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The watch that's built into the wrist walkie-talkie is practically useless.
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Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983
T e c h n o f i l e
XACT 2-way wrist radio is fun, but range is limited
June 6, 2004
By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2004, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2004, The Post-Standard
When I was a kid, I used to dream about owning a two-way wrist radio like the one Dick Tracy wore in the comic strip. My dream seemed to come true a few weeks ago when a company named XACT (pronounced "ex-act") introduced a real walkie-talkie wrist radio. I knew I had to get two of them right away.
The XACT X33XIF wrist radios turned out to be a lot of fun. My wife and I played with them and tried to use them for serious stuff, too. Overall, we liked the way they work, but we found a few problems you should know about before you consider buying them for your family.
The XACT radios cost about $35 each. You can buy them direct from the XACT Web site at www.xactcommunication.com or from discount stores that carry XACT products. (Use Froogle, the Google shopping site, to find other places to buy the radios.)
The XACT walkie-talkie wrist radios are a lot of fun. When you're within range of another wrist radio -- you're getting a hint of my biggest complaint already -- they work quite well. Voices sounded a little squawky, but they were still clear enough to be understood. By changing one setting, we were able to activate the radios by voice alone -- great for calling another bicyclist while you're out riding, for example.
You have a choice of dozens of Family Radio Service channels, and you can even encrypt your transmissions so others can't eavesdrop. We already own a pair of Motorola long-range walkie talkies that use the Family Radio Service channels, and we were able to talk back and forth between our Motorola radios and the XACT wrist radios easily.
We also liked the cellphone-style batteries in the XACT radios. Each radio comes with a battery charger, and you simply plug the wrist radios into the charger overnight. We were able to use them all day on a single charge. We didn't try the total hands-free mode, in which you talk on a boom microphone attached to a headset.
But the XACT wrist radios aren't ready for prime time.
For one thing, they're too big to wear on your wrist during your normal daytime activities. They get in the way. When I wore my wrist radio at home, I kept knocking into doors, drawers and family pets. At work, I had to stash the walkie talkie in my shirt pocket to avoid smacking the keyboards of the many computers I work with every day. XACT should consider making the next version of its wrist radio much smaller.
Another problem: The XACT wrist radios are supposed to have a lot of range, but we weren't able to reach each other reliably unless we were closer than a half mile apart. In many cases, we could have simply yelled and heard each other that way.
I was especially disappointed in the design of the watch that's built into the wrist radio. It has no date function and loses track of the time when the battery runs down and needs recharging. This makes the watch practically useless.
But maybe I'm being too harsh. if you don't care about the range and don't need the watch function, the XACT X33XIF radios could be perfect for keeping in touch during summer activities. And if you're like me and tend to wander into the gadget aisles while the rest of the family is shopping at Kmart or Walmart, a walkie talkie that's always on your wrist might help the others retrieve you when it's time to go.
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