There was a time, some years ago, when the most important names in the market were doing everything they could to convince users that their next purchase should be a wearable device. Today they barely try anymore, because the products didn't live up to the promises. But the concept of the wearable device itself is several decades old. One of the most striking and media-famous examples is the Seiko TV Watch, which debuted in the Japanese summer of 1982.
The year 1982 was something like the calm before the storm for the tech world. While home computers advanced by leaps and bounds, the console market was about to reach critical mass, leading to its collapse a year later. The savior would arrive from the Far East in 1985, but that famous system wasn't the only thing the Japanese were working on.
In Japanese lands, concepts so advanced were being explored that even the boldest Western minds couldn't have reproduced them. One of those concepts was a portable television. Although in 1982 compact models that could be carried anywhere already existed, the people at Seiko took it a step further, creating a television in the shape of a watch. That's how the Seiko TV Watch, a "wearable television", was born.
Seiko TV Watch: Wrist Television
Depending on the source, the Seiko TV Watch debuted in the Japanese market during the month of July or September 1982. Its original prices were 108,000 yen for the DXA001 edition and 98,000 yen for the DXA002, with the differences between them being a black detail on the DXA001 and the inclusion of an earphone instead of headphones with the more economical model.
https://old.neoteo.com/ruputer-pro-seiko-reloj-inteligente/As you can imagine, the TV Watch barely acted as a screen, which, by the way, had a size of 1.2 inches with a resolution of 210 by 152 pixels, reproducing something like ten shades of gray. The tuning unit was as big as a Walkman, and the user had to connect a cable from this unit to the top of the watch. If we add the headphones, the user looked more like a secret service agent than someone trying to watch TV.
Despite these limitations, the Seiko TV Watch worked for five hours with a battery pack (one SR920W for the watch and two AAA in the tuner) and was compatible with both VHF and UHF. The world got a closer look at the device thanks to the magic of cinema, and when it comes to futuristic accessories, nobody better than James Bond, who used it in Octopussy to... well, take a closer look at a lady (slightly NSFW, be careful).
The other cinematic exposure of the Seiko TV Watch was in Dragnet, the comedy by Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd, an unexpected film for placing a product like this. More than three decades later, the TV Watch has a high value among collectors, especially if the original box and accessories remain intact. And that's how things are: Today we're offered all kinds of sensors and monitors in wearable devices, but in 1982, Seiko placed a television in a watch. Not bad, right?
