AMIDA’s digitrend watch makes futuristic comeback years after it was first unveiled in 1970s

AMIDA’s 1970s timepiece is back

AMIDA revives its decades-old timepiece introduced in the 1970s, the Digitrend watch, fitting it with modern flair, including a steel casing and a sapphire crystal prism for its Light Reflecting Display, and giving it the name Take off Edition. The date was April 24th, 1976, 48 years ago today, and the timepiece design takes the wearers back to AMIDA’s stand at Basel Fair, Booth 603 of Hall 1, the first public introduction of the accessory. Back then, visitors saw a polished object, unsure whether or not it was a watch at all since it had no dial. But it had a display screen under a crystal, mimicking the dashboard of a sports car or the cockpit of a spacecraft.

images courtesy of AMIDA

AMIDA’s Digitrend watch was encased in this polished steel that looked like a hypercar’s body with its singular block and uniform lines, wrapping the display, hours, and minutes with its material. Serving as the tail of this chrome-plated metal shell were steel links, joined together individually. This watch, its form and concept too, were new then, a foreign concept turned tangible timepiece. If worn, drivers would not need to twist their wrists to check the time.

The crystal that reflected the hours and minutes was already visible to the line of sight without taking off their hands on the wheel. Yet as revolutionary as it sounded, its life didn’t last long. The idea was there, but the execution may not have shown up in the right era. Today, AMIDA returns to life, bringing this Digitrend watch back, offering it a second life; this time, to modern timepiece wearers who may appreciate its 1970s flair, history, and craftsmanship.

side profile of the case machined from block of steel

Digitrend watch machined from block of steel

The modernized AMIDA Digitrend watch, which is named the Take off Edition for its first run, deserves a watchful eye on its revamped design. Wearers can instantly see its car body-style case, machined from a block of 316 L stainless steel. The style refines the watch’s contours for sleeker aesthetics, improved finishes, and a more fluid profile, every design essence that mimics the car’s headlights or sloping rear for increased aerodynamic performance. The steel casing then hunches over the hours and minutes at the front and encloses the components inside, not showing any details other than the time and the knob on the side.

view of the new AMIDA Digitrend watch

Checking the time, the new AMIDA Digitrend watch brings back its signature ‘jumping hours’ and ‘trailing minutes’. These are made possible through the optical-grade sapphire crystal prism planted on the watch’s front part. The hours and minutes are printed horizontally on circular discs hidden inside the steel casing, so to display them vertically for when the wearers need to read them, the sapphire crystal prism inverts or refracts their position from horizontal to vertical and magnifies the numbers for better legibility.

rear view of the watch with AMIDA engraving

Jumping hours through light reflecting display

More about the jumping hours and trailing minutes, this is AMIDA’s system patented on April 5th, 1973, called the Light Reflecting Display. When the wearer gets up close to the Digitrend watch, they find the absence of a luminous or electronic display. They see the optical effect created by a crystal in the shape of a prism. AMIDA likens it to a submarine periscope, given its movement operates horizontally, but the ‘image’ of the hour and minute are projected vertically, and decades later, the modernized Digitrend watch brings it back from the past, refreshed and reborn.

the Digitrend watch in 1976

Still touching on the modern Digitrend watch’s insides: AMIDA develops the timepiece’s dual-disc construction in-house with only nine components. This disc doubles as both a plate and a casing ring, enabling the flow of the jumping hours and trailing minutes without lags. Overall, the Digitrend watch looks like a hypercar’s vacuum-mouth front, where the wearer peeks at the time through the completely redesigned typography that is true to the original orange digits emblematic of the 1970s. Around the watch, the straps are either made of charcoal Alcantara and orange calfskin with a stainless steel buckle or pure stainless-steel-crafted straps joined by individual links.

detailed view of the new and modern AMIDA Digitrend watch

AMIDA’s digitrend watch to be released soon

When the wearer flips the watch, they see AMIDA’s engraving of the globe surrounded by a rocket, a serial design for the Take off Edition of the revived Digitrend watch. Here too they should find the see-through casing design, with its open back revealing the organ of the mechanical self-winding movement, Soprod’s modern and reliable Newton caliber, which offers 44 hours of power reserve.

Soprod’s Newton is the engine of the watch, the home of nine mechanical components and six screws that make up the entire functioning of the timepiece. It is embossed with Côtes de Genève, sandblasted with Rhodium-plated finishes. As of publishing the story, AMIDA is expected to open a pool of preorders in May for this modern ‘Take off’ Edition of its historic Digitrend watch, each unit priced at around 2,972 EUR, excluding VAT.