The history of wearable technology, "pocket watch" and "watch" born from war

ByKit

Smart watches are becoming common with Android Wear and Apple Watch, but originally "watch" refers to "pocket watch" carried in pocket. From when you can see such watch, you can see why you can wear your arm "History of watches"Is summarized at The Atlantic.

A Brief History of the Wristwatch - The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/05/history-wristwatch-apple-watch/391424/


On July 9, 1916 the New York Times posted an article on 'Watch', in which it is reported that the clocks of European people are changing from pocket watches to wrist watches. Until then it was mainstream to put the pocket watch in the pocket, so Americans who saw the European who put the watch on the wrist felt it was a kind of joke.


Originally pocket watches became commonly used around the 1700s, people carried punctual time for more than a century. In the nineteenth century it was a time when pocket watches were actively made, as the improvement advanced, the size of the main body became smaller and it became possible to attach chains and straps that can be seen even now. Besides confirming the time, also having a pocket watch popular as an item that can show its own economic state, according to the American gaming records of the 19th century, among the gambling items 40 to 50 It seems that pocket watches occupied%.

ByRobert Clemens

after that,Industrial Revolution"From time to the end of the nineteenth century the development of railway, factory and electricity and the standardization of the time zone in Europe and the United States began," time confirmation "became even more indispensable for people, Manufacturing technology has also improved greatly.

When the "time" of people moved from one pocket to the other, it is the boundary between World War I between 1914 and 1918. With the development of telephony and communication technology, soldiers fighting in modern warfare are beginning to need to accurately grasp the time on the battlefield, wearing a wristwatch that knows the time at first sight in the first two years from World War I is a soldier's It became obligatory, and the demand of the wristwatch rose. Although the watch began to be used among ordinary citizens from the influence of war, what initially wore a watch on a bracelet as a female fashion was prevalent.


It occurred from 1899 to 1902Second Boer WarBut I already know that the British soldiers were wearing a wrist watch. The fact that the soldiers were wearing a wristwatch was said that the wrist watch penetrated even among men. The pocket watch that was hard to put out under the coat etc. became "obsolete" in the 1920s, and the demand changed to the wristwatch.


With the spread of mobile phones and smartphones in modern times, the number of people who do not need wrist watches is increasing and the way to check time reverted back into the pocket as well as pocket watches. But as smartwatch demand is accelerating by the advent of Google's Android Wear and Apple's Apple Watch, people may return time from their pockets to their arms to trace their history again.

ByYasunobu Ikeda