The Gadgets Page

You have been paying cable fees forever. You have been paying them for so long that the prices have slowly crept up for years and are now choking you at $130 a month. What if you could cut the cord and STILL watch live TV?

That’s the idea behind Sling TV.

It used to be that you had to buy a Sling TV adapter, but they have made it easier to get set up with them. If you want to watch the games on your phone or tablet, they have an app that allows you to do that without a DVR or television. If you want to watch it on your TV, you can do that with the Xbox One. Suddenly, live television is available to you for as little as $20 a month.

The only problem is the TV lineup:

They are quick to mention the channels that are included, but the channels that aren’t are quite popular. USA, MTV, VH1, BBC America, BET, and Bravo are just a few of the channels that are missing. Then, to get channels like The Cooking Network or The Outdoor Channel, you have to add them. To get as many channels as that bottom of the line TV line-up that you get with cable, you pretty much have to pay $45. If you want HBO, you’re looking at a $60 bill. And that doesn’t count the internet connectivity you’ll have to still pay the cable company.

Is Sling TV worth it? Yes. If you travel often, Sling TV is the absolute best way to get live TV. If you usually have cable, stick with the basic cable package and you’ll probably come out ahead.

Full disclosure: The author of this article is the inventor of the strap.

The DoubleTime strap is the only watch strap in the world that lets you keep the classic look and functionality of your favorite watch and add all the useful wizardry of the Apple Watch. You no longer have to choose between the classic elegance of your traditional watch or the notifications and apps you’re addicted to from your Apple Watch. With the DoubleTime, you can just have both all the time.

In the photos above and below, you can see the DoubleTime strap on a Yacht Timer with a 38mm space grey Apple Sport Watch with black buckle and lugs. Also shown is a World Timer with a 44mm stainless steel Apple Watch and silver buckles and lugs.

The DoubleTime strap puts your classic watch right where you’ve always had it in the normal wristwatch position, where you can check the time in a meeting without having to wake it up, and where people will notice your style. It puts your Apple Watch level with the flat bottom of your wrist.

All of the activity monitoring, pulse, and other health monitoring features work perfectly, and it wakes up when you rotate your wrist to look at it just as you’d expect. Better yet, your notifications remain private. In meetings with my hands on the table, nobody else could see my watch wake up and display notifications.

Available in many sizes, The DoubleTime strap places both watches perfectly on the wrist for maximum comfort and ease of use. And there’s no need to worry about scratches: Apple Watches are incredibly hard. In six months of nearly constant testing, including using it while typing on an aluminum laptop, my aluminum and gorilla glass Apple Watch Sport has never acquired a blemish. The Watch and Watch Edition models are both even harder than that.

The DoubleTime is subtle. In six months of prototyping and public testing, the only time people noticed the Apple Watch was when I deliberately pointed it out or they caught me taking a notification on it. At no time did it appear to be too showy. A black Apple Watch is nearly invisible with the black strap.

The DoubleTime Strap is built with the traditional look and style of a classic leather watchband, and comes with lugs to instantly attach your Apple Watch. You can switch your Apple Watch amongst any number of DoubleTime straps so you can wear it with your entire watch collection, and you can swap the original Apple Watch bands right back on when you want to wear the Apple Watch alone.

The DoubleTime strap is especially discreet when worn with the smaller (38mm) space grey aluminum or black stainless Apple Watches, but it works perfectly well with the 42mm Apple Watch as well. The straps come with smaller 38mm lugs which match the 38mm watches and keep the strap centered in the larger 42mm Apple watches. Lugs are available in black, grey, and silver.

The DoubleTime strap is no more expensive than Apple’s straps. Our Kickstarter is coming soon, and the DoubleTime will be priced at $50 each for those in the Kickstarter campaign. After the campaign completes, the DoubleTime strap will be available from www.doubletimestrap.com for $80 each.

Sizing the Double time for perfect is complicated because the center strap has to match the size of the wrist and both watches. To size it correctly, the website asks you for your wrist circumference, Apple Watch size, and the distance between the lugs on your top-watch. The site will then determine exactly which strap segments you need and ship them.

For questions about the DoubleTime strap, please email info@doubletimestrap.com.