Smartwatch

The smartwatch did not emerge from a vision of the future—it emerged from the collision of three separate technological lineages that happened to intersect in early 1980s Japan. By 1984, digital watches had become commoditized, home computers were proliferating, and LCD technology had matured enough to display more than just time. The question was not whether someone would connect them, but who would do it first.

Seiko, already dominant in digital watches since introducing the world's first quartz watch in 1969, possessed the miniaturization expertise that no computer company could match. Their engineers understood how to pack electronics into wrist-sized enclosures, manage power from tiny batteries, and manufacture at scale. Meanwhile, personal computers like the Apple II, Commodore 64, and IBM PC had created millions of users who were learning to manage their lives digitally—storing phone numbers, scheduling appointments, setting reminders. The gap between the information on their desks and the watches on their wrists had become absurd.

The Seiko RC-1000 Wrist Terminal, released in 1984, bridged this gap with brutal simplicity. It offered 2 KB of storage, a two-line 12-character display, and—critically—an RS-232C serial interface that could connect to nearly every major computer platform: Apple II, Commodore 64, IBM PC, TRS-80. Users could transfer notes, phone numbers, and scheduled alarms from their computers to their wrists. No keyboard was included because none was needed; the computer handled data entry.

The timing reveals the adjacent possible at work. Wireless standards like Bluetooth would not exist for another decade. Mobile phones like the Motorola DynaTAC were massive, expensive ($3,995), and impractical for integration. The RC-1000 succeeded precisely because it did not attempt wireless connectivity—it used the humble cable, the technology that was actually ready. At approximately £100, the watch found buyers among the early adopter community who understood the value proposition.

Yet the smartwatch would remain a niche curiosity for nearly three decades. Path dependence locked it into a peripheral role: without wireless connectivity, constant tethering to a computer limited utility. Without smartphones providing always-on data connections, there was nothing to connect to. The RC-1000 was not ahead of its time—it was exactly of its time, demonstrating what was possible within the constraints of 1984 while simultaneously revealing why the constraints themselves needed to change.

The modern smartwatch explosion that began with Pebble in 2012 and accelerated with Apple Watch in 2015 required a different adjacent possible: Bluetooth Low Energy, smartphone ubiquity, MEMS sensors, lithium-polymer batteries, and app ecosystems. Seiko's 1984 prototype proved the concept; the concept waited thirty years for its ecosystem.