Super Wrist-Gadget

"Hm. This thing I wear on my wrist says they're not poisonous."

— Leela, Futurama

Items on your wrist are easy to access, versatile, and just look awesome.

Can function as any number of useful tools, like a communicator, a firearm, a light, a scanner, a music player, a smart watch, a portable computer, etc. Typically, this will appear in sci-fi shows as a device from which characters can access a wide variety of tools. Also, unlike a hand-held device, being wrist-mounted makes it "Hands Free", meaning it won't get lost, dropped or hinder the user by limiting the number of hands they might need in a given situation. Truly a remarkable device.

These gadgets in portable computer form are widespread on videogames, because they function pretty well as an immersive Diegetic Interface for the pause menu.

Compare: Tricked-Out Gloves, Comm Links (can be worn on the wrist), Gadget Watches (with other built-in special devices). See also Magical Accessory.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The Digivice -V- in Digimon Ghost Game, which also happens to be similar to the Vital Bracelet Digital Monster V-pet.
• In Dragon Ball Z, Gohan receives a wrist gadget from Bulma that allows him to instantly don a superhero costume, allowing him to fight crime as Great Saiyaman while protecting his identity.
• Several Magical Girls wear their Transformation Trinket on their wrist: Corrector Yui, Magical Emi, the Magic Star, Yes! Pretty Cure 5 (before switching to the cellphone-like CureMos in GoGo), Kämpfer, later seasons of Ojamajo Doremi, and the Frilly Upgrade powerup in Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch.
• Medabots: All Medafighters wear medawatches, wrist-mounted devices which can teleport a Medabot to their owner's location and allows for communication outside of a Robattle. They can also tell time like a normal watch.
• Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (AKA Battle of the Planets). G-Force had wrist band communications devices which also allowed them to change between their team uniforms and civilian clothing.
• The Peace Makers or PMs in Shimoneta are thin computer bracelets with a holographic interface that everyone in Japan has. Unfortunately, they're also equipped with motion sensors and monitor the user's online activity, as their true purpose is to inform the government if the anti-sex laws are broken. Wearing them at all times is mandatory, along with the slave chokers they come with.
• In Squid Girl by turning her bracelets, Ika Musume is able to alter her weight.
• Tiger & Bunny has the communicator which can inform the heroes for the crime being committed. The second season has Storage Bangle serving as Wild Tiger and Barnaby’s Transformation Trinket.
• The Yo-Kai watch from Yo Kai Watch, which enables the wearer to see Youkai, and to summon Yo-Kai that have been befriended.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Discs.

Comic Books

• Black Widow: Black Widow's gauntlets, which can fire grappling hooks, knock-out drugs, stun gun charges, explosives, and tracking devices. They were inspired by Spidey's web shooters in-universe (and doubtless out of universe as well).
• Captain Marvel (Marvel Comics): The Nega-Bands used by Rick Jones and Captains Mar-Vell and Genis-Vell to exchange places.
  • The Nega-Bands return in Captain Marvel (2023), this time switching Carol Danvers and Yuna Yang.
• Funky Koval: Funky Koval used a gadget watch with a blaster on one occasion.
• Górsky & Butch: When the scene was spoofed, there was no gadget involved — the watch was such a cheap replica that the villain fainted with disgust and fell over the railing.
• Phantom Lady: Every version of Phantom Lady has had this with each incarnation being more versatile than the last:
  • Sandra Knight, the original Phantom Lady, had a wrist-mounted black light ray to blind her enemies or make her invisible.
  • Dee Tyler's black light ray could do the same things as Sandra's and also had a laser blast function.
  • Stormy Knight's wristbands granted her invisibility, intangibility, teleportation and darkness generation.
  • Jennifer Knight's wristbands can do the same as Stormy's while also granting her the ability to make black light constructs. She can also pull people and objects into a completely dark extra-dimensional void called the Shadow Zone. People trapped in the Shadow Zone quickly experience overwhelming fear and isolation, and if left there too long, can lose their minds entirely.
• Quasar: The Quantum Bands provide their chosen wielder with Imagination-Based Superpower.
• Robin: Redback Spider's wrist mounted venomous "fighting needles". Inspired by Spider-Man's webshooters since she's a villainous expy of the web-slinger.
• Spider-Man: Spider-Man's web shooters are not just this by default, but some alternate versions of the character add extra functions such as alternate web firing modes ("Impact Webbing" balls, webs laced with anti-villain Phlebotinum, etc.) and the capacity to launch tracers (or fire bullets).
  • During The Amazing Spider-Man (Dan Slott), where Peter ran a company, one of his flagship products was a smartwatch-like device called Webware. It provided affordable internet access with clear reception and unlimited data anywhere on Earth and used nanotechnology to physically reconfigure itself to prevent hacking. It also had GPS functionality that worked like his spider tracers. Peter used it much like Iron Man uses his voice-activated armor to control the functionality of his new gadgets, suits, and web shooters.

