Digital division

From cheap and cheerful to pricey and posh – the digital watch is enjoying a bit of a comeback

- RICHARD HOLT

WHAT IS A DIGITAL WATCH? CLOSE your eyes and imagine one, and it's most likely something cheapish and battery powered. It is the watch equivalent of a Prius – you buy it for the job it does, not because you love it. But there is much more to digital than that.

Back in the 1880s, a man called Josef Pallweber patented a jumping hour mechanism. Instead of the analogue display of hands pointing to numbers, the hours appeared in a window, thanks to a little rotating wheel behind the dial. This was the world's first digital movement and was put into production in pocket watches made by IWC and others.