Seiko’s smartwatch Play Apple Watches, Pixel Watches and Galaxy Watches may be all the rage, but the smartwatch is a very old idea: Seiko was making smartwatches such as the RC-1000 back in 1984. Apple’s premature iPhone The MessagePad Newton was the iPhone a decade too early: battery technology was primitive, with early models sucking triple-A batteries dry in the blink of an eye; today’s bright, capacitive touchscreens were many years away; and wireless connectivity and mobile broadband were yet to deliver on their promises.