Touchtron is an LED watch released by Orient in 1975.
In advertisements at the time, the official name was written as "Crystal oscillation light emitting diode all-electronic watch Touchtron."
It has a retro-futuristic feel and is very cool.

In fact, before liquid crystal (LCD) digital watches became popular, digital watches were LED watches.
Although it is an LED, it is quite different from the LEDs used in current LED displays, and is a single-color red LED arranged in a 7-segment shape.

The advantage of LED watches is that unlike liquid crystal displays, the LED display itself shines quite brightly, making it highly visible at night.(no backlight required)
However, because the LED itself emits light, it consumes much more power than an LCD, and the watch's button battery quickly runs out.
Therefore, most LED watches at the time were of the type where the LED time display only lit up while the button was pressed.

As its name suggests, the "Touchtron" featured the ability to display the time simply by "touching" without having to press a button.
Advertisements at the time included
"The world's first tactile digital.”
“One-touch for hours and minutes, two-touch for date.
　　Display the time with just a light touch
　　　Ruby shine on black mask
　　　　Clear and clear even in the dark
It is written.

Structurally, the entire metal part of the watch body that is closer to the glass than the insulator is a touch sensor.

However, this touch function is very delicate, and depending on the clothing, it often reacts incorrectly when the cuff touches the neck.
For this reason, several years later, improved models were released, including models with smaller touch areas, models with coated metal parts, and models with lock buttons.

Orient's official website also says, "However, perhaps because it was easy to misoperate, the Touchtron II, which had a light-up display using a button, was later released."

Also, one of the characteristics of Touchtron (or rather, old LED watches in general) is that it is difficult to take photos of.
All the photos on this site are taken with a regular smartphone, but the Touchtron display disappears in about 2 seconds when you take your finger off it, so when you try to take the first photo with the time displayed on your smartphone by yourself,
It is necessary to "hold the smartphone with one hand and touch it with the other" → "release your finger" → "release the shutter quickly without shaking."

Furthermore, LEDs blink at a speed that is invisible to the human eye, and the timing of blinking differs for each LED element, so if the timing is not right, you will not be able to take a photo with all segments lit.
You can set the shutter speed slowly, but if you do not use a tripod, the photo will be blurry.
I actually wanted to introduce this model at an earlier stage, but I had some trouble taking photos, so the introduction was delayed.