Bulgari has emerged as the latest watch company to investigate how technology can be applied to the wristwatch unveiling a concept watch at Basel.
Bulgari’s take on the connected timepiece is still very much a mechanical watch, but uses Near Field Communication (NFC) identification to secure the owner’s data.
The watch, which is still a work in progress and not intended for sale at present, is based on the company’s new Diagono Magnesium watch, pictured, but features the NFC chip and microprocessor inside.
The watch can be paired with and identified by a smartphone app that can be used to enter the wearer’s most precious data such as bank account or credit card details. The data is not stored on the phone but sent under asymmetric security encryption to the same data vaults used by the Swiss government which are based in a former military bunker in the Alps.
Bulgari are still developing the concept and other ways in which NFC can be applied to its watches, but it demonstrates another approach being taken by the traditional watch industry to introduce technology to wristwatches following the advent of smartwatches.
