History of word watch

A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is designed to keep a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person’s activities. A wristwatch is designed to be worn around the wrist, attached by a watch strap or other type of bracelet, including metal bands, leather straps, or any other kind of bracelet. A pocket watch is designed for a person to carry in a pocket, often attached to a chain .

Watches were developed in the 17th century from spring-powered clocks, which appeared as early as the 14th century. During most of its history the watch was a mechanical device, driven by clockwork, powered by winding a mainspring, and keeping time with an oscillating balance wheel. These are called mechanical watches.^[1][2] In the 1960s the electronic quartz watch was invented, which was powered by a battery and kept time with a vibrating quartz crystal. By the 1980s the quartz watch had taken over most of the market from the mechanical watch. Historically, this is called the quartz revolution (also known as quartz crisis in Switzerland).^[3][4] Developments in the 2010s include smart watches, which are elaborate computer-like electronic devices designed to be worn on a wrist. They generally incorporate timekeeping functions, but these are only a small subset of the smartwatch’s facilities.

In general, modern watches often display the day, date, month, and year. For mechanical watches, various extra features called «complications», such as moon-phase displays and the different types of tourbillon, are sometimes included.^[5] Most electronic quartz watches, on the other hand, include time-related features such as timers, chronographs and alarm functions. Furthermore, some modern watches (like smart watches) even incorporate calculators, GPS^[6] and Bluetooth technology or have heart-rate monitoring capabilities, and some of them use radio clock technology to regularly correct the time.

Most watches that are used mainly for timekeeping have quartz movements. However, expensive collectible watches, valued more for their elaborate craftsmanship, aesthetic appeal, and glamorous design than for simple timekeeping, often have traditional mechanical movements, despite being less accurate and more expensive than their electronic counterparts.^[3][4][7] As of 2018, the most expensive watch ever sold at auction was the Patek Philippe Henry Graves Supercomplication, the world’s most complicated mechanical watch until 1989, fetching US$254 million (CHF 23,237,000) in Geneva on 11 November 2014.^{[8][9][10][11][12]} As of December 2019, the most expensive watch ever sold at auction (and wristwatch) was the Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime Ref. 6300A-010, fetching US$91.19 million (CHF 31,000,000) in Geneva on 9 November 2019.^[13]

History[edit]

Origins[edit]

Watches evolved from portable spring-driven clocks, which first appeared in 15th-century Europe. The first timepieces to be worn, made in the 16th century beginning in the German cities of Nuremberg and Augsburg, were transitional in size between clocks and watches.^[14] Nuremberg clockmaker Peter Henlein (or Henle or Hele) (1485-1542) is often credited as the inventor of the watch.^[15][16] However, other German clockmakers were creating miniature timepieces during this period, and there is no evidence Henlein was the first.^[16][17]

Watches were not widely worn in pockets until the 17th century. One account suggests that the word «watch» came from the Old English word woecce — which meant «watchman» – because town watchmen used the technology to keep track of their shifts at work.^[18] Another says that the term came from 17th-century sailors, who used the new mechanisms to time the length of their shipboard watches (duty shifts).^[19]

Evolution[edit]

A rise in accuracy occurred in 1657 with the addition of the balance spring to the balance wheel, an invention disputed both at the time and ever since between Robert Hooke and Christiaan Huygens. This innovation increased watches’ accuracy enormously, reducing error from perhaps several hours per day^[21] to perhaps 10 minutes per day,^[22] resulting in the addition of the minute hand to the face from around 1680 in Britain and around 1700 in France.^[23]

The increased accuracy of the balance wheel focused attention on errors caused by other parts of the movement, igniting a two-century wave of watchmaking innovation. The first thing to be improved was the escapement. The verge escapement was replaced in quality watches by the cylinder escapement, invented by Thomas Tompion in 1695 and further developed by George Graham in the 1720s. Improvements in manufacturing – such as the tooth-cutting machine devised by Robert Hooke – allowed some increase in the volume of watch production, although finishing and assembling was still done by hand until well into the 19th century.

A major cause of error in balance-wheel timepieces, caused by changes in elasticity of the balance spring from temperature changes, was solved by the bimetallic temperature-compensated balance wheel invented in 1765 by Pierre Le Roy and improved by Thomas Earnshaw (1749–1829). The lever escapement, the single most important technological breakthrough, though invented by Thomas Mudge in 1759 and improved by Josiah Emery in 1785, only gradually came into use from about 1800 onwards, chiefly in Britain.

The British predominated in watch manufacture for much of the 17th and 18th centuries, but maintained a system of production that was geared towards high-quality products for the élite.^[24] The British Watch Company modernized clock manufacture with mass-production techniques and the application of duplicating tools and machinery in 1843. In the United States, Aaron Lufkin Dennison started a factory in 1851 in Massachusetts that used interchangeable parts, and by 1861 a successful enterprise operated, incorporated as the Waltham Watch Company.^[25]

Wristwatches[edit]

The concept of the wristwatch goes back to the production of the very earliest watches in the 16th century. In 1571 Elizabeth I of England received a wristwatch, described as an «armed watch», from Robert Dudley. The oldest surviving wristwatch (then described as a «bracelet watch») is one made in 1806 and given to Joséphine de Beauharnais.^[26] From the beginning, wristwatches were almost exclusively worn by women — men used pocket watches up until the early-20th century.^[27] In 1810, the watch-maker Abraham-Louis Breguet made a wristwatch for the Queen of Naples.^[28] The first Swiss wristwatch was made by the Swiss watch-maker Patek Philippe, in the year 1868 for Countess Koscowicz of Hungary.^[29][30]

Wristwatches were first worn by military men towards the end of the 19th century, having increasingly recognized the importance of synchronizing maneuvers during war without potentially revealing plans to the enemy through signaling. The Garstin Company of London patented a «Watch Wristlet» design in 1893, but probably produced similar designs from the 1880s. Officers in the British Army began using wristwatches during colonial military campaigns in the 1880s, such as during the Anglo-Burma War of 1885.^[27] During the First Boer War of 1880–1881 the importance of coordinating troop movements and synchronizing attacks against highly mobile Boer insurgents became paramount, and the use of wristwatches subsequently became widespread among the officer class. The company Mappin & Webb began production of their successful «campaign watch» for soldiers during the campaign in the Sudan in 1898 and accelerated production for the Second Boer War of 1899–1902 a few years later.^[27] In continental Europe, Girard-Perregaux and other Swiss watchmakers began supplying German naval officers with wristwatches in about 1880.^[26]

Early models were essentially standard pocket-watches fitted to a leather strap, but by the early 20th century, manufacturers began producing purpose-built wristwatches. The Swiss company Dimier Frères & Cie patented a wristwatch design with the now standard wire lugs in 1903.

In 1904, Louis Cartier produced a wristwatch to allow his friend Alberto Santos-Dumont to check flight performance in his airship while keeping both hands on the controls as this proved difficult with a pocket watch.^[31][32][33] Cartier still markets a line of Santos-Dumont watches and sunglasses.^[34]

In 1905, Hans Wilsdorf moved to London and set up his own business, Wilsdorf & Davis, with his brother-in-law Alfred Davis, providing quality timepieces at affordable prices; the company became Rolex in 1915.^[35] Wilsdorf was an early convert to the wristwatch, and contracted the Swiss firm Aegler to produce a line of wristwatches.^[36]

The impact of the First World War of 1914–1918 dramatically shifted public perceptions on the propriety of the man’s wristwatch and opened up a mass market in the postwar era.^[37] The creeping barrage artillery tactic, developed during the war, required precise synchronization between the artillery gunners and the infantry advancing behind the barrage. Service watches produced during the war were specially designed for the rigors of trench warfare, with luminous dials and unbreakable glass. The War Office began issuing wristwatches to combatants from 1917.^[38] By the end of the war, almost all enlisted men wore a wristwatch (or wristlet), and after they were demobilized the fashion soon caught on: the British Horological Journal wrote in 1917 that «the wristlet watch was little used by the sterner sex before the war, but now is seen on the wrist of nearly every man in uniform and of many men in civilian attire.»^[39] By 1930, the wristwatch vastly exceeded the pocket watch in market share by a decisive ratio of 50:1.

