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Starfield Collector's Edition Watches Are Already Breaking One Month After Use

BouncyFrag

BouncyFrag

Member
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Matsuchezz

Matsuchezz

Member
If you like Bethesda games this is expected. Just wear it broken for another 40 hrs and it will grow on you and you will like it as it is.
 
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night13x

night13x

Member
If you didnt learn from the fallout 4 / 76 CE scam...well you had it coming and deserve a broken watch. Stop supporting their CE trash because that is all it is.
 
ZoukGalaxy

ZoukGalaxy

Member
And people tried to justify the outrageous and ridiculous collector price because of this "top of the tech" watch of the poor.

Big Mouth Lol GIF by MOODMAN
 
GetInTheRobot

GetInTheRobot

Banned
What is the failure rate? Saying "some customers" says nothing about if it's a wide spread issue or not...just that some products of thousands made doesn't have a 100% success rate.
 
Sleepwalker

Sleepwalker

Member
Its obvious that it's a cheaply made watch in the first place, cost them probably $20 on wholesale and they flipped it as some sort of premium product for $300. If you got swindled then that's on you.
 
rofif

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Team Andromeda said:
Always amazed by the pissant comments from people who don't own the games or hardware in question.

Mine is working fine, stardate SEGA Saturn...


VwlxitG.jpg
Click to expand...
People are giving you shit but it's your money.
If something makes you happy, that is pointless to other people.. who cares? fuck em.
We all spend money on stuff we don't need. I dont see why some of these not needed items are more worthy than others.
Have a good day!
 
Nydius

Nydius

Member
While I find a lot of the Starfield hate overblown (especially around here), the issues regarding the watch absolutely tracks with my experience. I'm just going to copy/paste my Amazon review that I submitted several days ago, before I knew this article or Reddit post even existed. I've included some additions in italics.
I don't normally buy collector's editions of games because it's usually inanimate plastic stuff that just collects dust and takes up precious space. Because this one's centerpiece is a functional, wearable, smartwatch, I figured, "Why not?" and took the plunge. To be clear, I certainly wasn't expecting some top tier smartwatch given the total price of the package and what it included but I did expect it to at least function properly.

Let me begin with the positives: The watch case itself is fantastically constructed and very accurate to the one presented in-game. It's heavy, secure, and a great display piece. Likewise, the GalBank Credit Chip replica the game code is provided on is equally well done. Die cast metal, heavy, and using it to provide your "uniquely encoded" game code is a nice touch thematically consistent with the in-game universe.

Unfortunately the centerpiece -- the Chronomark Watch -- has been a letdown. From its very arrival, there's been problems with it. The charging puck was defective out of the box and would not charge the watch unless the microUSB cable were twisted a particular way. It took two weeks to get any kind of response from Bethesda support on the issue. (Add: I'm still waiting on the replacement. I ended up tearing apart the one it came with and fixing it myself by soldering on a new connector.)

Although the watch synced to my iPhone 11 no problem, it's never functioned properly. It regularly locks up multiple times per day simply telling the time. As an example, one morning I checked the watch and it said it was 7:34AM but it was actually 8:45. About an hour later, it still said it was 7:34. When it locks up like this the only resolution is to do a hard reboot. I'm having to reboot the watch several times per day. Messaging has never reliably worked, sometimes going anywhere from several hours to several days without properly displaying messages from my phone on the watch face. There is no solution for this issue; Rebooting and re-syncing the watch to my phone does not fix the issues. It displays messages when/if it wants to. (Add: The weather function of the watch also repeatedly locks up the entire watch just by bringing it up.)

Then there's the issue that sometimes, after charging, the watch doesn't want to turn on its display. At all. It eventually does, but only after fighting with pressing the power button or doing the hard reboot sequence multiple times. This makes me suspect that the watch -- the display or some other component -- will die sooner rather than later.

In short, the centerpiece of this collector's edition is unreliable, flaky. Which is sad because the watch itself is very well constructed. (Add: I've heard people complain about build quality but I don't get their complaints; it's very solidly built and doesn't feel flimsy or cheap... unlike the software that runs it [or the charging puck].) Unfortunately, because I cannot rely on it to do the basic function of TELLING TIME, it's been relegated to being a display piece. A glorified dust collector. The very kind of thing I don't like buying Collector's Editions for.

A final aside: Bethesda's support for this thing is a joke. If the damage isn't "plainly visible" (which is pretty difficult when it comes to an internal microUSB connector or a software problem), they just close the ticket and do nothing further. I feel like I've completely wasted my money and have little recourse. I could resell it but I'd rather not saddle someone else with a defective item that wouldn't even include the game (as I've redeemed the code for my own account).
Click to expand...

TL;DR: It looks nice and built well but the software is crap, it's flaky af, and a $10 Timex is more reliable for telling time.
Since apparently some people dismiss criticism unless you can prove you actually own it, here's my hairy arm wearing the damn thing:

dEar51r.png
 
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Drizzlehell

Drizzlehell

Banned
Honestly, though, this is nothing new. Even back in the day I've never seen a collector's edition of a video game where the added gadget wouldn't be a poorly made and flimsy piece of garbage that's better off sitting on a shelf for decoration.

That's why it's so annoying that current-day collector's editions are so ridiculously priced. At least back in the day when I bought a crappy lunchbox with a tiny Vault Boy bobblehead inside, it wasn't that big of a loss because the whole thing cost me like 40 bucks.
 
R

Reizo Ryuu

Member
Nydius said:
the issues regarding the watch absolutely tracks with my experience.
Click to expand...
Have you upgraded the firmware? A firmware update was released for the weather support, maybe it will fix your other issues? Otherwise it sounds like the pcb itself is just faulty.
 
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