten years or more. I write this because I have an old Casio watch in my desk drawer that has one worn out button, and that single bad button requires me to open the case and short out the contacts inside the case to reset the time and date, because that time-setting button no longer works with the case closed. But that watch is more than ten years old, and is still running on its original battery, showing a good strong display, even though it does not show the correct time. I can’t change its settings without taking the case apart, which I did for two years when I wanted to change it from standard to daylight time. Since I no longer bother to open the case, it now runs 6 minutes fast. That is the watch I was using before I bought the Waveceptor. The Waveceptor can even be set to automatically turn on the dial light with a flick of your wrist, so there is no reason to use the buttons at all once it is set to your time zone and 24-hour display if you want it.