Automatic watches[edit]

John Harwood invented the first successful self-winding system in 1923. In anticipation of Harwood’s patent for self-winding mechanisms expiration in 1930, Glycine founder Eugène Meylan started development on a self-winding system as a separate module that could be used with almost any 8.75 ligne (19.74 millimeter) watch movement. Glycine incorporated this module into its watches in October 1930 and began mass-producing automatic watches.^[40]

Electric watches[edit]

The Elgin National Watch Company and the Hamilton Watch Company pioneered the first electric watch.^[41] The first electric movements used a battery as a power source to oscillate the balance wheel. During the 1950s Elgin developed the model 725 while Hamilton released two models: the first, the Hamilton 500, released on 3 January 1957, was produced into 1959. This model had problems with the contact wires misaligning, and the watches returned to Hamilton for alignment. The Hamilton 505, an improvement on the 500, proved more reliable: the contact wires were removed and a non-adjustable contact on the balance assembly delivered the power to the balance wheel. Similar designs from many other watch companies followed. Another type of electric watch was developed by the Bulova company that used a tuning-fork resonator instead of a traditional balance wheel to increase timekeeping accuracy, moving from a typical 2.5–4 Hz with a traditional balance wheel to 360 Hz with the tuning-fork design.

Quartz watches[edit]

The commercial introduction of the quartz watch in 1969 in the form of the Seiko Astron 35SQ and in 1970 in the form of the Omega Beta 21 was a revolutionary improvement in watch technology. In place of a balance wheel which oscillated at perhaps 5 or 6 beats per second, these devices used a quartz-crystal resonator which vibrated at 8,192 Hz, driven by a battery-powered oscillator circuit.^[42] Most quartz-watch oscillators now operate at 32,768 Hz, although quartz movements have been designed with frequencies as high as 262 kHz. Since the 1980s, more quartz watches than mechanical ones have been marketed.^{[citation needed]}

Parts[edit]

The movement and case are the basic parts of a watch. A watch band or bracelet is added to form a wristwatch; alternatively, a watch chain is added to form a pocket watch.^[43]

The case is the outer covering of the watch.

The case back is the back portion of the watch’s case. Accessing the movement (such as during battery replacement) depends on the type of case back, which are generally categorized into four types:

• Snap-off case backs (press-on case backs): the watch back pulls straight off and presses straight on.
• Screw-down case backs (threaded case backs): the entire watch back must be rotated to unscrew from the case. Often it has 6 notches on the external part of the case back.
• Screw back cases: tiny screws hold the case back to the case
• Unibody: the only way into the case involves prying the crystal off the front of the watch.

The crystal, also called the window or watch glass, is the transparent part of the case that allows viewing the hands and the dial of the movement.
Modern wristwatches almost always use one of 4 materials:^[44]

• Acrylic glass (plexiglass, hesalite glass): the most impact-resistant («unbreakable»^[45][46]), and therefore used in dive watches and most military watches. Acrylic glass is the lowest cost of these materials, so it is used in practically all low-cost watches.
• Mineral crystal: a tempered glass.
• Sapphire-coated mineral crystal
• Synthetic sapphire crystal: the most scratch-resistant; it is difficult to cut and polish, causing watch crystals made of sapphire to be the most expensive.

The bezel is the ring holding the crystal in place.^[47]

The lugs are small metal projections at both ends of the wristwatch case where the watch band attaches to the watch case.^[47]
The case and the lugs are often machined from one solid piece of stainless steel.^[48]

Movement[edit]

The movement of a watch is the mechanism that measures the passage of time and displays the current time (and possibly other information including date, month, and day). Movements may be entirely mechanical, entirely electronic (potentially with no moving parts), or they might be a blend of both. Most watches intended mainly for timekeeping today have electronic movements, with mechanical hands on the watch face indicating the time.

Mechanical[edit]

Compared to electronic movements, mechanical watches are less accurate, often with errors of seconds per day; are sensitive to position, temperature,^[50] and magnetism;^[51] are costly to produce; require regular maintenance and adjustments; and are more prone to failures. Nevertheless, mechanical watches attract interest from consumers, particularly among watch collectors. Skeleton watches are designed to display the mechanism for aesthetic purposes.

A mechanical movement uses an escapement mechanism to control and limit the unwinding and winding parts of a spring, converting what would otherwise be a simple unwinding into a controlled and periodic energy release. The movement also uses a balance wheel, together with the balance spring (also known as a hairspring), to control gear system’s motion in a manner analogous to the pendulum of a pendulum clock. The tourbillon, an optional part for mechanical movements, is a rotating frame for the escapement, used to cancel out or reduce gravitational bias. Due to the complexity of designing a tourbillon, they are expensive, and typically found in prestigious watches.

The pin-lever escapement (called the Roskopf movement after its inventor, Georges Frederic Roskopf), which is a cheaper version of the fully levered movement, was manufactured in huge quantities by many Swiss manufacturers, as well as by Timex, until it was replaced by quartz movements.^[52][53][54]

Introduced by Bulova in 1960, tuning-fork watches use a type of electromechanical movement with a precise frequency (most often 360 Hz) to drive a mechanical watch. The task of converting electronically pulsed fork vibration into rotary movements is done via two tiny jeweled fingers, called pawls. Tuning-fork watches were rendered obsolete when electronic quartz watches were developed.

Traditional mechanical watch movements use a spiral spring called a mainspring as its power source that must be rewound periodically by the user by turning the watch crown. Antique pocket watches were wound by inserting a key into the back of the watch and turning it. While most modern watches are designed to run 40 hours on a winding, requiring winding daily, some run for several days; a few have 192-hour mainsprings, requiring once-weekly winding.

Automatic watches[edit]

A self-winding or automatic watch is one that rewinds the mainspring of a mechanical movement by the natural motions of the wearer’s body. The first self-winding mechanism was invented for pocket watches in 1770 by Abraham-Louis Perrelet,^[55] but the first «self-winding», or «automatic», wristwatch was the invention of a British watch repairer named John Harwood in 1923. This type of watch winds itself without requiring any special action by the wearer. It uses an eccentric weight, called a winding rotor, which rotates with the movement of the wearer’s wrist. The back-and-forth motion of the winding rotor couples to a ratchet to wind the mainspring automatically. Self-winding watches usually can also be wound manually to keep them running when not worn or if the wearer’s wrist motions are inadequate to keep the watch wound.

In April 2014 the Swatch Group launched the sistem51 wristwatch. It has a purely mechanical movement consisting of only 51 parts, including a novel self-winding mechanism with a transparent oscillating weight. So far, it is the only mechanical movement manufactured entirely on a fully automated assembly line.^[56] The low parts count and the automated assembly make it an inexpensive mechanical Swiss watch, which can be considered a successor to Roskopf movements, although of higher quality.^[57]

Electronic[edit]

Electronic movements, also known as quartz movements, have few or no moving parts, except a quartz crystal which is made to vibrate by the piezoelectric effect. A varying electric voltage is applied to the crystal, which responds by changing its shape so, in combination with some electronic components, it functions as an oscillator. It resonates at a specific highly stable frequency, which is used to accurately pace a timekeeping mechanism. Most quartz movements are primarily electronic but are geared to drive mechanical hands on the face of the watch to provide a traditional analog display of the time, a feature most consumers still prefer.

In 1959 Seiko placed an order with Epson (a subsidiary company of Seiko and the ‘brain’ behind the quartz revolution) to start developing a quartz wristwatch. The project was codenamed 59A. By the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics, Seiko had a working prototype of a portable quartz watch which was used as the time measurements throughout the event.

The first prototypes of an electronic quartz wristwatch (not just portable quartz watches as the Seiko timekeeping devices at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964) were made by the CEH research laboratory in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. From 1965 through 1967 pioneering development work was done on a miniaturized 8192 Hz quartz oscillator, a thermo-compensation module, and an in-house-made, dedicated integrated circuit (unlike the hybrid circuits used in the later Seiko Astron wristwatch). As a result, the BETA 1 prototype set new timekeeping performance records at the International Chronometric Competition held at the Observatory of Neuchâtel in 1967.^[58] In 1970, 18 manufacturers exhibited production versions of the beta 21 wristwatch, including the Omega Electroquartz as well as Patek Philippe, Rolex Oysterquartz and Piaget.

