The other week I was at Tyrone Square Mall when I came upon a kiosk selling “AIR Sports Watches.” The material at the kiosk made vague claims about “improving your game,” and claimed that the watches were “infused with Tourmaline and Germanium.” I wasn’t quite sure if this was an actual health claim, or just a ludicrously overblown description of the watch itself, because germanium is one substance that can be “doped” to make the semiconductors used in so many electronics today.

It turns out the AIR Sports Watches people are claiming all kinds of health benefits from wearing the watches. The company is located in Largo, and they do have a website. In particular, check out the “Features” page, which includes claims that the watches use tourmaline and germanium to “emit Negative Ions & Far Infrared (FIR), improve circulation & mental alertness, strengthen immune system while reducing stress, speed up post-recovery time.” I guess that it’s the “Negative Ions” and “Far Infrared” that supposed to be causing all those miraculous effects, and there’s even a barely sourced PDF explaining the alleged science behind them. What is completely missing is any explanation of how a silly little silicone band is supposed to be producing negative ions or infrared radiation! Even if all the claims about the health benefits of negative ions and infrared radiation were true (and a quick look at the aforementioned PDF should raise numerous red flags*), there is no credible explanation for how the watch creates either in significant quantities. Neither tourmaline (basically, a pretty rock) or germanium  (primarily used in electronics) have a history of being used for the creation of negative ions or infrared radiation.

I have no objection to these watches as sports watches, though at $20 each I’d say they are overpriced by about $19. They’re pretty simple watches, and the silicone bands looked low quality to my admittedly untrained eye. The makers of these watches should be ashamed of the quackery they’ve been using to sell these things.

*For example, the only American source given is a study that was published in 1996 on the “Certified Medinex Website.” Medinex was a website that was pushing its own “medical ethical code” for Internet sites. It is defunct now and it was never a scientific journal, so the citation is meaningless.