Comic Strips

• Dick Tracy's 2-Way Wrist Radio, which let him communicate with his associates. In the sixties it was upgraded to the 2-Way Wrist TV (which added video communication and surveillence), in the eighties it got updated to the 2-Way Wrist Computer (which added crime databases, wiretapping, evidence analysis, a lie detector, and monitored its wearer's heartbeat to ensure that its use was authorized and to send help if the user got in trouble), and in the nineties it got a mini-CD-ROM player. By the 2010s, though, Technology Marches On and we actually have wrist phones with computers in them. After an attempt to update it into projecting holograms, the creators instead went for the idea that Dick went back to using the original 2-Way Wrist Radio because he likes it, and everyone else mostly uses cellphones.

Films — Animation

• Subverted in Toy Story, where Buzz thinks he has a wrist gadget, but as Woody points out, it's just a sticker.

Films — Live-Action

• The main character of Cowboys & Aliens wears one he stole accidentally from an alien ship (pictured), which turns out to be an Arm Cannon.
• In Elysium Agent Kruger has one of these, as a part of his gear. It lets him stay in contact with his handlers at the CCB (as well as keep him apprised of his employment status), it gives him mission-specific information, including where weapon caches are; Keeps track of his credentials into Elysium, serves as a mount for his flying explosive drones that will attach themselves to Human bodies and embed themselves in their flesh, before being remotely detonated; and it also serves as a mount for his handheld personal force shield generator. Other members of his team, Crowe and Drakey; also have their own versions of these Super Wrist Gadgets.
• The watch James Bond wears usually has some non-wrist watch functions. Lasers, the capability of remotely detonating bombs, mini-buzzsaws and high-powered magnets, concealed Geiger counters and miniature grappling hook launchers are but a few examples.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • In Iron Man 3, Tony Stark has adapted his suit to be used in assembling pieces, allowing the gauntlets to fulfill this function. In the later Marvel movies, he has hidden ones not part of any suit that are dedicated to this purpose.
  • During the Stinger of Captain America: Civil War,Peter Parker discovers that his new web-shooters that Tony Stark made for him can also project the Spider-Signal.
• The stun guns used in Pandorum. According to the Word of God this was so the character could use his hands for all the physical activity required.
• The Predator has a cool wrist device that not only houses his wrist blades, but also a nuclear Self-Destruct Mechanism. The Aliens vs. Predator video games add even more gadgets to it, such as a compact first aid kit or hacking tool.
• In Sky High (2005), Royal Pain has one that controls her suit (and the device that cuts off the antigravity of the school).
• Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams: Among various other examples on the series are the super-computer watches. Ironically enough, the variety of gadgets that were shoved into such a small thing were so extensive that there was no room left for the clock. The Giggles siblings appear later on with a Super Prototype version of the watches that do tell the time as well, but for added irony the watches look even more unwieldy.
• Star Wars:
  • In Attack of the Clones, Jango Fett uses a wrist-mounted flamethrower against Mace Windu at the start of the arena fight.
  • Return of the Jedi: After losing his blaster to Luke's lightsaber, Boba Fett reveals that he has a second one built into his wrist gauntlet.
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), Donatello has a wearable computer. Most of the components are on his back, but the interface is wrist-mounted, complete with a miniature holographic projector.

