Heroes need watches too. Preferably something that lights up or is fully submersible
Richard Holt
WATCHES
When you think of a hero rescuing people from a high-rise building, your mind probably goes to the movies... Steve McQueen in Towering Inferno, or Bruce Willis in Die Hard. And each of them had a handsome piece of wrist candy – McQueen wore a Rolex, Willis a TAG Heuer. But there is also a real-life hero who was able to save the day thanks to an entry level watch with an illuminating innovation.
If you bought a digital watch back in the Eighties, the black digits were not visible in the dark – so by pushing one of the little buttons you could operate the backlight. The problem: it was so feeble that it only illuminated a small corner of the screen. Then in the early Nineties, Timex invented the Indiglo, a proprietary system that made the whole screen light up like a beacon. You could do more than just tell the time. An advert showed concert goers holding up cigarette lighters, while the clever ones held glowing watches with the caption “It’s so nice to come home from a concert without a burned thumb.”
In 1993 a Timex was used for something much more important than signaling appreciation at a gig. Eight years before the Twin Towers were destroyed in the 9/11 attacks, there was an earlier attempt to bring down the World Trade Center when terrorists parked a van laden with explosives and hydrogen tanks in the public car park under the north tower. The resulting fireball knocked out the power, including the emergency lights, and sent smoke billowing up through the building. Enter Curt Blik, a data analyst, who used the bright light on his budget Timex to guide a group of colleagues down 40 flights of dark stairs to safety. That attack has now been largely forgotten in the wake of 9/11. The attempt to bring down the tower may have failed, but six people died in the blast. Without an everyday hero and his glowing watch, it could have been worse.
The light was so successful that Timex rolled it out across many of its watches. Since the invention of the smartphone, nobody puts their lighters up, and chances to help someone see in the dark are rare. But Indiglo, like all good heroes, refuses to quit. The bestselling watch with the feature is the Timex Ironman, a rugged sports watch at a bargain price (see opposite). If you want something a bit more upmarket, you have options to suit different budgets, each one fit for a hero.
TIMEX IRONMAN
This no-nonsense piece of kit was developed in the Eighties for triathletes and anyone else who n
