Who Needs the iPad When You Can Have a Gadget Watch

Watchmakers have certainly never been immune to the thrill of multi-tasking. They may be a traditional bunch in many ways, especially at the luxury end of the market where art and engineering meet, but the history of watches is also a story of big technological leaps, and of artisans figuring out what would now be called new apps for the old timepiece.

The first watch with a perpetual calendar goes back to the days of the flappers, the first alarm watch to 1914, as Europe’s Middle Ages came to a shuddering end in the First World War.

Work on water resistance, ushering in the first diving watch, goes back further still, though the Rolex Oyster with the first water-resistant case had to wait until 1926 to make its bow.

Lately, though, it’s all got a little frantic, as watchmakers look to jump on the high-tech bandwagon, or at least scramble desperately to avoid the ultimate dis: that of being labelled old-tech.

We’ve had everything from watch/PDAs, neither of which set the world on fire and both of which had the whiff of panic to them. Even Microsoft, with its much-hyped “Spot” technology, was unable to crack the code.

LG recently introduced a startling new watch-phone, but it had problems with heat and battery life.   It was also as big as a Steinway. Still some work to do, then.

In some eyes, nonetheless, wristwatches are already doomed, and it is only a matter of time before the death foretold is confirmed. The Times announced the demise of this now 142-year-old fad four years ago, declaring that “the wristwatch is finally going the way of the sundial, into technological obsolescence.”

Needless to say, it was wrong. In fact, the signs are that as so often in the past watchmakers are beginning to rise to the latest challenge in a way that does not betray their past or their identity.

Take Tag Heuer. Rather than jam a cellphone into a wristwatch, this savviest of watch brands has gone the other way, launching its own limited-edition cellphone in partnership with Lamborghini and incorporating a stylish timekeeping element into the device.        

The stainless steel Merediist has the sturdy elegance of the Tag watch. It works as a cellphone, among its highlights a battery that delivers up to seven hours talk time and 28 days standing time. But it also has digital clock in the top, nestling behind a sapphire crystal glass, featuring a 1/100th of a second chronograph, and controlled by a Tag button on the bottom of the phone. It could be the wave of the future. Now if it only it could cook beans.