Smartwatches: Switzerland's friend or foe?

There are people at Geneva's annual watch show who would probably prefer to have an arm lopped off than wrap a smartwatch around their wrist.

The Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie is where the fine art of Swiss watchmaking presents itself to the world; where hand-crafted timepieces sell for hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Not for them the soulless black Apple Watch. Yet even in the heart of watchmaking, there are signs that the digital world is encroaching.

For a start, former Apple engineer Tony Fadell is at the show. He is credited as being one of the fathers of the iPod, and went on to found Nest Labs, bought by Google in 2014 for $3.5bn (£2bn).

"The thing about the digital revolution is that it is touching everything, so to say it won't touch this [Swiss watch] world doesn't make sense," he says.

Hybrids

Several mechanical watch manufacturers are, in fact, experimenting with smart features in mechanical watches.

Tag Heuer created an Android hybrid watch, and put about $190,000 (£147,500) worth of diamonds on it.

Montblanc and Frederique Constant developed e-straps, putting digital functionality on the somewhat chunky buckle of the strap so that the watch itself keeps traditional looks.

Frederique Constant also has a self-winding watch with bluetooth tech and a rechargeable battery. But at £3,000, it's still very much a luxury watch rather than a smartwatch.