That's interesting, and Mr. Hytlyn is referring to watch displays with electrochromics.
Here's what I found on the Moonwatch site.
Around this time, a friend introduced me to Ken Hollandsworth, a mysterious fellow who had worked at several watch companies,including as a VP at Hamilton for several years. He was said to be an encyclopedia ofwatch knowledge and an occasional patron of young entrepreneurs such as myself. Aftercarefully explaining my project to Ken, I proudly unveiled my beautiful painting, drawingit slowly from its blue velvet covering. He looked at the picture carefully and raised aneyebrow. "That's not LCD" he said, "LCD doesn't look anything like that". My heart sank.I had fooled myself with the pretty picture, but nobody else would believe it. "I know," Isaid sadly. He continued "That's electrochromics!" I had never heard the term."Electro-what?" "Electrochromics..." he went on, " was an early rival to LCD technology- afew experimental watches were made in the late 70's, but they didn't catch on. EC displaysdidn't have the switching speed needed to count seconds, and they're difficult andexpensive to make- but they're beautiful, and blue and white, exactly like your moon display".I was elated! Electrochromics was the answer! Unfortunately, I soon found out that electrochromicdisplay technology was virtually a lost art.
To make an exceedingly long and painful story relatively short, I spent the next five years trying to develop a viable Electrochromicdisplay. After a few months of searching, I tracked down one of the scientists who hadinvented the EC display over twenty years ago. While working for American Cyanimidin the 1970's, Gottfried Haake had developed an EC digital watch display for Seiko and Ebauches S.A in Switzerland. Fewer than two thousand pieces had been made beforeLCD displays- much cheaper to produce- wiped out the EC R&D programs, and the EC displaywas virtually forgotten. When I asked Dr. Haake what became of the few EC watchesproduced in the 70's he rolled up his sleeve and showed me the watch he'd been wearingfor 20 years. "I've worn it every day" he stated proudly, "it keeps perfect time". I mustadmit that this was not a masterpiece of design. It had that boxy, technical look of a '77Chrysler. But the display, hallelujah! was blue on white, just as promised. The blue wasa bit lighter than I wanted, but Haake explained that this represented a compromisebetween depth of color and switching speed. A digital watch segment must changeevery minute if not second, whereas each MoonWatch segment changes once every 15days, and could have a much deeper color.
A: The MoonWatch display has been thoroughly tested in a laboratory setting. It has been cycled at an accelerated rate to simulate the moon's cycle over several hundred years with no sign of degradation. Regarding the "Shelf life" of the electrochromic display, we have examined similar displays that were produced experimentally over 20 years ago and which still work perfecltly today. Therefore, we are confident that the MoonWatch will be an heirloom that can be passed through many generations.
It seems like the old 70's electrochromic displays are reliable going by the above information, but they simply don't switch fast enough for many purposes.
I'd like to learn more about the vintage electrochromic watchs if possible, I wonder if it's possible to contact some of these people like Mr. Gottfried Haake and Ken Hollandsworth as well as Tom Hytlyn to help add more information if possible.
21 Feb 2007, 00:58
