The Weirdest Seiko Watch Ever Made

Seiko has done a lot of weird stuff over the years. They’ve given us tuna-can divers, hybrid ana-digi oddities, even the Spring Drive movement that basically ignores the normal rules of watchmaking. But none of that touches the absolute madness of the Seiko TV Watch.

In 1982, long before anyone had heard the phrase “wearable tech”, Seiko casually dropped a wristwatch that could play live TV. Yes, TV. On your wrist. Like something out of Blade Runner. Officially called the Seiko T001, this thing was ridiculous. The watch face wasn’t even a watch face—it was a 1.2-inch black-and-white LCD screen.

The timekeeping part? Technically an afterthought. This was a TV first, watch second.

But here’s where it gets properly weird. The TV function needed an external receiver about the size of a chunky Walkman. You had to plug this unit into the watch with a cable, like some kind of cyborg umbilical cord, and then scan for broadcast signals.

The result? Grainy, shaky live TV. If you stood very still. In perfect reception. In broad daylight. The future never looked so pixelated.

It was absurd because Seiko didn’t care how clunky it was. This was 1982 after all. The idea that you could even attempt to stream live video to your wrist was so far ahead of its time that people barely knew what to make of it.

Remember, this was the same year Sony launched the Watchman portable TV. Seiko looked at that and said: cute. Let’s go smaller.

Then Hollywood got involved. Roger Moore strapped on the Seiko TV Watch in Octopussy (1983), instantly turning it into one of the most famous Bond gadgets of all time. Suddenly, this mad little contraption went from weird prototype to pop culture legend.

The Seiko TV Watch didn’t last long, of course. It was expensive, impractical, and entirely dependent on analog TV signals that are now extinct. But that’s not the point.

The point is: Seiko swung for the fences. While everyone else was trying to build better divers or chronographs, Seiko tried to make science fiction real. It was wearable tech before anyone even knew what wearable tech meant.

Today, Apple and Samsung cram GPS, ECG monitors, Spotify streaming and full-colour screens into their smartwatches. Seiko was already dreaming of this in 1982. They just didn’t quite have the tech to pull it off. But that’s exactly why the TV Watch still holds cult status among collectors: it’s so weird, it’s brilliant.

Plenty of watch brands have dabbled in bizarre designs. Only Seiko was crazy enough to let you watch the 6 o’clock news… at 6 o’clock. On your wrist.