The first quartz watch to enter production was the Seiko 35 SQ Astron, which hit the shelves on 25 December 1969, swiftly followed by the Swiss Beta 21, and then a year later the prototype of one of the world’s most accurate wristwatches to date: the Omega Marine Chronometer. Since the technology having been developed by contributions from Japanese, American and Swiss,^[59] nobody could patent the whole movement of the quartz wristwatch, thus allowing other manufacturers to participate in the rapid growth and development of the quartz watch market. This ended — in less than a decade — almost 100 years of dominance by the mechanical wristwatch legacy. Modern quartz movements are produced in very large quantities, and even the cheapest wristwatches typically have quartz movements. Whereas mechanical movements can typically be off by several seconds a day, an inexpensive quartz movement in a child’s wristwatch may still be accurate to within half a second per day — ten times more accurate than a mechanical movement.^[60]

After a consolidation of the mechanical watch industry in Switzerland during the 1970s, mass production of quartz wristwatches took off under the leadership of the Swatch Group of companies, a Swiss conglomerate with vertical control of the production of Swiss watches and related products. For quartz wristwatches, subsidiaries of Swatch manufacture watch batteries (Renata), oscillators (Oscilloquartz, now Micro Crystal AG) and integrated circuits (Ebauches Electronic SA, renamed EM Microelectronic-Marin). The launch of the new SWATCH brand in 1983 was marked by bold new styling, design, and marketing. Today, the Swatch Group maintains its position as the world’s largest watch company.

Seiko’s efforts to combine the quartz and mechanical movements bore fruit after 20 years of research, leading to the introduction of the Seiko Spring Drive, first in a limited domestic market production in 1999 and to the world in September 2005. The Spring Drive keeps time within quartz standards without the use of a battery, using a traditional mechanical gear train powered by a spring, without the need for a balance wheel either.

In 2010, Miyota (Citizen Watch) of Japan introduced a newly developed movement that uses a 3-pronged quartz crystal that was exclusively produced for Bulova to be used in the Precisionist or Accutron II line, a new type of quartz watch with ultra-high frequency (262.144 kHz) which is claimed to be accurate to +/− 10 seconds a year and has a smooth sweeping second hand rather than one that jumps each second.^[61]

Radio time signal watches are a type of electronic quartz watch that synchronizes (time transfers) its time with an external time source such as in atomic clocks, time signals from GPS navigation satellites, the German DCF77 signal in Europe, WWVB in the US, and others. Movements of this type may — among others — synchronize the time of day and the date, the leap-year status and the state of daylight saving time (on or off). However, other than the radio receiver, these watches are normal quartz watches in all other aspects.

Electronic watches require electricity as a power source, and some mechanical movements and hybrid electronic-mechanical movements also require electricity. Usually, the electricity is provided by a replaceable battery. The first use of electrical power in watches was as a substitute for the mainspring, to remove the need for winding. The first electrically powered watch, the Hamilton Electric 500, was released in 1957 by the Hamilton Watch Company of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Watch batteries (strictly speaking cells, as a battery is composed of multiple cells) are specially designed for their purpose. They are very small and provide tiny amounts of power continuously for very long periods (several years or more). In most cases, replacing the battery requires a trip to a watch-repair shop or watch dealer; this is especially true for watches that are water-resistant, as special tools and procedures are required for the watch to remain water-resistant after battery replacement. Silver-oxide and lithium batteries are popular today; mercury batteries, formerly quite common, are no longer used, for environmental reasons. Cheap batteries may be alkaline, of the same size as silver-oxide cells but providing shorter life. Rechargeable batteries are used in some solar-powered watches.

Some electronic watches are powered by the movement of the wearer. For instance, Seiko’s kinetic-powered quartz watches use the motion of the wearer’s arm: turning a rotating weight which causes a tiny generator to supply power to charge a rechargeable battery that runs the watch. The concept is similar to that of self-winding spring movements, except that electrical power is generated instead of mechanical spring tension.

Solar powered watches are powered by light. A photovoltaic cell on the face (dial) of the watch converts light to electricity, which is used to charge a rechargeable battery or capacitor. The movement of the watch draws its power from the rechargeable battery or capacitor. As long as the watch is regularly exposed to fairly strong light (such as sunlight), it never needs a battery replacement. Some models need only a few minutes of sunlight to provide weeks of energy (as in the Citizen Eco-Drive). Some of the early solar watches of the 1970s had innovative and unique designs to accommodate the array of solar cells needed to power them (Synchronar, Nepro, Sicura, and some models by Cristalonic, Alba, Seiko, and Citizen). As the decades progressed and the efficiency of the solar cells increased while the power requirements of the movement and display decreased, solar watches began to be designed to look like other conventional watches.^[62]

A rarely used power source is the temperature difference between the wearer’s arm and the surrounding environment (as applied in the Citizen Eco-Drive Thermo).

Display[edit]

Analog[edit]

Traditionally, watches have displayed the time in analog form, with a numbered dial upon which are mounted at least a rotating hour hand and a longer, rotating minute hand. Many watches also incorporate a third hand that shows the current second of the current minute. In quartz watches this second hand typically snaps to the next marker every second. In mechanical watches, the second hand may appear to glide continuously, though in fact it merely moves in smaller steps, typically one-fifth to one-tenth of a second, corresponding to the beat (half period) of the balance wheel. With a duplex escapement, the hand advances every two beats (full period) of the balance wheel, typically 1⁄2-second; this happens every four beats (two periods, 1 second), with a double duplex escapement. A truly gliding second hand is achieved with the tri-synchro regulator of Spring Drive watches. All three hands are normally mechanical, physically rotating on the dial, although a few watches have been produced with «hands» simulated by a liquid-crystal display.

Analog display of the time is nearly universal in watches sold as jewelry or collectibles, and in these watches, the range of different styles of hands, numbers, and other aspects of the analog dial is very broad. In watches sold for timekeeping, analog display remains very popular, as many people find it easier to read than digital display; but in timekeeping watches the emphasis is on clarity and accurate reading of the time under all conditions (clearly marked digits, easily visible hands, large watch faces, etc.). They are specifically designed for the left wrist with the stem (the knob used for changing the time) on the right side of the watch; this makes it easy to change the time without removing the watch from the wrist. This is the case if one is right-handed and the watch is worn on the left wrist (as is traditionally done). If one is left-handed and wears the watch on the right wrist, one has to remove the watch from the wrist to reset the time or to wind the watch.

Analog watches, as well as clocks, are often marketed showing a display time of approximately 1:50 or 10:10. This creates a visually pleasing smile-like face on the upper half of the watch, in addition to enclosing the manufacturer’s name. Digital displays often show a time of 12:08, where the increase in the number of active segments or pixels gives a positive feeling.^[63][64]

Tactile[edit]

Tissot, a Swiss luxury watchmaker, makes the Silen-T wristwatch with a touch-sensitive face that vibrates to help the user to tell time eyes-free. The bezel of the watch features raised bumps at each hour mark; after briefly touching the face of the watch, the wearer runs a finger around the bezel clockwise. When the finger reaches the bump indicating the hour, the watch vibrates continuously, and when the finger reaches the bump indicating the minute, the watch vibrates intermittently.^[65]

Eone Timepieces, a Washington D.C.-based company, launched its first tactile analog wristwatch, the «Bradley», on 11 July 2013 on the Kickstarter website. The device is primarily designed for sight-impaired users, who can use the watch’s two ball bearings to determine the time, but it is also suitable for general use. The watch features raised marks at each hour and two moving, magnetically attached ball bearings. One ball bearing, on the edge of the watch, indicates the hour, while the other, on the face, indicates the minute.^[66][67]

Digital[edit]

A digital display shows the time as a number, e.g., 12:08 instead of a shorthand pointing towards the number 12 and a long hand 8/60 of the way around the dial. The digits are usually shown as a seven-segment display.

The first digital mechanical pocket watches appeared in the late 19th century. In the 1920s, the first digital mechanical wristwatches appeared.

The first digital electronic watch, a Pulsar LED prototype in 1970, was developed jointly by Hamilton Watch Company and Electro-Data, founded by George H. Thiess.^[68] John Bergey, the head of Hamilton’s Pulsar division, said that he was inspired to make a digital timepiece by the then-futuristic digital clock that Hamilton themselves made for the 1968 science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey. On 4 April 1972, the Pulsar was finally ready, made in an 18-carat gold case and sold for $2,100. It had a red light-emitting diode (LED) display.

Digital LED watches were very expensive and out of reach to the common consumer until 1975, when Texas Instruments started to mass-produce LED watches inside a plastic case. These watches, which first retailed for only $20,^[69] reduced to $10 in 1976, saw Pulsar lose $6 million and the Pulsar brand sold to Seiko.^[70]

An early LED watch that was rather problematic was The Black Watch made and sold by British company Sinclair Radionics in 1975. This was only sold for a few years, as production problems and returned (faulty) product forced the company to cease production.

