Black Watch (wristwatch)

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The Black Watch was a financial disaster for Sinclair Radionics.
The Black Watch was a financial disaster for Sinclair Radionics.
The Black Watch has no mechanical buttons.
The Black Watch has no mechanical buttons.

The Black Watch is an electronic wristwatch launched in September 1975 by Sinclair Radionics. It cost £24.95 ready-built, but was for £17.95 also available as kit.

The Black Watch is equipped with a red LED display, which is illuminated only when the watchcase's surface is pressed; two resilient spots display hours and minutes or minutes and seconds, respectively.

The product was beset by technical problems including a battery life of just 10 days, variable accuracy and a very sensitive integrated circuit which could be rendered useless by a static shock from a nylon shirt. In spite of this, Sinclair's advertising still claimed:

If that sounds technical, think of the outcome: a watch with no moving parts, a watch with nothing to go wrong, a watch which gives accuracy never achievable by the most precise mechanical engineering.[1]

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