Hamilton

4min read

Lip in France in close collaboration with the Elgin company in the USA were the first to publicly present a battery driven watch, however the first to develop a sellable electric wristwatch was Hamilton in Lancaster USA. They launched their electric wristwatch the 03.01.1957 after several years of development.
One of the main difficulties in developing the electric calibre was to find a battery suitable for powering the movement of a wristwatch, a problem which will haunt all electric and electronic wrist watch developments until the 1970s. Hamilton found the solution with the help of the National Carbon Company (now Energizer) which developed a specific battery (1).

At Hamilton, the study of a mechanical watch powered by a battery began in 1946 under the guidance of George Luckey, head of research and development. The appearance of miniature batteries opened up new perspectives in many fields in terms of miniaturisation (1).

The development based on ideas by Philip E. Biemiller and James H. Reese progressed under the name ‘Project X’. A team led by John Van Horn was formed to design a wristwatch with a battery that would last at least one year. Hamilton developed its electric calibre by manufacturing all the components in-house. At that time, the company machined all the parts of its watches – movement, dial, hands, indexes, etc. – except for the cases and the batteries (1).

Initially two movement systems were designed: one using electro magnets (EM-1) and one using permanent magnets (PM-1). Whereas the Lip and Elgin system worked with a fixed coil and of course an oscillating balance, Hamilton decided to integrate the coil into the balance wheel. Finally, due to better electrical efficiency the PM-1 system was privileged over the EM-1 and the first Model 1 (proof of principle) went through several stages until the development of Model 2 in 1953 (2).

This Model 2 was a functional prototype of which 23 were made and given to senior executives to be test – worn. This version shows several differences compared to the later commercialised caliber 500. Apart of the distinctive red lightning on the dial, it has an epoxy resin balance, large flat magnets and a primitive contact system. Despite the quite good performance the contacts were temperamental and the epoxy resin balance were very sensitive to humidity variations (2). Picture credit (3)

The next prototype phase would be the primitive caliber 500 with 17 jewels (5 more than the final product). One example of this functional prototype is shown below.

Ref.:

  1. Watchonista, through Clinique Horlogère
  2. Electric Watches
  3. Rondeau R.: The Watch Of The Future, 2006
  4. Unwind in Time