Most watches with LED displays required that the user press a button to see the time displayed for a few seconds because LEDs used so much power that they could not be kept operating continuously. Usually, the LED display color would be red. Watches with LED displays were popular for a few years, but soon the LED displays were superseded by liquid crystal displays (LCDs), which used less battery power and were much more convenient in use, with the display always visible and eliminating the need to push a button before seeing the time. Only in darkness would a button needed to be pressed to illuminate the display with a tiny light bulb, later illuminating LEDs and electroluminescent backlights.^[71]

The first LCD watch with a six-digit LCD was the 1973 Seiko 06LC, although various forms of early LCD watches with a four-digit display were marketed as early as 1972 including the 1972 Gruen Teletime LCD Watch, and the Cox Electronic Systems Quarza. The Quarza, introduced in 1972 had the first Field Effect LCD readable in direct sunlight and produced by the International Liquid Crystal Corporation of Cleveland, Ohio.^[72] In Switzerland, Ebauches Electronic SA presented a prototype eight-digit LCD wristwatch showing time and date at the MUBA Fair, Basle, in March 1973, using a twisted nematic LCD manufactured by Brown, Boveri & Cie, Switzerland, which became the supplier of LCDs to Casio for the CASIOTRON watch in 1974.^[73]

A problem with LCDs is that they use polarized light. If, for example, the user is wearing polarized sunglasses, the watch may be difficult to read because the plane of polarization of the display is roughly perpendicular to that of the glasses.^[74][75] If the light that illuminates the display is polarized, for example if it comes from a blue sky, the display may be difficult or impossible to read.^[76]

From the 1980s onward, digital watch technology vastly improved. In 1982, Seiko produced the Seiko TV Watch^[77] that had a television screen built-in,^[78] and Casio produced a digital watch with a thermometer (the TS-1000) as well as another that could translate 1,500 Japanese words into English. In 1985, Casio produced the CFX-400 scientific calculator watch. In 1987, Casio produced a watch that could dial telephone numbers (the DBA-800) and Citizen introduced one that would react to voice. In 1995, Timex released a watch that allowed the wearer to download and store data from a computer to their wrist. Some watches, such as the Timex Datalink USB, feature dot matrix displays. Since their apex during the late 1980s to mid-1990s high technology fad, digital watches have mostly become simpler, less expensive timepieces with little variety between models.

• 

  Cortébert digital mechanical pocket watch (1890s)

• 

  Cortébert digital mechanical wristwatch (1920s)

• 

  A Timex digital watch with an always-on display of the time and date

• 

  A Digital LCD watch with electroluminescent backlight.

• 

Illuminated[edit]

Many watches have displays that are illuminated, so they can be used in darkness. Various methods have been used to achieve this.

Mechanical watches often have luminous paint on their hands and hour marks. In the mid-20th century, radioactive material was often incorporated in the paint, so it would continue to glow without any exposure to light. Radium was often used but produced small amounts of radiation outside the watch that might have been hazardous.^[79] Tritium was used as a replacement, since the radiation it produces has such low energy that it cannot penetrate a watch glass. However, tritium is expensive — it has to be made in a nuclear reactor — and it has a half-life of only about 12 years so the paint remains luminous for only a few years. Nowadays, tritium is used in specialized watches, e.g., for military purposes (see Tritium illumination). For other purposes, luminous paint is sometimes used on analog displays, but no radioactive material is contained in it. This means that the display glows soon after being exposed to light and quickly fades.

Watches that incorporate batteries often have the electric illumination of their displays. However, lights consume far more power than electronic watch movements. To conserve the battery, the light is activated only when the user presses a button. Usually, the light remains lit for a few seconds after the button is released, which allows the user to move the hand out of the way.

In some early digital watches, LED displays were used, which could be read as easily in darkness as in daylight. The user had to press a button to light up the LEDs, which meant that the watch could not be read without the button being pressed, even in full daylight.

In some types of watches, small incandescent lamps or LEDs illuminate the display, which is not intrinsically luminous. These tend to produce very non-uniform illumination.

Other watches use electroluminescent material to produce uniform illumination of the background of the display, against which the hands or digits can be seen.

Speech synthesis[edit]

Talking watches are available, intended for the blind or visually impaired. They speak the time out loud at the press of a button. This has the disadvantage of disturbing others nearby or at least alerting the non-deaf that the wearer is checking the time. Tactile watches are preferred to avoid this awkwardness, but talking watches are preferred for those who are not confident in their ability to read a tactile watch reliably.

Handedness[edit]

Wristwatches with analog displays generally have a small knob, called the crown, that can be used to adjust the time and, in mechanical watches, wind the spring. Almost always, the crown is located on the right-hand side of the watch so it can be worn of the left wrist for a right-handed individual. This makes it inconvenient to use if the watch is being worn on the right wrist. Some manufacturers offer «left-hand drive», aka «destro», configured watches which move the crown to the left side^[80] making wearing the watch easier for left-handed individuals.

A rarer configuration is the bullhead watch. Bullhead watches are generally, but not exclusively, chronographs. The configuration moves the crown and chronograph pushers to the top of the watch. Bullheads are commonly wristwatch chronographs that are intended to be used as stopwatches off the wrist. Examples are the Citizen Bullhead Change Timer^[81] and the Omega Seamaster Bullhead.^[82]

Digital watches generally have push-buttons that can be used to make adjustments. These are usually equally easy to use on either wrist.

Functions[edit]

Customarily, watches provide the time of day, giving at least the hour and minute, and often the second. Many also provide the current date, and some (called «complete calendar» or «triple date» watches) display the day of the week and the month as well. However, many watches also provide a great deal of information beyond the basics of time and date. Some watches include alarms. Other elaborate and more expensive watches, both pocket and wrist models, also incorporate striking mechanisms or repeater functions, so that the wearer could learn the time by the sound emanating from the watch. This announcement or striking feature is an essential characteristic of true clocks and distinguishes such watches from ordinary timepieces. This feature is available on most digital watches.

A complicated watch has one or more functions beyond the basic function of displaying the time and the date; such a functionality is called a complication. Two popular complications are the chronograph complication, which is the ability of the watch movement to function as a stopwatch, and the moonphase complication, which is a display of the lunar phase. Other more expensive complications include Tourbillon, Perpetual calendar, Minute repeater, and Equation of time. A truly complicated watch has many of these complications at once (see Calibre 89 from Patek Philippe for instance). Some watches can both indicate the direction of Mecca^[83] and have alarms that can be set for all daily prayer requirements.^[84] Among watch enthusiasts, complicated watches are especially collectible. Some watches include a second 12-hour or 24-hour display for UTC or GMT.

The similar-sounding terms chronograph and chronometer are often confused, although they mean altogether different things. A chronograph is a watch with an added duration timer, often a stopwatch complication (as explained above), while a chronometer watch is a timepiece that has met an industry-standard test for performance under pre-defined conditions: a chronometer is a high quality mechanical or a thermo-compensated movement that has been tested and certified to operate within a certain standard of accuracy by the COSC (Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres). The concepts are different but not mutually exclusive; so a watch can be a chronograph, a chronometer, both, or neither.

Many computerized wristwatches have been developed, but none have had long-term sales success, because they have awkward user interfaces due to the tiny screens and buttons, and short battery life. As miniaturized electronics became cheaper, watches have been developed containing calculators, tonometers, barometers, altimeters, a compass using both hands to show the N/S direction, video games, digital cameras, keydrives, GPS receivers and cellular phones. A few astronomical watches show phase of the Moon and other celestial phenomena. In the early 1980s Seiko marketed a watch with a television in it. Such watches have also had the reputation as unsightly and thus mainly geek toys. Several companies have however attempted to develop a computer contained in a wristwatch (see also wearable computer).

Electronic sports watches, combining timekeeping with GPS and/or activity tracking, address the general fitness market and have the potential for commercial success (Garmin Forerunner, Garmin Vivofit, Epson,^[6] announced model of Swatch Touch series^[85]).

Braille watches have analog displays with raised bumps around the face to allow blind users to tell the time. Their digital equivalents use synthesised speech to speak the time on command.

Fashion[edit]

Wristwatches and antique pocket watches are often appreciated as jewelry or as collectible works of art rather than just as timepieces.^[86] This has created several different markets for wristwatches, ranging from very inexpensive but accurate watches (intended for no other purpose than telling the correct time) to extremely expensive watches that serve mainly as personal adornment or as examples of high achievement in miniaturization and precision mechanical engineering.

