Did You Know? Smartwatches Were Imagined As Early As The 1920s

Early attempts at smartwatches in the 1980s and ’90s were clunky, impractical, and far ahead of their time.

A wristwatch that does more than tell time might seem like a symbol of our tech-saturated age. But here’s the twist: the idea of a “smart” watch has been ticking in the human imagination for over a century.

Long before Apple, Samsung, or Fitbit entered the game, the seeds of the smartwatch were sown in science fiction and speculative art. In the 1920s, a comic strip character named Dick Tracy (introduced in 1931, building on earlier concepts) famously wore a two-way wrist radio—an idea that would fascinate generations. To early readers, this was pure fantasy. But like many visions of the future, it became a blueprint for what would eventually come.

Fast forward nearly a hundred years, and the world is filled with watches that do more than keep time. They track heartbeats, count steps, check emails, navigate routes, even alert emergency services if you fall. Somewhere between personal trainer and pocket assistant, the modern smartwatch is an emblem of how far we’ve come—and perhaps how much we’ve come to depend on convenience worn on the wrist.

But while the technology is sleek, the journey has been anything but straightforward. Early attempts at smartwatches in the 1980s and ’90s were clunky, impractical, and far ahead of their time. Remember the Seiko TV watch? It let you watch telly on your wrist—if you didn’t mind carrying around a receiver the size of a lunchbox. And let’s not forget Microsoft’s short-lived SPOT watches, which beamed news and weather to your wrist over FM radio. Clever, but not quite a revolution.

What changed everything was the convergence of two things: smartphones and miniaturisation. As our phones got smarter and thinner, their components shrank—and so did the gap between idea and reality. When the first Apple Watch launched in 2015, it wasn’t just a gadget; it was a statement. Technology had caught up with imagination.

And yet, today’s smartwatches still echo their 1920s ancestors in one key way: they capture our desire for connection, information, and control, wrapped up in something as personal as a watch. It’s no longer just about the time—it’s about your time. Your health. Your schedule. Your alerts. Your choices.

For all the tech, the smartwatch is still a human thing. A tiny mirror reflecting our endless drive to make life more manageable—if not always simpler.