It’s not like we haven’t seen e-ink watches before, but we’ve never seen one quite like this. FES Watch uses e-paper not only for its face, but its entire strap, allowing the wearer to change its design with a simple button press. By combining different upper- and lower-strap choices with a variety of face designs, you’ll have a total of 24 designs to choose from. This isn’t a smartwatch (it won’t do anything other than tell you the time and date), but thanks to that fact, it’ll last around two months on a single charge.
FES Watch is currently being funded on Makuake, a Japanese crowdfunding site for startups. It’s actually the second such campaign: its makers successfully raised 2.7 million Yen (about $23,000) back in September, but are back again by popular demand asking for a further 1 million Yen ($8,400). So far they’ve reached about 40 percent of that goal, and with 98 days left to run on the campaign it seems likely to be another success. Unfortunately, only local residents can pledge, so unless you have a friend in Japan willing to ship you one (and $167 to spare), you’ll have to admire FES Watch from afar.