Traditionally, dress watches appropriate for informal (business), semi-formal, and formal attire are gold, thin, simple, and plain, but increasingly rugged, complicated, or sports watches are considered by some to be acceptable for such attire. Some dress watches have a cabochon on the crown or faceted gemstones on the face, bezel, or bracelet. Some are made entirely of faceted sapphire (corundum).

Many fashions and department stores offer a variety of less-expensive, trendy, «costume» watches (usually for women), many of which are similar in quality to basic quartz timepieces but which feature bolder designs. In the 1980s, the Swiss Swatch company hired graphic designers to redesign a new annual collection of non-repairable watches.

Trade in counterfeit watches, which mimic expensive brand-name watches, constitutes an estimated US$1 billion market per year.^[87]

Space[edit]

The zero-gravity environment and other extreme conditions encountered by astronauts in space require the use of specially tested watches.

The first-ever watch to be sent into space was a Russian «Pobeda» watch from the Petrodvorets Watch Factory. It was sent on a single orbit flight on the spaceship Korabl-Sputnik 4 on 9 March 1961. The watch had been attached without authorisation to the wrist of Chernuchka, a dog that successfully did exactly the same trip as Yuri Gagarin, with exactly the same rocket and equipment, just a month before Gagarin’s flight.^[88]

On 12 April 1961, Gagarin wore a Shturmanskie (a transliteration of Штурманские which actually means «navigator’s») wristwatch during his historic first flight into space. The Shturmanskie was manufactured at the First Moscow Factory. Since 1964, the watches of the First Moscow Factory have been marked by the trademark «Полёт«, transliterated as «POLJOT», which means «flight» in Russian and is a tribute to the many space trips its watches have accomplished. In the late 1970s, Poljot launched a new chrono movement, the 3133. With a 23 jewel movement and manual winding (43 hours), it was a modified Russian version of the Swiss Valjoux 7734 of the early 1970s. Poljot 3133 were taken into space by astronauts from Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine. On the arm of Valeriy Polyakov, a Poljot 3133 chronograph movement-based watch set a space record for the longest space flight in history.^[89]

Through the 1960s, a large range of watches was tested for durability and precision under extreme temperature changes and vibrations. The Omega Speedmaster Professional was selected by NASA, the U.S space agency, and it is mostly known thanks to astronaut Buzz Aldrin who wore it during the moon landing, 1969. Heuer became the first Swiss watch in space thanks to a Heuer Stopwatch, worn by John Glenn in 1962 when he piloted the Friendship 7 on the first manned U.S. orbital mission. The Breitling Navitimer Cosmonaute was designed with a 24-hour analog dial to avoid confusion between AM and PM, which are meaningless in space. It was first worn in space by U.S. astronaut Scott Carpenter on 24 May 1962 in the Aurora 7 mercury capsule.^[90]

Since 1994 Fortis is the exclusive supplier for manned space missions authorized by the Russian Federal Space Agency. China National Space Administration (CNSA) astronauts wear the Fiyta^[91] spacewatches. At BaselWorld, 2008, Seiko announced the creation of the first watch ever designed specifically for a space walk, Spring Drive Spacewalk. Timex Datalink is flight certified by NASA for space missions and is one of the watches qualified by NASA for space travel. The Casio G-Shock DW-5600C and 5600E, DW 6900, and DW 5900 are Flight-Qualified for NASA space travel.^[92][93]

Various Timex Datalink models were used both by cosmonauts and astronauts.

Scuba diving[edit]

Watch construction may be water-resistant. These watches are sometimes called diving watches when they are suitable for scuba diving or saturation diving. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) issued a standard for water-resistant watches which also prohibits the term «waterproof» to be used with watches, which many countries have adopted. In the United States, advertising a watch as waterproof has been illegal since 1968, per Federal Trade Commission regulations regarding the «misrepresentation of protective features».^[94][95][96]

Water-resistance is achieved by the gaskets which forms a watertight seal, used in conjunction with a sealant applied on the case to help keep water out. The material of the case must also be tested in order to pass as water-resistant.^[97]

None of the tests defined by ISO 2281 for the Water Resistant mark are suitable to qualify a watch for scuba diving. Such watches are designed for everyday life and must be water-resistant during exercises such as swimming. They can be worn in different temperature and pressure conditions but are under no circumstances designed for scuba diving.^{[citation needed]}

The standards for diving watches are regulated by the ISO 6425 international standard. The watches are tested in static or still water under 125% of the rated (water) pressure, thus a watch with a 200-metre rating will be water-resistant if it is stationary and under 250 metres of static water. The testing of the water-resistance is fundamentally different from non-dive watches, because every watch has to be fully tested. Besides water resistance standards to a minimum of 100-metre depth rating ISO 6425 also provides eight minimum requirements for mechanical diver’s watches for scuba diving (quartz and digital watches have slightly differing readability requirements). For diver’s watches for mixed-gas saturation diving two additional ISO 6425 requirements have to be met.

Watches are classified by their degree of water resistance, which roughly translates to the following (1 metre = 3.281 feet):^[98]

Main article ISO 6425

Water-resistance rating	Suitability	Remarks
Water Resistant or 30 m	Suitable for everyday use. Splash/rain resistant.	Not suitable for diving, swimming, snorkeling, water-related work, or fishing.
Water Resistant 50 m	Suitable for swimming, white-water rafting, non-snorkeling water related work, and fishing.	Not suitable for diving.
Water Resistant 100 m	Suitable for recreational surfing, swimming, snorkeling, sailing, and water sports.	Not suitable for diving.
Water Resistant 200 m	Suitable for professional marine activity and serious surface water sports.	Suitable for diving.
Diver’s 100 m	Minimum ISO standard for scuba diving at depths not requiring helium gas.	Diver’s 100 m and 150 m watches are generally old(er) watches.
Diver’s 200 m or 300 m	Suitable for scuba diving at depths not requiring helium gas.	Typical ratings for contemporary diver’s watches.
Diver’s 300+ m helium safe	Suitable for saturation diving (helium-enriched environment).	Watches designed for helium mixed-gas diving will have additional markings to indicate this.

Some watches use bar instead of meters, which may then be multiplied by 10, and then subtract 10 to be approximately equal to the rating based on metres. Therefore, a 5 bar watch is equivalent to a 40-metre watch. Some watches are rated in atmospheres (atm), which are roughly equivalent to bar.

Navigation[edit]

There is a traditional method by which an analog watch can be used to locate north and south. The Sun appears to move in the sky over a 24-hour period while the hour hand of a 12-hour clock face takes twelve hours to complete one rotation. In the northern hemisphere, if the watch is rotated so that the hour hand points toward the Sun, the point halfway between the hour hand and 12 o’clock will indicate south. For this method to work in the southern hemisphere, the 12 is pointed toward the Sun and the point halfway between the hour hand and 12 o’clock will indicate north. During daylight saving time, the same method can be employed using 1 o’clock instead of 12. This method is accurate enough to be used only at fairly high latitudes.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Beckett, Edmund, A Rudimentary Treatise on Clocks, Watches and Bells, 1903, from Project Gutenberg
• Berner, G.A., Illustrated Professional Dictionary of Horology, Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry FH 1961–2012
• Daniels, George, Watchmaking, London: Philip Wilson Publishers, 1981 (reprinted 15 June 2011)
• De Carle, Donald, (Illustrations by E. A. Ayres), Practical Watch Repairing, 3rd edition, New York : Skyhorse Pub., 2008. ISBN 978-1-60239-357-8. Significant information on watches, their history, and inner workings.
• Denn, Mark, «The Tourbillon and How It Works,» IEEE Control Systems Magazine, June 2010, IEEE Control Systems Society, DOI 10.1109/MCS.2010.936291.
• Donzé, Pierre-Yves. «Dynamics of innovation in the electronic watch industry: a comparative business history of Longines (Switzerland) and Seiko (Japan), 1960-1980.» Essays in Economic & Business History 37.1 (2019): 120-145. online
• Donzé, Pierre-Yves (2022). The business of time: A global history of the watch industry. Manchester University Press.
• Grafton, Edward, Horology, a popular sketch of clock and watch making, London: Aylett and Jones, 1849

• American and Swiss Watchmaking in 1876 by Jacques David
• The Watch Factories of America Past and Present by Henry G. Abbott (1888)
• Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry FH
• UK patent GB218487, Improvements relating to wrist watches, 1923 patent resulting from John Harwood’s invention of a practical self-winding watch mechanism.

