Gernsback's Wacky Wristwatch: The Smartwatch of 1934?

On August 11, 1934, in a bizarre twist of technological innovation and showmanship, radio personality and inventor Hugo Gernsback demonstrated the world's first television wristwatch at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. This proto-smartwatch was a bulky contraption that looked more like a science fiction prop than a practical device, featuring a miniature cathode ray tube strapped to the wearer's wrist.

Gernsback, often called the "Father of Science Fiction," had long been predicting and conceptualizing futuristic technologies in his pulp magazines like "Amazing Stories." This wristwatch television was quintessential Gernsback: part visionary, part mad scientist. The device could receive broadcast signals, though its reception was notoriously temperamental, and the screen was barely larger than a postage stamp.

While the invention never reached commercial production, it was a remarkable glimpse into the future of personal technology. Journalists and scientists who witnessed the demonstration were simultaneously amused and astounded, with one New York Times reporter describing it as "a contraption that looks like it escaped from the pages of a Buck Rogers comic."

The wristwatch television would become a prophetic moment, predating modern smartwatches by nearly 80 years and cementing Gernsback's reputation as a technological soothsayer who could imagine devices decades before they became reality.