The Race for the Alarm Wristwatch - The Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox vs. the Vulcain Cricket
Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox, featuring the automatic alarm JLC Caliber 825 / Credit: AnalogShift
Before the age of the automatic chronograph, dive watches, and the Quartz Attack, there was another contest underway in the watch industry: the race for the alarm wristwatch.
Vulcain released the Cricket in 1947, and three years later Jaeger-LeCoultre shot back with the Memovox. They had been developing prototypes since the early 1940s, but the especially difficult part was incorporating the ringing noise. Vulcain developed a hammer mechanism that would strike an internal organ and make a sound that resembled a cricket’s. It took them 5 years but when they released the Cricket it was awarded first place in the International Chronometry Competition by the Neuchâtel Observatory. The Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox also made some early moves, branded as the ‘Wrist Alarm’ when it was released, it gained a huge publicity boost when one was gifted to Charlie Chaplin in 1953. That same year, however, the first Vulcain Cricket was introduced onto the wrist of an American President, Harry Truman, and would go on to be nicknamed, “The President’s watch”. In terms of technical development, both used in house movements; Jaeger-LeCoultre developing the Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox Automatic in 1956, the first automatic alarm wristwatch, featuring the Caliber K815. The Cricket certainly overtook the Memovox commercially, even becoming a bit of an icon and being released in several variations in the 1950s. Yet, the Memovox persisted, and was extremely influential in the development of Jaeger-LeCoultre’s current lineup; instead of variations having derivations like the Polaris Memovox.
JLC kept developing the Memovox well into the 2000s; in 1958 they released the Memovox Parking, a watch that timed your parking meter to notify you in time to move, they also launched the Memovox Worldtime, followed by the infamous Deep Sea Alarm in 1959. More recently, Jaeger-LeCoultre released the Master Grand Memovox, a perpetual calendar alarm with a moonphase display. As JLC integrated the Memovox into its production line, Vulcain was decidedly less innovative and today its catalogue looks much like it did 70 years ago.