The history of watches began in 16th-century Europe, where watches evolved from portable spring-driven clocks, which first appeared in the 15th century.

A 16th-century portable drum watch with sundial. The 24-hour dial has Roman numerals on the outer band and Hindu-Arabic numerals on the inner one.^[1]

The watch was developed by inventors and engineers from the 16th century to the mid-20th century as a mechanical device, powered by winding a mainspring which turned gears and then moved the hands; it kept time with a rotating balance wheel. In the 1960s the invention of the quartz watch which ran on electricity and kept time with a vibrating quartz crystal, proved a radical departure for the watchmaking industry. During the 1980s quartz watches took over the market from mechanical watches, a process referred to as the «quartz crisis». Although mechanical watches still sell in the watch market, the vast majority of watches as of 2020 have quartz movements.

One account of the origin of the word «watch» suggests that it came from the Old English word woecce which meant «watchman», because town watchmen^[when?] used watches to keep track of their shifts.^{[2][need quotation to verify]} Another theory surmises that the term came from 17th-century sailors, who used the new mechanisms to time the length of their shipboard watches (duty shifts).^[3]

The Oxford English Dictionary records the word watch in association with a timepiece from at least as early as 1542.^[4]

Clock-watchEdit

An early watch from around 1505 purportedly by Peter Henlein

The first timepieces to be worn, made in the 16th century beginning in the German cities of Nuremberg and Augsburg, were transitional in size between clocks and watches.^[5] Portable timepieces were made possible by the invention of the mainspring in the early 15th century. Nuremberg clockmaker Peter Henlein (or Henle or Hele) (1485-1542) is often credited as the inventor of the watch.^[6][7] He was one of the first German craftsmen who made «clock-watches», ornamental timepieces worn as pendants, which were the first timepieces to be worn on the body. His fame is based on a passage by Johann Cochläus in 1511,^[8][9]

Peter Hele, still a young man, fashions works which even the most learned mathematicians admire. He shapes many-wheeled clocks out of small bits of iron, which run and chime the hours without weights for forty hours, whether carried at the breast or in a handbag

However, other German clockmakers were creating miniature timepieces during this period, and there is no evidence Henlein was the first.^[7][8]

These ‘clock-watches’ were fastened to clothing or worn on a chain around the neck. They were heavy drum-shaped cylindrical brass boxes several inches in diameter, engraved and ornamented. They had only an hour hand. The face was not covered with glass, but usually had a hinged brass cover, often decoratively pierced with grillwork so the time could be read without opening. The movement was made of iron or steel and held together with tapered pins and wedges, until screws began to be used after 1550. Many of the movements included striking or alarm mechanisms. They usually had to be wound twice a day. The shape later evolved into a rounded form; these were later called Nuremberg eggs. Still later in the century there was a trend for unusually-shaped watches, and clock-watches shaped like books, animals, fruit, stars, flowers, insects, crosses, and even skulls (Death’s head watches) were made.

These early clock-watches were not worn to tell the time. The accuracy of their verge and foliot movements was so poor, with errors of perhaps several hours per day, that they were practically useless. They were made as jewelry and novelties for the nobility, valued for their fine ornamentation, unusual shape, or intriguing mechanism, and accurate timekeeping was of very minor importance.^[10]

PocketwatchEdit

Styles changed in the 17th century and men began to wear watches in pockets instead of as pendants (the woman’s watch remained a pendant into the 20th century).^[11] This is said to have occurred in 1675 when Charles II of England introduced waistcoats.^[12] This was not just a matter of fashion or prejudice; watches of the time were notoriously prone to fouling from exposure to the elements, and could only reliably be kept safe from harm if carried securely in the pocket. To fit in pockets, their shape evolved into the typical pocketwatch shape, rounded and flattened with no sharp edges. Glass was used to cover the face beginning around 1610. Watch fobs began to be used, the name originating from the German word fuppe, a pocket. Later in the 1800s Prince Albert, the consort to Queen Victoria, introduced the ‘Albert chain’ accessory, designed to secure the pocket watch to the man’s outergarment by way of a clip. The watch was wound and also set by opening the back and fitting a key to a square arbor, and turning it.

The timekeeping mechanism in these early pocketwatches was the same one used in clocks, invented in the 13th century; the verge escapement which drove a foliot, a dumbbell shaped bar with weights on the ends, to oscillate back and forth. However, the mainspring introduced a source of error not present in weight-powered clocks. The force provided by a spring is not constant, but decreases as the spring unwinds. The rate of all timekeeping mechanisms is affected by changes in their drive force, but the primitive verge and foliot mechanism was especially sensitive to these changes, so early watches slowed down during their running period as the mainspring ran down. This problem, called lack of isochronism, plagued mechanical watches throughout their history.

Efforts to improve the accuracy of watches prior to 1657 focused on evening out the steep torque curve of the mainspring.^[11] Two devices to do this had appeared in the first clock-watches: the stackfreed and the fusee. The stackfreed, a spring-loaded cam on the mainspring shaft, added a lot of friction and was abandoned after about a century. The fusee was a much more lasting idea. A curving conical pulley with a chain wrapped around it attached to the mainspring barrel, it changed the leverage as the spring unwound, equalizing the drive force. Fusees became standard in all watches, and were used until the early 19th century. The foliot was also gradually replaced with the balance wheel, which had a higher moment of inertia for its size, allowing better timekeeping.

Balance springEdit

Drawing of one of his first balance springs, attached to a balance wheel, by Christiaan Huygens, published in his letter in the Journal des Sçavants of 25 February 1675

A great leap forward in accuracy occurred in 1657 with the addition of the balance spring to the balance wheel, an invention disputed both at the time and ever since between Robert Hooke and Christiaan Huygens. Prior to this, the only force limiting the back and forth motion of the balance wheel under the force of the escapement was the wheel’s inertia. This caused the wheel’s period to be very sensitive to the force of the mainspring. The balance spring made the balance wheel a harmonic oscillator, with a natural ‘beat’ resistant to disturbances. This increased watches’ accuracy enormously, reducing error from perhaps several hours per day^[13] to perhaps 10 minutes per day, resulting in the addition of the minute hand to the face from around 1680 in Britain and 1700 in France.^[14] The increased accuracy of the balance wheel focused attention on errors caused by other parts of the movement, igniting a two century wave of watchmaking innovation.^[15]

The first thing to be improved was the escapement. The verge escapement was replaced in quality watches by the cylinder escapement, invented by Thomas Tompion in 1695 and further developed by George Graham in the 1720s. In Britain a few quality watches went to the duplex escapement, invented by Jean Baptiste Dutertre in 1724. The advantage of these escapements was that they only gave the balance wheel a short push in the middle of its swing, leaving it ‘detached’ from the escapement to swing back and forth undisturbed during most of its cycle.

During the same period, improvements in manufacturing such as the tooth-cutting machine devised by Robert Hooke allowed some increase in the volume of watch production, although finishing and assembling was still done by hand until well into the 19th century.

Temperature compensation and chronometersEdit

Diagram of Earnshaw’s standard chronometer detent escapement

The Enlightenment view of watches as scientific instruments brought rapid advances to their mechanisms. The development during this period of accurate marine chronometers required in celestial navigation to determine longitude during sea voyages produced many technological advances that were later used in watches. It was found that a major cause of error in balance wheel timepieces was changes in elasticity of the balance spring with temperature changes. This problem was solved by the bimetallic temperature compensated balance wheel invented in 1765 by Pierre Le Roy and improved by Thomas Earnshaw. This type of balance wheel had two semicircular arms made of a bimetallic construction. If the temperature rose, the arms bent inward slightly, causing the balance wheel to rotate faster back and forth, compensating for the slowing due to the weaker balance spring. This system, which could reduce temperature induced error to a few seconds per day, gradually began to be used in watches over the next hundred years.

The going barrel invented in 1760 by Jean-Antoine Lépine provided a more constant drive force over the watch’s running period, and its adoption in the 19th century made the fusee obsolete. Complicated pocket chronometers and astronomical watches with many hands and functions were made during this period.

