Digital Watches: Everything You Need to Know About Their History and Technology

Delightfully retro and synonymous with the 1970s and 1980s, digital watches have personality to spare. In recent years, they've made a major comeback!

Those who knew them back in the day appreciate their history, while younger fans often simply love their easy-to-wear retro look. Our guide to digital watches takes you on a fascinating journey through the stories behind these iconic timepieces.

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Digital displays: definition and benefits

What is a digital display?

Also known as a “numeric display,” this type of display shows the time in numbers rather than with traditional hands. It contrasts with the analog display used by watches with hands.

Digital vs. analog watches

Digital watches often show the time on a liquid crystal display, also called an “LCD screen” or “Liquid Crystal Display.” Typically, it has a gray, beige or green background with black numbers. While most models use this basic display, some take a different approach…

One example is the “reverse” digital display, with light-colored numbers against a black background. At one point, it wasn't unusual for people to modify their watches to get this more modern, intriguing look. Seeing its popularity, many watch brands began offering models in the same style.

Less commonly, digital watches show the time using disks or small colored LEDs in red, blue, green and other colors… With LED models, the time isn't displayed continuously: you have to press a button to see it for a few seconds. That unusual setup is due to their high power consumption, but we'll come back to that…

The advantages of digital displays

Digital displays offer plenty of advantages thanks to their distinctive design…

• Easy reading: Digital watches show the time in numbers, so there's no need to check the positions of hour, minute and second hands. The information is right in front of you. Even when you're focused on an activity like rock climbing, the time is hard to misread. Most also have a backlight for excellent nighttime visibility. Above all, digital watches are designed to be practical.
• Battery life: Digital models often deliver impressive battery life, sometimes up to 10 years!
• Multiple functions: Most digital watches offer extra features that come in handy every day. Beyond hours, minutes and seconds, they may include an alarm, chronograph, countdown timer, second time zone (“Dual Time”), Worldtime and even a calculator. These features are difficult to incorporate into mechanical watches but simple and inexpensive to add to a digital watch's circuitry.
• Light weight: With no hands or gear trains, just a small circuit board, digital models are especially lightweight while offering all the features listed above.
• Greater durability: As quartz watches, digital models are highly shock-resistant. Casio G-Shock watches are a prime example: their construction, which lacks mechanical components, makes them ideal for extreme sports.
• Magnetic resistance: Digital watches are unaffected by electromagnetic interference. You can use them near a cell phone, computer, internet router or even speakers without worrying about a loss of accuracy.
• Compact size: Digital displays can be made remarkably small, as Casio's ring watches demonstrate.
• Low maintenance: Unlike mechanical watches, digital watches need very little upkeep. A battery change and, for water-resistant or dive models, possibly a replacement gasket are enough to keep them performing as intended.
• Affordability: Their simpler design makes digital watches available at accessible prices. Entry-level models cost just a few euros or a few dozen euros!

Note: These advantages apply to LCD watches, the most common digital models today.

When did digital watches first appear?

It may seem surprising, but the earliest digital watches used rotating disks to show the passage of time. Jump-hour watches thus introduced a hands-free time display, first in pocket watches and later in wristwatches.

Bulova jump-hour watch, circa 1920 (Source: Lot Art)

These watches ran on manually wound mechanical movements and took an original approach: showing the passage of time without hands. They weren't yet called “digital,” however. That term did not begin appearing on digital watch dials until the 1960s.

Smiths digital watch (Source: Kibble Watches)

At the time, some manually wound mechanical models displayed the time on continuously rotating disks rather than with instantaneous jumps. Around then, the term “digital” began to catch on with the public.

Setting those early mechanical models aside, the Pulsar P1, launched in 1972, is considered the first modern digital watch. Its metal case had a brushed finish, with a black screen at the center displaying the hours and minutes in red numbers using an LED display.

Pulsar P1 watch, 1972 (Source: Monochrome Watches)

This model was soon replaced in 1973 by the even more modern-looking Pulsar P2. For vintage watch enthusiasts, Hamilton recently reissued it as the “American Classic PSR.”

Pulsar P2 watch, 1973 (Source: Revolution Watch)

The first digital watch with an LCD screen arrived soon afterward, also in 1973: the LC V.F.A. 06LC from Japanese brand Seiko. Its six-digit display could show seconds, an innovation that many other manufacturers soon adopted as a standard.

Seiko LC V.F.A. 06LC watch, 1973 (Source: seiko.co)

The Seiko LC V.F.A. 06LC stood out for its futuristic styling, water resistance and three round setting buttons below the screen. But this innovation came at a cost: the watch was priced beyond the reach of many…

In 1974, Casio joined the field with the “Casiotron,” reference QW02, the brand's first wristwatch. It displayed hours and minutes and included a calendar that accounted for months of 28, 29, 30 and 31 days, effectively a perpetual calendar complication.

Casio Casiotron digital watch, 1974 (Source: Europastar)

In the years and decades that followed, several Swiss brands, including Omega, Zodiac, Heuer and Tissot, introduced digital watches with futuristic yet recognizable designs.

