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I became interested in Seiko watches after recently buying a Seiko Astron while visiting Japan. It’s amazing how much they shaped the watch industry. With the Astron series they buried a lot of Swiss manufacturers when it was first launched. Also, their “Spring Drive” technology is amazing. It’s basically the perfect hybrid between a mechanical watch movement and a quartz crystal. The movement is mechanical, with the spring releasing energy and powering the quartz crystal (there is no battery), which in turn acts as a “referee”, applying an electromagnetic brake and regulating the mechanical movement.
Anyone else notice the time in the photo is set to 10:08:59, which is one second before Apple Watch marketing material using 10:09, which itself is 1 minute before the traditional 10:10 used by the watchmaking industry?
It has been commonplace for analogue watches to be set to 10:10 or more often 1:40 so that the hands are pleasingly symmetrical and mostly frame the logo. I think this is just a carry over from that. The figures you use mention probably create that arrangement more accurately, though of course completely unnecessarily!
Seiko had a whole line microprocessors. I remember working with the S1C33 with a broken C compiler. We ended up using C macros and assembly. Never want to do that again.
Fast forward... all the computer I need is now in my bag or pocket or least within the room.
So what I'd enjoy on my wrist is an entry-level Seiko (or other) quartz with nothing but: 1) analog hands, and 2) a vibrating Bluetooth notification of incoming phone calls or maybe messages.
I know know, the second one is a swamp that Seiko doesn't want to wade into.
I want to be a civil as I can here, but you managed to post 3 sentences that are all completely wrong.
1. Seiko is huge. If you are snoozing on them, that's on you, not them. They have a HUGE presence in watches, from low-end affordable pieces to their gorgeous and expensive high-end watches under the Grand Seiko name. Jewelry stores where I live usually devote at least one of their window displays to Seiko (as you see with Rolex and Tag, for example).
2. Seiko is not owned by Epson. Epson do produce some of Seiko's watches, but they're not part of the company. Seiko are a public company primarily controlled, still, by the Hattori family.
3. In the 1980s Seiko was nowhere nearly as prestigious (or expensive) as Rolex or any other high-end Swiss maker. Then as now, the nicer watches were definitely nice watches, but they weren't jewelry like a Rolex or an Omega. The rise of Grand Seiko has leveled that playing field quite a bit, though. Today, at least among watch people, a spring-drive GS would be as fawned over as a Submariner or Explorer.
(edit: I left extraneous text while writing the post. That's now removed.)
Aw, that’s so nice of you, being civil and all. Really appreciate it.
Seikos were really quite high-end for a while. Maybe they weren’t Submariner-level, but you could drop around a grand on a Seiko digital, and that was a lot, back then.
Looks like I was, indeed, wrong. From the post, below, it looks like Epson came from Seiko, or work jointly.
Just to add on “The rise of Grand Seiko has leveled that playing field quite a bit”: there is also Credor. Owned by Seiko and (maybe) not that well known outside Asia
“Seiko Group (セイコー・グループ, Seikō Gurūpu) is a corporate group composed of Seiko Group Corporation and its subsidiaries and affiliates. It used to be recognized as a corporate group consisting of three core companies Seiko Holdings Corp. (Seiko; f/k/a K. Hattori & Co., Hattori Seiko), Seiko Instruments Inc. (SII; f/k/a Daini Seikosha, Seiko Instruments & Electronics), and Seiko Epson Corp (Epson; f/k/a Suwa Seikosha). The three companies were linked by a common thread of timepiece technology. Although Epson still develops and manufactures wristwatches for the Seiko Group, Epson and its subsidiaries are not considered part of the group”
It started with the watch making, EPSON was the spin off technology, developed for the 1964 Olympics, when printers were needed, along with precision timekeeping.
The watch engineering meant that they had the core competencies for making awesome printers.
The watch making continues, however, SEIKO-EPSON have diversified and got into specialist markets, up the value chain. Clearly they have had to survive quite a few company-threatening events over the years, ranging from the Plaza Accord where the Yen got zapped, to the LCD screen, which made printed paper somewhat obsolete.
Up the value chain can mean considerable benefits, EPSON printers are notable for this, where they have a lot of the point of sale market, where printers get to be used all day, with considerably more service/warranty money to be made, compared to that home printer that has printed out 'one form, once, in the last five years'.
For a short while in the 80s, little plastic or rubber face protectors were trendy. They had little vertical bumpers that covered the watch face from top to bottom.
That’s how my friend didn’t see the “A” and the “N” on his “ASEIKON” watch for a while.
Digital watches were certainly the in thing back then, but they didn't quite have the cachet of an expensive Rolex or TagHeuer. I had a cheaper end digital watch which seemed to take forever to set, although it did have a stop watch and possibly an alarm on it.
First time pebble owner, but I'm loving it. Not quite getting the advertised 30 days of battery life, but ~20 days is still more than good enough. It's also a really fun development platform