Lever escapementEdit

The lever escapement, invented by Thomas Mudge in 1759 and improved by Josiah Emery in 1785, gradually came into use from about 1800 onwards, chiefly in Britain; it was also adopted by Abraham-Louis Breguet, but Swiss watchmakers (who by now were the chief suppliers of watches to most of Europe) mostly adhered to the cylinder until the 1860s. By about 1900, however, the lever was used in almost every watch made. In this escapement the escape wheel pushed on a T shaped ‘lever’, which was unlocked as the balance wheel swung through its centre position and gave the wheel a brief push before releasing it. The advantages of the lever was that it allowed the balance wheel to swing completely free during most of its cycle; due to ‘locking’ and ‘draw’ its action was very precise; and it was self-starting, so if the balance wheel was stopped by a jar it would start again.

Jewel bearings, introduced in England in 1702 by the Swiss mathematician Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, also came into use for quality watches during this period. Watches of this period are characterised by their thinness. New innovations, such as the cylinder and lever escapements, allowed watches to become much thinner than they had previously been. This caused a change in style. The thick pocketwatches based on the verge movement went out of fashion and were only worn by the poor, and were derisively referred to as «onions» and «turnips».

Mass productionEdit

At Vacheron Constantin, Geneva, Georges-Auguste Leschot (1800–1884), pioneered the field of interchangeability in clockmaking by the invention of various machine tools.^[16] In 1830 he designed an anchor escapement, which his student, Antoine Léchaud, later mass-produced. He also invented a pantograph, allowing some degree of standardisation and interchangeability of parts on watches fitted with the same calibre.

The British had predominated in watch manufacture for much of the 17th and 18th centuries, but maintained a system of production that was geared towards high quality products for the elite.^[17] Although there was an attempt to modernise clock manufacture with mass production techniques and the application of duplicating tools and machinery by the British Watch Company in 1843, it was in the United States that this system took off. Aaron Lufkin Dennison started a factory in 1851 in Massachusetts that used interchangeable parts, and by 1861 was running a successful enterprise incorporated as the Waltham Watch Company.^[18]

The railroads’ stringent requirements for accurate watches to safely schedule trains drove improvements in accuracy. The engineer Webb C. Ball, established around 1891 the first precision standards and a reliable timepiece inspection system for Railroad chronometers. Temperature-compensated balance wheels began to be widely used in watches during this period, and jewel bearings became almost universal. Techniques for adjusting the balance spring for isochronism and positional errors discovered by Abraham-Louis Breguet, M. Phillips, and L. Lossier were adopted. The first international watch precision contest took place in 1876, during the International Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia (the winning four top watches, which outclassed all competitors, had been randomly selected out of the mass production line), on display was also the first fully automatic screw-making machine. By 1900, with these advances, the accuracy of quality watches, properly adjusted, topped out at a few seconds per day.^[19]

The American clock industry, with scores of companies located in Connecticut’s Naugatuck Valley, was producing millions of clocks, earning the region the nickname, «Switzerland of America».^[20] The Waterbury Clock Company was one of the largest producers for both domestic sales and export, primarily to Europe.^[21] Today its successor, Timex Group USA, Inc. is the only remaining watch company in the region.

From about 1860, key winding was replaced by keyless winding, where the watch was wound by turning the crown. The pin pallet escapement, an inexpensive version of the lever escapement invented in 1876 by Georges Frederic Roskopf was used in cheap mass-produced watches, which allowed ordinary workers to own a watch for the first time; other cheap watches used a simplified version of the duplex escapement, developed by Daniel Buck in the 1870s.

During the 20th century, the mechanical design of the watch became standardized, and advances were made in materials, tolerances, and production methods. The bimetallic temperature-compensated balance wheel was made obsolete by the discovery of low-thermal-coefficient alloys invar and elinvar. A balance wheel of invar with a spring of elinvar was almost unaffected by temperature changes, so it replaced the complicated temperature-compensated balance. The discovery in 1903 of a process to produce artificial sapphire made jewelling cheap. Bridge construction superseded 3/4 plate construction.

WristwatchEdit

From the beginning, wristwatches were almost exclusively worn by women, while men used pocketwatches up until the early 20th century. The concept of the wristwatch goes back to the production of the very earliest watches in the 16th century. Some people say the world’s first wristwatch was created by Abraham-Louis Breguet for Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples, in 1810.^{[22][23][24][25][26]} By the mid nineteenth century, most watchmakers produced a range of wristwatches, often marketed as bracelets, for women.^{[citation needed]}

Wristwatches were first worn by military men towards the end of the nineteenth century, when the importance of synchronizing maneuvers during war without potentially revealing the plan to the enemy through signaling was increasingly recognized. It was clear that using pocket watches while in the heat of battle or while mounted on a horse was impractical, so officers began to strap the watches to their wrist. The Garstin Company of London patented a ‘Watch Wristlet’ design in 1893, although they were probably producing similar designs from the 1880s.^{[citation needed]} Officers in the British Army began using wristwatches during colonial military campaigns in the 1880s, such as during the Anglo-Burma War of 1885.^[27]

During the Boer War, the importance of coordinating troop movements and synchronizing attacks against the highly mobile Boer insurgents was paramount, and the use of wristwatches subsequently became widespread among the officer class. The company Mappin & Webb began production of their successful ‘campaign watch’ for soldiers during the campaign at the Sudan in 1898 and ramped up production for the Boer War a few years later.^[27]

Planning map for an Allied creeping barrage at Passchendaele
a tactic that required precise synchronisation between the artillery and infantry

These early models were essentially standard pocketwatches fitted to a leather strap, but by the early 20th century, manufacturers began producing purpose-built wristwatches. The Swiss company, Dimier Frères & Cie patented a wristwatch design with the now standard wire lugs in 1903. In 1904, Alberto Santos-Dumont, an early Brazilian aviator, asked his friend, a French watchmaker called Louis Cartier, to design a watch that could be useful during his flights.^[28] Hans Wilsdorf moved to London in 1905 and set up his own business with his brother-in-law Alfred Davis, Wilsdorf & Davis, providing quality timepieces at affordable prices – the company later became Rolex.^[29] Wilsdorf was an early convert to the wristwatch, and contracted the Swiss firm Aegler to produce a line of wristwatches. His Rolex wristwatch of 1910 became the first such watch to receive certification as a chronometer in Switzerland and it went on to win an award in 1914 from Kew Observatory in London.^[30]

The impact of the First World War dramatically shifted public perceptions on the propriety of the man’s wristwatch, and opened up a mass market in the post-war era. The creeping barrage artillery tactic, developed during the War, required precise synchronization between the artillery gunners and the infantry advancing behind the barrage. Service watches produced during the War were specially designed for the rigours of trench warfare, with luminous dials and unbreakable glass. Wristwatches were also found to be needed in the air as much as on the ground: military pilots found them more convenient than pocket watches for the same reasons as Santos-Dumont had. The British War Department began issuing wristwatches to combatants from 1917.^[31]

A Cortébert wristwatch (1920s)

The company H. Williamson Ltd., based in Coventry, was one of the first to capitalize on this opportunity. During the company’s 1916 AGM it was noted that «…the public is buying the practical things of life. Nobody can truthfully contend that the watch is a luxury. It is said that one soldier in every four wears a wristlet watch, and the other three mean to get one as soon as they can.» By the end of the War, almost all enlisted men wore a wristwatch, and after they were demobilized, the fashion soon caught on – the British Horological Journal wrote in 1917 that «…the wristlet watch was little used by the sterner sex before the war, but now is seen on the wrist of nearly every man in uniform and of many men in civilian attire.» By 1930, the ratio of wrist- to pocketwatches was 50 to 1. The first successful self-winding system was invented by John Harwood in 1923.

In 1961, the first wristwatch traveled to space on the wrist of Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1.^[32]

Electric watchEdit

The first generation of electric-powered watches came out during the 1950s. These kept time with a balance wheel powered by a solenoid, or in a few advanced watches that foreshadowed the quartz watch, by a steel tuning fork vibrating at 360 Hz, powered by a solenoid driven by a transistor oscillator circuit. The hands were still moved mechanically by a wheel train. In mechanical watches the self winding mechanism, shockproof balance pivots, and break resistant ‘white metal’ mainsprings became standard. The jewel craze caused ‘jewel inflation’ and watches with up to 100 jewels were produced.

Quartz watchEdit

In 1959, Seiko placed an order with Epson (a daughter company of Seiko and the ‘brain’ behind the quartz revolution) to start developing a quartz wristwatch. The project was codenamed 59A. By the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics, Seiko had a working prototype of a portable quartz watch which was used as the time measurements throughout the event.