Literature

• In The Dreamside Road, Enoa Cloud tracks her Shaper training using a strange bracelet-like device, left behind by her aunt.
• In Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain, the Machine, an all purpose materials recycling thing, is a device that is stored as a big bulky bracelet on Penny's wrist when not in use.
• In Lensman, the Lens is worn on the Lensman's wrist.

Live-Action TV

• Doctor Who: Jack Harkness keeps his vortex manipulator (capable of teleporting and time travel) in a fashionable leather strap on his wrist. So does fellow ex-Time Agent John Hart, who brags that his is bigger. Jack retorts that his lasts a lot longer (at least when it's not inconvenient for the plot).
• The eponymous heroines of the Krofft Brothers production Electra Woman and Dyna Girl both had wrist-mounted ElectraComps, Swiss Army Weapons (or at least gadgets) which could produce whatever power was required of them to defeat the villain of the moment, usually one introduced at the beginning of the episode.
• The Attilan royal family in Inhumans all have wrist communicators based on some sort of memory metal, so when they take it off it can flex into a tablet shape.
• While in Kamen Rider the primary transformation trinket will always be belt mounted, several include wrist mounted devices, either as weapons or as secondary transformation devices to unlock additional forms or their Super Mode.
  • Most notably, Kamen Rider Amazon has bracelets as his Transformation Trinket, being the only primary Rider not to have it as a belt. Kamen Rider Drive has a belt and wrist device working in combination.
  • Secondary Riders sometimes don't have belts as changers; Todoroki and Zanki (among others) from Kamen Rider Hibiki, TheBee from Kamen Rider Kabuto, and Necrom from Kamen Rider Ghost all use wrist devices.
  • Kamen Rider Faiz, Kamen Rider Blade and Garren, Kamen Rider Kiva, and Kamen Rider Wizard all have wrist-mounted powerups that activate a Mid-Season Upgrade.
  • Kamen Rider BLACK RX uses a gadget on his wrist to summon his vehicles.
  • In Kamen Rider Fourze, Kamen Rider Meteor has a gauntlet that he uses to give his punches special properties.
  • Kamen Rider Gotchard wears a case for his Cards of Power on his wrist.
• Kai's brace in Lexx: The Dark Zone. Yo-Way-Yo!
• A lot of Power Rangers and Super Sentai morphers are wrist-mounted, though cell phone style came to be more prominent. Sometimes wrist communicators are used when the morpher is neither watch-style nor phone-style (starting, of course, with Mighty Morphin.')
  • Gosei Sentai Dairanger and Power Rangers Zeo/Chouriki Sentai Ohranger use two-part changers with one component on each wrist. (The Dairanger changer was later incorporated into Power Rangers Lost Galaxy as the Magna Defender's morpher.)
• Mostly averted in Star Trek. The only gadgets usually strapped to wrists in this universe are SIMs beacons - what we would call torches or flashlights. Communicators turn into wrist gadgets in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but go back to being hand-held in the later films.
  • Though let's not forget the alien space babe in "Spock's Brain". She has a gadget strapped to her wrist that can send our heroes into writhing agony or knock out everyone on the Enterprise with a single BOING!
• Chuck: Orion, the creator of the Intersect, has one of these of his own creation, which seems to have the capabilities of a supercomputer. In a probable nod to one of the Film examples listed above, it first appears in "Chuck Vs The Predator", where he uses it to hack a Predator drone. It reappears in "Chuck Vs The Dream Job", where Chuck's father Stephen uses it to hack the security at Roark Instruments, revealing him to be Orion. He later gives it to Chuck in the season finale, though the latter apparently forgets he has it, as it never shows up again.

Tabletop Games

• In Shadowrun Sixth World cyberdecks take the form of gauntlets with Augmented Reality controls.
• Warhammer 40,000: Storm Bolters are double-barreled versions of the iconic Space Marine weapon mounted on the wielder's forearm, letting them use their hands for other weapons or tasks (in Dawn of War, a psychically-charged halberd or a pair of electrified Wolverine Claws).

