The revival of the digital watch and the pocket watch

Some random thoughts on a lazy day. The first personal timepieces were pocket watches. Advances in technology allowed for the miniaturization of the mechanical movements in these watches, allowing for the creation of smaller watches which, equipped with a watch, were worn on the wrist. Louise Cartier created the first commercially available wrist watch in 1911. However it would take another twenty years for wrist watches to become mainstream. By the 1940's, wristwatches had all but replaced pocket watches.

A new development in the 1960's was the battery powered quartz wristwatch. The main advantage brought by the quartz watch was the ability to create a very accurate watch which could be mass produced. By the 1970's quartz watches threatened to render finely crafted wristwatches as a thing of the past. In the latter part of the 1970's, quartz digital watches with LCD display arrived. With the arrival of the LCD display, all kinds of functionality were added to watches. I remember back then, I looked enviously at a calculator equipped wristwatch. 

Technology had move forward, and the wristwatch moved on. Then something went awry. By the end of the 1980's, digital watches were no longer fashionable and analog mechanical and quartz watches made their return. Whether this was due to strong marketing by the Swiss watch industry or something else, I really do not know.   

A Suunto X-Lander which in addition to telling time measure temperature,

altitude, barometric pressure and shows you which way north is.

The digital wristwatch continued to develop, and the cost of acquiring one continued to go down. Today an impressive array of features can be found in digital watches. Illuminated displays, stopwatches, calendars that keep the correct date till 2099 and multiple alarms are pretty much standard features. The most advanced digital wristwatches integrate a compass, have the ability to measure barometric pressure, altitude, temperature and even your heart beat and the ability to synchronize with Atomic clocks through radio. Despite all this, the digital wrist watch is probably the least common type of wristwatch you will encounter today. The average watch buyer is satisfied with a quartz watch, but fashion dictates that the watch have an analog display.

In a world where the latest and best smart phones, portable music players and tablet computers are all the rave, this mentality towards high tech, does not translate to wrist watches. However, in a way, this diminished functionality may spell the doom for wristwatches. Whereas before, everyone would wear a wrist watch, today many people simply rely on their cellular phones to tell time. In the dark, it is simply a lot easier to pull out your cellular phone to tell the time, than try to read the fading lumination provided by super luminova coated hands and markers. In that sense, the digital watch has made its return, and so has the pocket watch.