Digital Watches

Popularised heavily a few decades ago, the digital watch is still a popular style of watch today. Some digital watches are seen as retro fashion icons, while others are purchased for their functionality. A digital watch makes for an excellent chronograph, and brands such as Casio and Diesel use the digital watch for some of their flagship products. At Watch Shop UK we stock both cheap and more expensive digital watches for both gents and ladies.

More recently, newer LED watches have been produced by leading brands such as Tokyo Flash.

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Digital Watches
Before the 1950s, no one would have imagined that a watch worn around the wrist could display electrical figures rather than the traditional dial. Yet, the Hamilton Watch Company of Lancaster, Pennsylvania succeeded in astonishing the world by designing and producing the first electric, or digital, watch in the year 1957. This early model was a breakthrough that paved the way for digital watch makers to come. The first model kept continued to use a traditional balance-wheel mechanism to keep time. Since the inner workings were relatively the same, the watch was as accurate, but not more so, than the traditional watches. What was different was the battery used to power the watch, leaving out the need for a mainspring powering mechanism or winding.

People loved their electric watches, but found that they were often in need of repair. The early models were still rough drafts, and they were much more pleasing to the public, and to the Hamilton Company after they were updated in 1961. It was important that these adjustments were made because in 1960 Bulova came out with their Accutron watch, with a U-shaped piece of nickel alloy reacting through vibrations with the electricity of the watch battery. This technology was astounding. This advancement made the digital watches more accurate than traditional ones and also brought in transistors, giving the watches a longer life span and fewer repairs required. Interestingly enough, this technology was tied in to some of the programming used by NASA on the Mercury and Apollo spacecrafts heading for the moon.

Next came the Swiss watchmakers, who started up a research lab called the Centre Electronique Horloger (CEH). Their purpose was to find an even more efficient and accurate oscillator than the nickel. This is where quartz came into play. Quartz had been used in clocks for many years, but in 1967 the CEH invented the world’s first wristwatch using miniature quartz movement. This allowed for less energy expended. The Japanese also worked on quartz movement electric watches and came out with the 35SQ Astron Watch in 1969. Technology just continued to move forward after that.

Hamilton came out with the digital display watch in 1972. The Pulsar came out and was a big hit on the market. A simple push of a button revealed a red numeric display, which was powered by a light emitting diode (LED). Developments of this digital technology boomed in the 1980s, with stopwatches and date display. In fact, in 1982 the Seiko company made a watch with a miniature television screen. Casio came out with a model that included a thermometer and another in 1987 that could dial a phone number. The possibilities were endless and the competition fierce.

Today digital wristwatches are an ever-popular trend, especially for young people, and older men and women who have a more difficult time reading a dial watch. While no one misses the days of winding their watch, new technology is continuing to burst onto the market and leave consumers wondering what these manufacturers will come up with next.