How a $5 Watch Proved to be a Solar-powered Fashion Staple

When it comes to indispensable items, sometimes it’s the most simple item that turns out to be the most beneficial. For me, it’s a trusty watch that I’ve had for the past eight years.

You might say, "What? It's just a watch."

True, it’s just a watch, but it’s one that has a special history for me. I’m the kind of guy who likes a good deal. I rummage through sites like Slickdeals and FatWallet looking for hot deals on a daily basis. One day about eight years ago, I came across a deal for a Pulsar watch that was regularly priced at around $90. It was somehow either on a steep clearance or simply priced in error at around $5 at Overstock.com.

I placed the order and never thought that it would actually ship out, because pricing errors rarely slip through the cracks. To my surprise, it showed up a few days later as promised. It’s nothing special—just a stainless steel watch that is waterproof to 100 meters. It has no numbers on its face, only hash marks every five minutes, an hour hand, a minute hand and a dial which shows the day of the month.

But is also has a feature that, surprisingly, became my favorite of any watch I’ve ever owned: a solar panel on the face of the watch. Because of this, the watch can recharge its tiny battery using standard interior lighting or light from the sun. As a result, I’ve never had to change the battery once in my eight years of having the watch. In fact, the only time I even have to fiddle with the watch is when Daylight Savings Time comes and goes twice a year.

Being a tech head, I’ve had numerous watches in my three decades on this planet. When I was a child, I was enamored with LCD watches with numerous functions like stopwatches and Indiglo backlighting. As I came into my teen years, calculator watches were all the rage.

But now, as I find myself getting older and just a tiny bit more portly, I find comfort in a simple watch that gets me to meetings on time, requires very little intervention on my part, and looks equally stylish with a suit, a pair of blue jeans or cargo shorts.

Sometimes simple is better.