Fancy Digital Watches: A Deep Dive

When it comes to luxury watches, many people think of elegant dress watches, made by high-end Swiss and German brands, adorned with expensive materials like gold and diamonds, and featuring high horology complications like tourbillons, perpetual calendars, and moon phase, and complex movements. However, in the world of digital watches, there is a misconception that these watches are simply cheap, chunky, plastic quartz watches that are only used as beater watches. But, in this video, I will prove that there are, in fact, luxury mechanical digital watches that can be worn as dress watches, on yachts, and on business trips. These watches have been produced by luxury Swiss brands, can be made from premium materials, have emulated high horology complications, and even adopted fancy movements.

The original digital LED watches were luxury items, such as the Hamilton Pulsar, which came in a gold case. Across the US and Switzerland, there were LED watches that came in fancy boxes, such as the Girard Perregaux Casquette, JLC, Longines Gemini, and many more. Even the Soviets were in on the game. This continued into the original LCD models of the dynamic scattering displays across various Swiss brands and the Clepsydre collaboration between Longines and Texas Instruments.

From Japan, Seiko has options like the slimline front button and the Ana-digi. Citizen had some smart-looking digitals, and Orient had very classy-looking offerings, particularly the solar models. The Japanese electronic heritage brands like Casio and Sanyo also had more formal looks before things went sporty in the 80s and 90s. In the US, there were some smart offerings from Timex in the Q Timex range, and Texas Instruments with their normal LCD range, as well as a pseudo-analog number. And in Germany, Cristalonic, Junghans, Ruhla, and later Braun had some classy-looking offerings. Switzerland had models from Sicura, Longines, Heuer, Mondaine, Mido, and even Rolex flirted with launching an LCD pseudo-analog under the name FAN.

In this video, I will be highlighting four watches that go beyond just smart design and bring in some proper luxury elements. The Bulova Phantom, the Omega Equinoxe, the Fleming Bo Hansen designed watch, and the ETA Memo Sail are all examples of luxury digital watches that break the mold of the traditional perception of digital watches. So, grab some after-dinner chocolates and enjoy the video.

Chapters:

Intro: 0:00
Dress digitals: 0:57
Fancy complications: 4:16
Luxury materials: 7:20
Advanced movements: 9:28

[TheGrenadier]

Fantastic! It's sad that this era is gone...

[DDSForbbiden]

An elegant and well made digital watch is a thing of beauty. Great video!

[AdnanCucak]

I Genuinly dont understand why you dont have half a million subs, your videos are great, editing is fantastic and I cant wait for more!

[TickSweep]

Fantastic video! I love the Omega reverso it’s awesome! Would be crazy having a solid gold digital watch wouldn’t it! Keep up the great work

[higgledypiggledycubledy]

I have a Citizen Multi-Alarm II that has a decimal repeater - from around 1978 I believe

[Daud]

Very good review as always! Keep up your great work and uploads. 🤙🏼

[LambentOrt]

Great video as always! I love scouring secondhand websites looking for dressy digital watches in metal cases, especially from the late 70s era. They usually don't have a lot of functions but they're almost always beautifully designed!

[nickgee]

love it! you have a great niche that im sure digital watch fans have been wanting! thats why i love the psr and the prx digital so much, because you can find them new. maybe some other brands will surprise us, who knows!

[jamesblonde]

Thnks mate, great overview. I think the your Csio moonphse/orrery is a great exmple and more like the perpetul calender of old....

[jz]

Another fascinating and well-researched video as always - you're one of my favorite watch youtubers!

[handletoocomplicatedtochange]

Your videos are so educational and entertaining!!! Keep up the good work!

[EA-lcht]

Great video, but I missed the Tissot two timer or the Longines Split 5, they're classy!

[ednammansfield]

Fantastic video as always and I love the work and research you put into everything about the world of watches. Keep up the good work you do.

[handokowibowo]

Very fancy digital wrist watch, a lot this models I never seen before, thank you very much indeed, from here
Watching from java Street, java island, Indonesia 🇮🇩

[augusttjernshaugen]

Just bought an Omega cal 1616 digital. Pretty barebones complication wise, but it has day and date.

[Capt]

I always love your content. Thank you for all the hard work you put into these videos for us!

[LaurentiusTriarius]

I love this video, my grandpa had a gold Pulsar that he didn't wear for the longest time, when he passed away in 2008 my uncle saved it from the junk pile everyone else in the family was like "that's a cheap junk golden watch give it away".
I suppose he still have it. I hope so lol

[laszloekovacs]

The casio A158WEA-9EF is my "fancy" watch.

[zornikzornuk]

Thanks for the video, lot of neat watches

[MrPleers]

Sadly, most of these fancy digitals are way back in the past. Nowadays, it's a rare thing to even see digital watches made with a metal case. And in a lot of cases these metal digitals are bulky G-Shocks.