History of Electric Clocks and Watches (Includes Quartz)

History of Electric Clocks and Watches

1814, Sir Francis Ronalds of London invents first electric clock, powered by dry pile battery

1815, Giuseppe Zamboni of Verona invents another electrostatic clock with dry pile batteries

1840, Alexander Basin of Scotland created first clock powered by electric current

1843, Matthias Hipp created mass marketed electric clock and Hipp-Toggle (device attached to a pendulum or balance wheel that electro-mechanically allows occasional impulse or drive to the pendulum or wheel as its amplitude of swing drops below a certain level)

1880, piezoelectric properties of quartz were discovered by Jacques and Pierre Curie

1918, Henry Ellis Warren invents first synchronous clock (synced with power grid)

1921, first quartz crystal oscillator built by Walter G. Cady

1923, D. W. Dye NPL and Warren Marrison at Bell Labs produced sequences of precision time signals with quartz oscillators

1927, first quartz clock built by Warren Marrison and J.W. Horton at Bell Labs

1932

quartz clocks able to measure variations in Earth’s rotation rate over period of a few weeks

Issac Koga of Japan developed crystal cut that gave oscillation frequency independent of temperature variation

1930s-1960s, NBS bases time standard of US on quartz clocks

1952, First watch to employ electronic component (diode to reduce sparking on the contacts) by Elgin Watch Company in the United States and Lip of France (Lip – Elgin enterprise)

1957, Hamilton Watch Company produced first electric watch (traditional balance wheel with battery) called the VENTURA

1959, Seiko organizes team led by Tsuneya Nakamura to investigate feasibility of watch more precise than the best mechanical watch available at the time

1960, Bulova creates the electric Accutron tuning fork watch (U-shaped nickel alloy vibrates due to electric current)

1962, Center Electronique Horloger (CEH) created to spur development of electric Swiss watches (with the aid of president of the Swiss Chamber of Watchmaking, Gerard Bauer) and also due to the scare of American electric watch companies as described previously

1964, Tokyo Olympics: Seiko is official timekeeper

1967, First prototype for quartz wristwatch, Beta 1 by CEH in Neuchâtel, Switzerland

1969 Dec 25, Seiko produced the world's first commercial quartz wristwatch, the Astron SQ

1970

The first mass production of the quartz watches with analog display by CEH, Beta 21, was a flop

May 6, Pulsar announced to the world at conference in New York with 6 prototypes

1970s

Texas Instruments, Fairchild, National Semiconductor entered watch market, prices driven down

Quartz crisis causes Swiss watch manufacturers to undergo extreme structural changes

1972, Hamilton produced the first watch with a LED display with 18-carat gold Pulsar ($2,100). It required the pressing of a button on the side to display time in red numerals. It was used in 2001 A Space Odyssey.

1973, Seiko launches first LCD watch (display could be on permanently)

1974, Hamilton sold to Swiss company, Pulsar continues in its separate division: Time Computer, Inc.

1975, first mass produced LED watch by Texas Instruments ($20), priced halved the next year. This resulted in Pulsar losing $6 million.

1976, return rate for digital watches at 30% (low quality watches)

1977, Time Computer Inc. sold to Rhapsody Inc. (US jewelry firm) who sold the name ‘Pulsar’ to Seiko

1978

Quartz watches became more popular than the mechanical watches

Hong Kong exports the largest number of electronic watches worldwide

1982

Seiko makes wristwatch with tiny TV screen

Casio produces watch with thermometer and one that could translate 1,500 Japanese words to English

1987

Casio produced a watch that could dial your phone number

Citizen unveiled watch that would react to your voice

1988, Jean d’Eve launched the Samara, the first quartz watch whose power source was an automatic rotor, the Generotor

1991, Seiko launched a quartz watch electrically powered by an oscillating weight

1995, Timex makes Data link watch that can download information from computer

2005, Seiko launched the Spring Drive Kinetic. It was the first self-winding mechanical watch with an electromagnetic escapement.