Video Games

• Assassin's Creed:
  • This is essentially what the hidden blades in the series are. While Altair's blade is pretty plain, consisting of little more than a bracer with a retractable blade, Ezio's gains a lot of nifty additional functions after a certain Leonardo da Vinci gets his hands on it: such as, a poison capsule for low-profile delayed assassinations, a concealed gun barrel for ranged kills, lockpick module, poison dart launcher, mini-crossbow, and a hookblade. Oh, and Ezio eventually started packing two of the things for maximum destructive power.
  • Assassin's Creed: Unity features a mini-crossbow that shoots KNIVES.
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II: David Mason has a wrist-mounted computer that allows him to hack enemy networks, call in airstrikes, fire grappling hooks, etc..
• Commander Keen's ComputerWrist. Even includes a small Pong game that's fully playable.
• Coromon has the Gauntlets, which are high-tech gauntlets used to manage mons and act as a Swiss-Army Appendage for traversing environments.
• The Fallout series' Pip-Boys:
  • The Pip-Boy 3000 in Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, and Fallout 4 are wrist-mounted devices used by the player. The Pip-Boy's uses include but are not limited to data storage, inventory management, topographical mapping, assisted targeting, medical diagnostics, radio receiver, and portable gaming console. In Fallout: New Vegas, after an unmarked quest connected to the quest "How Little We Know", the player can get the "Pimp-Boy 3 Billion" which is a gold-plated and diamond encrusted Pip-Boy 3000. It does everything a Pip-Boy 3000 does but with the added benefit of lookin' pimpin'.
  • Fallout and Fallout 2 had the Pip-Boy 2000, an older model which was also worn on the wrist but had more limited functionality such as the lack of a built-in geiger counter. Fallout 76 introduced the Pip-Boy 2000 Mark VI which functioned similarly to the 3000, but unlike both lacked any sort of mapping functionality.
• James Bond's gadget watch is is given a nod in the video game of GoldenEye, in which it is both used in-game as a gadget and is also the pause menu/user interface/mission briefing.
• The Omnitools from the Mass Effect series. They can: hack computers and enemy machines, dispense first-aid, act as variety of different scanners, incinerate hostiles, repair broken equipment, and send and receive phone calls. By the third game you can also stab people with them.
• Geo Stelar's Transer in Mega Man Star Force. A combination Facebook and email account, that also contains an antiviral weapons array and an alien Energy Being that he fuses with to engage in thrilling heroics.
• In the Metroid series, Samus's Arm Cannon sometimes has enough extra functions (from data ports to a welding torch to a grappling hook) to count as one of these. In particular the Metroid Prime Trilogy depicts the cannon changing shape and function based on gestures from the hand within it, and has a section at the back which flips around to reveal an array of buttons.
• That thing that Sonya Blade wears on her arm in Mortal Kombat can, at the very least, be used as a communicator, firearm and metal-cutter. One might speculate that it probably also works as a watch.
• MySims Agents has the F-Space Manipulator, a wrist-mounted gravity gun that allows the player to move heavy obstacles, bust open locked crates & doors, and place furniture at the HQ.
• No Man's Sky: When playing in VR, your inventory, build menu, and quick menu are accessed via a holographic interface from your left wrist, while your Multi-tool's functions are controlled via a holographic interface on your right wrist.
• The Poketch in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl might just as well be called an iPhone on the wrist, with all the various apps that can be installed on it. In addition to a clock, these apps include a device to check the status of your Pokemon, another to check the Pokemon you left in daycare, a history of Pokemon you recently caught, a markable map, a step counter, a sketch pad, a timer, a virtual coin flip, etc. If only there were real-life watches that could do all that...
• Practically a staple trope of the Ratchet & Clank series, a large number of Gadgets attach to his wrist, allowing him to swing across gaps, activate hardlight platforms and teleport. This isn't even mentioning Weapons on the wrist that can lay down electric fence poles or drop dummies with arm cannons.
• Your wrist-computer in Rama, used in-game to receive vidmails and read datacubes found throughout the environment. Also has a map which shows your current location.
• Several games in Shin Megami Tensei have these known as COMPs, short for 'COMPuter', a specialized terminal with a wrist-mounted keyboard/chipset and HUD goggles with just enough possessing power to run the Devil Summoning Program in combat. They end up being supplanted by more advanced (and somewhat strange and unergonomic) designs later on and by modern (often still wrist-mounted, for some reason) smart-devices most recently, until Shin Megami Tensei V ditched the COMPs entirely as regular smartphones now had the processing power to run the Program themselves.
• Sam Fisher in the first Splinter Cell provided the in-game pause menu with a dated-looking but very slick at the moment Palm OPSAT mounted on his wrist. The second game still features a diegetic pause menu, but this time provided by a hand-held Sony Ericsson smartphone.
• Splitgate: The portal guns are mounted on top of the wrist, leaving the players' hands free to punch, shoot and swing comfortably.
• The KI in Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, though in this case it's worn on the left hand, with a holographic screen to view data. Combination security pass, GPS, and camera. The online version of Uru adds more functions.

