Watch having an analog and digital display

• US 4,600,316 A
• Filed: 10/10/1984
• Issued: 07/15/1986
• Est. Priority Date: 10/25/1983
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Eta SA Fabriques dEbauches (The Swatch Group AG)
• Original Assignee: Eta SA Fabriques dEbauches (The Swatch Group AG)
• Inventors: Besson, Rene
• Primary Examiner(s): Roskoski, Bernard
• Application Number:
  US06/659,265
• Time in Patent Office: 643 Days
• Field of Search: 368/184-189, 368/190
• US Class Current: 368/187
• CPC Class Codes: G04C 9/00 Electrically-actuated devices for setting the time-indicating means of slave clocks G04C13/03; mechanical setting devices G04B27/00; radio-controlled time-pieces G04R
• CPC Class Codes: G04G 9/0082 by building-up characters using a combination of indicating elements and by selecting desired characters out of a number of characters or by selecting indicating elements the positions of which represents the time, i.e. combinations of G04G9/02 and G04G9/08

Abstract

The invention provides an electronic watch having an analog display with time indicating hands, a digital display and control means including a crown adapted to act on contacts arranged so as to provide signals representing rotary and axial displacements of said crown to an electronic selection and correction circuit.

Responding to movements of the crown, the electronic circuit determines the operating mode of the watch and modifies the indications given by the displays. In a special synchronizing mode the two displays are set to indicate the same information and the analog form thereof may be adjusted to coincide with the digital form.

Claims

1. An electronic watch comprising

a time base arranged to provide a standard frequency signal;

indicating means arranged to display a first group of time information items in analog form, one of said indicating means being a minutes indicator;

a stepping motor mechanically coupled to said indicating means;

a control circuit arranged to supply drive pulses to the motor so as to effect displacement of said indicating means in response to time pulses provided by the divider circuit as well as to correcting pulses;

a counting circuit likewise receiving time pulses from the divider circuit thereby to provide signals representing a second group of time information items of which at least one information item is included in said first group;

an electro-optic display coupled to said counting circuit in order to display the second group of time information in digital form;

manual control means; and

a selecting and correcting logic circuit responsive to operation of said manual control means thereby to place the watch in different display modes for each of which a selected time information is displayed by said electro-optic display means, in different correction modes for each of which a displayed information item may be corrected through application by said logic circuit of correcting pulses to the counting circuit, said logic circuit likewise applying correcting pulses to the motor control circuit whenever the information to be corrected is common information to both groups, said common information being the minutes information and said minutes indicator normally advancing by n steps per minute, n being at all times greater than 1, in a manner to modify the analog and digital indications of said common information by the same quantity, and in a supplementary synchronization mode in which said common information is displayed by said electro-optic digital display and in which said logic circuit responds to an operation of the manual control means by applying correcting pulses only to the motor control circuit in order to enable bringing the analog indication into coincidence with the digital indication of said information, wherein the motor control circuit is adapted to bring said minutes indicator automatically to an integral minute indication at the moment of switching to the synchronization mode and in said mode to generate and to apply n successive drive pulses to the motor in response to each correcting pulse which said motor control circuit receives from the logic circuit.

2. An electronic watch as set forth in claim 1 wherein said logic circuit comprises means for preventing application of time pulses to the motor control circuit when in the synchronisation mode.

3. An electronic watch as set forth in claim 1 wherein n equals 2.

4. An electronic watch as set forth in claim 1 wherein said first and second groups include a further common information item comprising the hours indication.

5. An electronic watch as set forth in claim 1 in which said stepping motor comprises a bi-directional motor and wherein the counting means is adapted to count up and down whereby the time information of both groups may be modified in both senses.

6. An electronic watch as set forth in claim 1 wherein the manual control means comprises a rotatable crown adapted to be axially displaced between at least two positions thereby to operate electric contacts coupled to said logic circuit.