What’s good: The HangTimer Sports Watch is a measurement accessory that measures your hangtime to the fraction of a second using an internal accelerometer. Features include a history of your last 10 jumps, best hangtime, average hangtime and a sensitivity setting (from 0.25 to 2 seconds) to adjust for sport and experience. The watch also features: Time and date, lap time and temperature all in a shock and water proof casing with a carbineer clip.
What’s bad: You will no longer be able to fib about how long you were airborne.
What’s the bottom line: With all the features included in this Sports Watch there's no doubt that the HangTimer is one of the most feature-packed internal accelerometer to date for the sports geek in all of us at a good price.
Reviewed By: Bruce Downs
Reviewed On: July 20-23, 2007
Of course, the attraction of the HangTimer is its innovative uses a Tri-Axis Accelerometer to detect accelerations that a person experiences when airborne. Can you say Trash Talking bragging rights? Ted Griebling, VP Development, summarizes the product s goal saying: We don t condone insanity, but we’ll time it for you. And I agree this is a “Must have GIZMO” for instant bragging rights, let the Trash Talking begin!
Design: Considering all the features that are packed into the HangTimer, you'd think it would be a pretty hefty Gadget, but not so my extreme airborne sports enthusiasts friends. The HangTimer measures a compact 3 inches long by 2.5 inches wide by 0.8 inch thick and weighs only 2.5 ounces and fits very comfortably in the palm of your hand for that secure grip while flying in the air. With that said, the HangTimer does come with a with a carbineer clip with competition lock for your belt loop. Note it is suggested on the HangTimer website the best place to keep your HangTimer is on your belt loop or in your pocket. I really like the look of this watch and it felt sturdy during our testing with its brushed silver and black rubber casing color scheme.
The display, the HangTimer features a 1.25-inch by 0.75-inch glass screen with an electro-luminescent display. This electro-luminescent display comes on when you press either button above the display works as a nice little flash light if nature calls you during the night.
Above the display are the HangTimer navigation controls, which consist of two plastic gray buttons, the Set/Select and Mode. For the most part, the controls are easy to use, though they're a bit slick, they're raised above the HangTimer’s surface so it's easier to find by feel. To jump from feature to feature you will need to compress the SET/SEL button then press the mode button which was a little awkward at first but after a few days became natural.
The HangTimer is shockproof and water resistant to 3 meters. It takes 2 AAA batteries.
Features: It's not hard to decide where to begin with the feature-packed HangTimer, but since hang time is its biggest draw, we'll start there.
Hang time: Comes with 5 sensitivity settings (from 0.25 to 2 seconds) to adjust for sport and experience and is equipped with the following hang time modes; History – stores the last 10 jumps, Best hangtime, Total - accumulated hangtime, Average – averages your last ten jumps.
Time and date: The default setting for the HangTimer is in the time mode showing hour, minute and seconds. Press the press the mode button to display the date.
Temperature: The HangTimer measures temperatures in both Fahrenheit and Celsius. By pressing the mode button you can see the low temperature, high temperature and the current temperature. It would be nice if the temperature reset at midnight each day but it doesn’t so if you want to see the low and high temperature for that day you will need to reset the low and high temperatures by compressing the SET/SEL button for a few seconds while in the low and high temperature mode. No big deal but that would be nice. Note, keeping the HangTimer in pocket will make this feature useless.
Stopwatch with a split time: The HangTimer stopwatch works as you would expect a one time stop watch to function. The stopwatch does not come with a recall function or at least we were unable to pull up or review the lap splits. So when you leave the stopwatch function the stopwatch resets to 00:00:00. Again this is no big deal because you are not buying this sports watch to function as a stopwatch but it would be nice to be able to store your last 10 laps similar to the hang time history mode.
Performance: We tested the HangTimer the Atlanta area using my ten-year-old son and our backyard trampoline. Before hooking the HangTimer to his belt I asked Mason how long does he thinks he will be able to hang in the air? He said and with a serious voice for at least 5 seconds. Kids! But with his answer I know exactly why this gadget will be a hit. The HangTimer will give users the proof of their trash talking. But…in this case it brought my son back down to earth. Jump after jump he was disappointed to see that he was not only able to hang for 5 seconds but he was not able to break the 1 second mark.
In terms of general performance, the HangTimer was very impressive and very quick.
After just one weekend of using the HangTimer in its various capacities--watch, hang time, temperature, and stopwatch we were very impressed and were looking for new excuses for how we can use the HangTimer next. Plus the HangTimer has replaced my Ironman wrist sports watch.
Cost: You can buy the HangTimer at www.HangTimer.com for $107 USD includes shipping.
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