Quartz Movement of the Seiko Astron (1969)

The first quartz watch to enter production was the Seiko 35 SQ Astron, which hit the shelves on 25 December 1969, which was the world’s most accurate wristwatch to date.^{[citation needed]}
Since the technology having been developed by contributions from Japanese, American and Swiss,^[33] nobody could patent the whole movement of the quartz wristwatch, thus allowing other manufacturers to participate in the rapid growth and development of the quartz watch market, This ended — in less than a decade — almost 100 years of dominance by the mechanical wristwatch legacy.

The introduction of the quartz watch in 1969 was a revolutionary improvement in watch technology.^[34] In place of a balance wheel which oscillated at 5 beats per second, it used a quartz crystal resonator which vibrated at 8,192 Hz, driven by a battery-powered oscillator circuit. In place of a wheel train to add up the beats into seconds, minutes, and hours, it used digital counters. The higher Q factor of the resonator, along with quartz’s low temperature coefficient, resulted in better accuracy than the best mechanical watches, while the elimination of all moving parts made the watch more shock-resistant and eliminated the need for periodic cleaning. The first digital electronic watch with an LED display was developed in 1970 by Pulsar. In 1974 the Omega Marine Chronometer was introduced, the first wrist watch to hold Marine Chronometer certification, and accurate to 12 seconds per year.

A Pulsar LED quartz watch (1976)

Accuracy increased with the frequency of the crystal used, but so did power consumption. So the first generation watches had low frequencies of a few kilohertz, limiting their accuracy. The power saving use of CMOS logic and LCDs in the second generation increased battery life and allowed the crystal frequency to be increased to 32,768 Hz resulting in accuracy of 5–10 seconds per month. By the 1980s, quartz watches had taken over most of the watch market from the mechanical watch industry. This upheaval, which saw the majority of watch manufacturing move to the Far East, is referred to in the industry as the «quartz crisis».

In 2010, Miyota (Citizen Watch) of Japan introduced a newly developed movement that uses a new type of quartz crystal with ultra-high frequency (262.144 kHz) which is claimed to be accurate to +/- 10 seconds a year, and has a smooth sweeping second hand rather than one that jumps.^[35]

In 2019, Citizen Watch advanced the accuracy of a quartz watch to +/- 1 second a year. ^[36] The improved accuracy was achieved by using an AT-cut crystal which oscillates at 8.4 MHz (8,388,608 Hz). The watch maintains its greater accuracy by continuously monitoring and adjusting for frequency and temperature shifts once every minute.

Radio-controlled wristwatchEdit

In 1990, Junghans offered the first radio-controlled wristwatch, the MEGA 1. In this type, the watch’s quartz oscillator is set to the correct time daily by coded radio time signals broadcast by government-operated time stations such as JJY, MSF, RBU, DCF77, and WWVB,^[37][38] received by a radio receiver in the watch. This allows the watch to have the same long-term accuracy as the atomic clocks which control the time signals. Recent models are capable of receiving synchronization signals from various time stations worldwide.

Atomic wristwatchEdit

In 2013 Bathys Hawaii^[39] introduced their Cesium 133 Atomic Watch^[40][41][42] the first watch to keep time with an internal atomic clock. Unlike the radio watches described above, which achieve atomic clock accuracy with quartz clock circuits which are corrected by radio time signals received from government atomic clocks, this watch contains a tiny cesium atomic clock on a chip. It is reported to keep time to an accuracy of one second in 1000 years.

The watch is based on a chip developed by the breakthrough Chip Scale Atomic Clock (CSAC) program of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) which was initiated in 2001, and produced the first prototype atomic clock chip in 2005.^[43][44] Symmetricom began manufacturing the chips in 2011. Like other cesium clocks the watch keeps time with an ultraprecise 9.192631770 GHz microwave signal produced by electron transitions between two hyperfine energy levels in atoms of cesium, which is divided down by digital counters to give a 1 Hz clock signal to drive the hands. On the chip, liquid metal cesium in a tiny capsule is heated to vaporize the cesium. A laser shines a beam of infrared light modulated by a microwave oscillator through the capsule onto a photodetector. When the oscillator is at the precise frequency of the transition, the cesium atoms absorb the light, reducing the output of the photodetector. The output of the photodetector is used as feedback in a phase locked loop circuit to keep the oscillator at the correct frequency. The breakthrough that allowed a rack-sized cesium clock to be shrunk small enough to fit on a chip was a technique called coherent population trapping, which eliminated the need for a bulky microwave cavity.

The watch was designed by John Patterson, head of Bathys, who read about the chip and decided to design a watch around it, financed by a Kickstarter campaign. Due to the large 1½ inch chip the watch is large and rectangular. It must be recharged every 30 hours.

SmartwatchEdit

A smartwatch is a computer worn on the wrist, a wireless digital device that may have the capabilities of a cellphone, portable music player, or a personal digital assistant.^[45][46] By the early 2010s some had the general capabilities of a smartphone, having a processor with a mobile operating system capable of running a variety of mobile apps.

The first smartwatch was the Linux Watch, developed in 1998 by Steve Mann which he presented on February 7, 2000. Seiko launched the Ruputer in Japan- it was a wristwatch computer and it had a 3.6  MHz processor. In 1999, Samsung launched the world’s first watch phone. It was named the SPH-WP10. It had a built-in speaker and mic, a protruding antenna and a monochrome LCD screen and 90 minutes of talk time. IBM made a prototype of a wristwatch that was running the Linux operating system. The first version had 6 hours battery life and it got extended to 12 in its more advanced version. It was improved by IBM with an accelerometer, a vibrating mechanism and a fingerprint sensor. IBM joined with Citizen Watch Co. to create the WatchPad. It featured a 320×240 QVGA monochrome touch-sensitive display and it ran Linux version 2.4. It displayed calendar software, Bluetooth, 8 MB RAM, and 16 MB of flash memory. It was targeted at students and businessmen at a price of about $399. Fossil released the Wrist PDA, a watch that ran Palm OS and contained 8 MB of RAM and 4 MB of flash memory and featured an integrated stylus and a resolution of 160×160. It was criticized for its weight of 108 grams and was discontinued in 2005.

In early 2004, Microsoft released the SPOT smartwatch. The company demonstrated it working with coffee makers, weather stations and clocks with SPOT technology. The smartwatch had information like weather, news, stocks, and sports scores transmitted through FM waves. Customers had to buy a subscription to use it. Sony Ericsson launched the Sony Ericsson LiveView, a wearable watch device which is an external BT display for an Android Smartphone. Pebble was an innovative smartwatch that raised 10.3 million dollars on Kickstarter between April 12 and May 18. This watch had a 32 millimeter 144×168 pixel black and white memory LCD manufactured by Sharp with a backlight, a vibrating motor, a magnetometer, an ambient light sensor, and a three-axis accelerometer. It can communicate with an Android or iOS device using both BT 2.1 and BT 4.0 using Stonestreet One’s Bluetopia+MFI software stack. As of July 2013 companies that were making smartwatches or were involved in smartwatch developments are: Acer, Apple, BlackBerry, Foxconn, Google, LG, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony, VESAG and Toshiba. Some notable ones from this list are HP, HTC, Lenovo and Nokia. Many smartwatches were released at CES 2014. The model featured a curved AMOLED display and a built-in 3G modem. On September 9, 2014, Apple Inc. announced its first smartwatch named the Apple Watch and released early 2015. Microsoft released Microsoft Band, a smart fitness tracker and their first watch since SPOT in early 2004. Top watches at CES 2017 were the Garmin Fenix 5 and the Casio WSD F20. Apple Watch Series 3 had built-in LTE allowing phone calls and messaging and data without a nearby phone connection. During a September 2018 keynote, Apple introduced an Apple Watch Series 4. It had a larger display and an EKG feature to detect abnormal heart function. Qualcomm released their Snapdragon 3100 chip the same month. It is a successor to the Wear 2100 with power efficiency and a separate low power core that can run basic watch functions as well as slightly more advanced functions such as step tracking.

See alsoEdit

• Patek Philippe
• Breitling
• Fortis Uhren AG
• IWC
• Longines
• Raketa
• History of timekeeping devices
• Zeno-Watch Basel
• Horology

ReferencesEdit

Further readingEdit

• Thompson, David, The History of Watches, New York: Abbeville Press, 2008.

External linksEdit

• Functioning of a simple mechanical watch
• Pictures and overview of the earliest watches
• Peter Henlein: Pomander Watch Anno 1505
• First American Colonial Watch