Webcomics

• Scale of Cameo Comic wears a wristband made in a Magitek world that can cover her whole body in an armor of liquid metal.

Web Original

• Phaeton had multi wrists before it blew up, the UDA salvaged some and called them wrist gadgets, now that none of them work, Trayen thinks of making one that holds his smart phone.
• In The Thrilling Adventure Hour, Sparks Nevada's robot fists are revealed to have this function, giving him a way to hack into computers if needed.

Western Animation

• Batman in Batman: The Animated Series sports a wrist-mounted computer.
• Ben 10's Omnitrix, an alien device that transforms the wearer into one of the million alien species coded into its database.
• Parodied in Futurama: Leela always wears a vambrace-like device, which is occasionally used for whatever a scene calls for—the most ridiculously being a surgical laser that reattached removed limbs. She calls it "this thing on [her] wrist."
• Partway through the fourth and final season of Kim Possible, the titular heroine gets a new Kimmunicator in the form of a watch. It even has a grappling line in it, somehow.
• The eponymous hero of Phantom 2040 has a pair. One contains his "analytical" (pocket supercomputer) and the other generates an apparently endless amount of adhesive rope for Building Swinging.
• Bob's Glitch from ReBoot, though it is strongly overlaps with Gadget Watch.
• Sofia the First: Protectors of the Mystic Isles have Enchantlets, magic bracelets that contain rope that can be used for a variety of tasks, anything from a classic lasso or whip to forming the frame for a video call or creating a cyclone.
• Space Ghost had his Power Bands.
• Both of the SWAT Kats wear the Glovatrix, a wrist-mounted item featuring multiple weapons and tools.
• In Star Wars: The Clone Wars:
  • Part of Bounty Hunter Cad Bane's original arsenal was a box on his wrist that worked as a communicator, a taser, a multifunction remote control, a flamethrower and some sort of pistol. After breaking Moralo Eval out of prison, he acquired another, bit tamer version, that sprayed stun gas to his opponent's face, and also worked as a grappling-cable-launcher.
  • Similarly to Cad Bane, the wrist part of Pre Vizsla's armor contains at least a flamethrower, a grappling-cable-launcher and some sort of shuriken launcher.
• Super 4: Gene's wristband is a portable computer with a holographic display. He uses it about all the time for many diverse functions, including an Everything Sensor.

Real Life

• Steampunks seem to have a fascination for cool wrist-mounted gadgets, from guns to chronometers to computers.◊
  • Cybergoths are fond of this too, though their tend to look less gadgety compared to Steampunks.
• Company Armstar produces an armoured gauntlet, marketed to body guards, that has a built in taser, video camera and flashlight. It now also has an armoured iPhone dock.
• Smartphone armbands turn your personal pocket gadget into one of these. They are usually sold at sports apparel shops.
• IT'S FINALLY HERE POST 2012 — THE SMARTWATCH. Basically, they take the CPU of a smartphone, put it in a digital watch, and make the display a touch-screen; it is usually synced over Bluetooth to your phone, and functions as a more comfortable way to access your phone's content. It's more of a novelty than a marvel of science — the technical state of the art was already well advanced enough, so the chief question wasn't really "is it possible?" but more like "will people buy it?" — but it should be more fun than something that just ticks and tells you what you can look at on any regular computer. As often happens in the tech world, its launch to fame was thanks to Apple, whose Apple Watch helped cement the smartwatch in 2015 as a mainstay of modern consumer technology.
  • Its roots could be arguably said to be found in the sports wristband — Fitbit was launched in 2007, and its high-end models already had Bluetooth smartphone sync.

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