Anybody actually following my SPOT adventures (all of the 3 people) may have noticed that I have been neglecting my journal here for a while. Never fear, I am still a big SPOT fan, and even have lots to share from the last few weeks.
About three weeks ago, my original Abacus watch died. I didn't even notice a large static shock - I was just taking off a shirt. Oh well, I thought I would just have to reboot it, as usual. I was wrong. I spent days pushing and holding all sorts of button combinations. I held the buttons until my fingers had little imprints of them. I left the watch on the charger overnight. I pushed the buttons while on the charger. No luck.
It looked like this time I would finally have to give in, and send it to Fossil for repair. Mind you, I had posted that I would do that about two weeks before the incident, but despite the annoying resets, I just couldn't bring myself to part with my only watch - I was too hooked on it.
After about 5 days without the watch, I was ready to box it all up and take it to the post office, when I realized something. While pt had posted pictures of the guts of a Suunto N3, I hadn't seen the inside of a Fossil watch yet. So I decided to take it apart just for fun. I put together a handy picture reference to the inner workings of an Abacus watch.
A couple of interesting things. First of all, a little plastic section that clearly says "Citizen" proves that Fossil's watches are, in fact, manufactured by Citizen. And while there isn't much else to see inside, the battery type and OEM information are informative. The battery also has a nice little plug connector, similar to many motherboard connections.
And that's when an idea struck me: why not disconnect the battery and thus perform a really "hard" reset. So I unplugged it, plugged it back in - and the watch came back on! Apparently it needed a full reset, which is what yanking the battery did. I put it back together, and it has been working fine. I had another static incident when it died and wouldn't turn back on, and yanking the battery again solved the problem.
Of course, I am sure this voids your already short Fossil warranty, and you could permanently damage your watch, so don't try it just for fun. But if you have a completely dead watch, and don't feel like sending it in, it's something to try. After the 5 days of being SPOTless, I was really happy to see the watch face come back on. After another 10 minutes the watch locked onto a signal and started downloading content. So far it's been faring rather well, too.