Casio TS-1000

Come rain or shine…on land or at sea…you’ll have the time, temperature (water and air!), a daily alarm, a temperature alarm, and much more. Because Casio has created the ultimate in watch technology: the brand-new TS 1000.

Always looking to innovate, Casio released the TS-1000 in 1982 and introduced the world to a watch that could give you the temperature above or below water, and even compensate for your body temperature if you were wearing it on your wrist.

The QW215 module was also to be found in the metal versions of the watch — TS-2000 and TS-3000 — and a similar but slightly different module, the QW515, was available in the only other model in this range, the TS-1200. Casio also resurrected the temperature watch a decade later with 1992’s TS-100. In another twist, the TS-100 was also available as a Timex watch.

You could pick up a TS-1000 for $49.95 when they were released — take a look at this great ad from Edmund Scientific Co.

It certainly appealed to a lot of people — including ace formula one driver Ayrton Senna, who can be pictured in several photos of the era proudly wearing one. It wasn’t the only Casio he liked either — he also sported a CA-90 sometimes too!

So to the functions. It beeps every time you change the mode, which isn’t a feature of many Casios and it’s good to get an audible confirmation you’ve changed modes.

On the time screen you get the date in the top right, but pushing the bottom left button triggers the watch to get a reading and display the current temperature. Don’t like °C? Hit the top right button and you will have the temp in °F instead.

Next mode is high/lo temperature alarm. It will trigger the alarm if the user-set temperature is reached, whether set to be high or low. Not 100% on the usefulness of this, but there’s a function for everyone!

Then there’s a world time function, that unfortunately doesn’t adjust for daylight savings, but better than nothing — which displays 4 American time zones and a few from Europe but nowhere near the full range that some Seikos of the time were offering.

Alarm/time signal mode is next, then chronograph, and back to time.

There’s a light and also an adjustment for on-the-wrist or off-the-wrist temperatures.

The case is almost identical to the early Marlin models (particularly W-100, W-200, W-300 and W-400) so I’m guessing this was a predecessor to those.

Great watch, getting harder to find, and a lot of functions. Accurate? Possibly, but the manual does provide a warning not to rely on it as a clinical thermometer, or for chemicals, as a sleep temperature alarm, or in water above 40°C.

► Download the manual