Omega Seamaster digital watch, ref. 386.0803, 1979 (Source: Café Noir - Les montres)

In France, Jaz stood out for its wide range of affordable quartz watches, from sporty models to more refined dress watches suitable for wearing with a suit.

Some digital watches have even become cult favorites, including the Casio F-91W, one of the world's most affordable watches, and the Casio CA-53W, the famous calculator watch Marty McFly wore in Back to the Future.

Casio CA-53W-1 calculator watch (Source: WATCHDAVID)

Casio's chrome-finish models have become pop culture icons, not just favorites among watch enthusiasts! They prove you don't always have to spend a fortune to own an iconic watch.

Today, reissues of iconic models are in vogue. Several brands are drawing on their archives to create modern interpretations of their classics. Standouts include Girard-Perregaux's Casquette and Casio's Casiotron.

Which watches use digital displays?

Digital displays are everywhere today! They're not limited to wristwatches: some alarm clocks, wall clocks and small desk clocks have them too.

Various digital watches, alarm clocks and clocks

This type of display owes its success to its simplicity, functionality, legibility and convenience. Some brands have even specialized in digital watches. Japanese brand Casio is undoubtedly the best known, having developed a whole range of LCD models. Others have entered the field too, including Timex, D1 Milano, Swatch and Tissot, which even released a digital version of its famous PRX.

As for wall clocks, many of us remember a digital one hanging in a school, gymnasium or fitness center: usually square, sometimes round, but always black, with tiny red LEDs showing the time. A real trip down memory lane!

Lunartec digital LED wall clock (Source: Pearl)

These examples show just how widespread digital time displays are. They're easy to read and relatively inexpensive, particularly to maintain, which helps explain why they're so common in public spaces.

How does a digital display work?

As you've seen, digital displays come in many forms, each with its own way of working…

Rotating-disk displays

As we've seen, rotating disks were the first digital display system used in watchmaking.

Lip Baschmakoff watch, circa 1970 (Source: Café Noir - Les montres)

Mechanical digital watches use printed rotating disks to show the time. These disks can operate in two different ways.

• Most watches produced in the 1960s and 1970s used continuous motion. Their minute and hour disks turned slowly, much like hands, driven by a simple gear train. No energy was stored and released; instead, the numbers gradually moved into view through the window, sometimes appearing to slide slightly. This system is simple, needs little torque and is easy to produce, while providing a display that's easy to read at a glance. Watches with this type of display are often called “Directime.”
• Other calibers use a jumping mechanism: instead of turning continuously, the disks advance in precise increments exactly on the minute or hour. This instantaneous jump requires a mechanism, such as a jumper, auxiliary spring or driving finger, that stores energy and releases it all at once for a crisp, perfectly aligned change. This approach demands more precise adjustment because the jump creates a spike in torque and requires strict synchronization between the disks. In return, it provides a clear reading with no intermediate transition.

These two approaches, continuous motion and instantaneous jumps, show how mechanical watchmaking interpreted digital displays before electronic solutions arrived…

LED displays

With the arrival of electronics, LED digital displays marked a major turning point!

LED watches use light-emitting diodes arranged into segmented numerals. At the heart of the system is a quartz oscillator that provides a timing reference. An integrated circuit interprets that frequency and activates the segments needed to display the time. Each segment is a small diode that lights up when current flows through it in the right direction.

Girard-Perregaux Casquette (Source: Girard-Perregaux official website)

This system is instantly legible, even in complete darkness, but it uses relatively large amounts of power... To conserve battery life, the display is often activated only when needed. The LEDs in these watches are generally made of gallium arsenide, a semiconductor that produces bright red light. That glow long defined the look of early electronic digital watches. Today, though, you can also find models with green, blue and even orange displays!

LCD displays

LCD displays, meanwhile, emerged as the most energy-efficient option. An LCD screen consists of a layer of liquid crystals between two glass plates coated with transparent electrodes, positioned between two polarizers.

Casio A168 Space Colors digital watch (Source: Sports Direct)

With no voltage applied, the liquid crystals take on a twisted orientation. Ambient light passes through the first polarizer, is redirected inside the cell, then passes through the second polarizer. The segment appears light.

When voltage is applied, the crystals change orientation. Light is no longer redirected and is blocked by the second polarizer, making the segment appear dark. This “passive” system uses ambient light reflected by the back of the display and requires very little energy. An integrated circuit simply applies a low voltage to the selected segments as needed, enabling a very long battery life. This type of display is easy to read in bright light and can be paired with a backlight for use in the dark.

Especially useful at night, a backlight often comes from a small LED that works much like a tiny light bulb. More advanced LCD digital watches, however, use a much more powerful backlighting system. Casio calls its version “Illuminator,” while Timex uses the name “Indiglo.”

As we've seen, digital displays have stood the test of time without losing their identity. They remain a distinctive way to tell time, combining precision, legibility and unmistakable character!

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