The TX Watch Company was launched in 2006 by the Timex Group, an international holding group and corporate parent of global watchmaking companies, including Timex Group USA, Inc., TMX Philippines, Inc., and Timex Group India Ltd.
Under the TX brand, Timex marketed a line of quartz watches — debuting in Europe in late 2006 and in the US in June 2007. They were noted for a proprietary microprocessor-controlled, multi-motor, multi-hand technology that enabled a range of specialized complications atypical to non-digital, analog watches — an array of functions either not possible or highly impractical in a mechanical movement.
Marketed under the Technoluxury trademark, Timex discontinued the TX Watch Company and its brand in 2011 — migrating its multi-motor, multi-hand technology to the Timex Intelligent Quartz (IQ) sub-brand in 2012.
Technology
TX watches were engineered in Pforzheim, Germany over a five-year period, to six sigma standards. Movements were manufactured by the Timex Group in the Philippines and the watches were styled at the Timex Design Centre in Milan, Italy — formerly the Giorgio Galli Design Lab, which the Timex Group had purchased in 2007.
The TX technology used miniaturization and patented technology in a quartz movement — with digital sensors and microprocessors driving independent motors and dial hands, typically four independent motors and six hands.
The four motors operated independently with the primary motor operating four central hands (minutes, hours, seconds and a fourth function, which varied per watch model) and the other three bidirectional stepper motors enabling a range of possible complications.
The range of functions included world time for 24 global cities; regatta countdowns over five, three and one-minute durations; depth gauge; electronic compass with magnetic declination compensation; perpetual calendar; altimeter; tide; temperature and flyback chronograph (with the ability to stop the chronograph at each lap to note the lap time).
As an example, on the flyback chronograph, the movement's microprocessor could instruct the motor to regulate and position the hand for two distinct functions, with the upper sub-dial able to act as the hour gauge for the chronograph, as well as the hour indicator for the second time zone. The chronograph was capable of both 'per second' increments, and 1/5 second increments, the latter giving the illusion of the 'sweeping' movement of a mechanical movement.
Instead of conventional (metal) bearings, movements used plastic bearings, requiring neither oil nor grease lubricants for their internal operation. Where lubricants degrade and harden over time, damaging the movement, plastic bearings are designed to run "dry" — providing optimal internal operation without lubricants and without degradation or hardening. The microprocessor-controlled movements provide a maintenance-free operation, bench tested for over 87,000 hours (40 years) without interruption.
Marketing
TX timepieces were marketed under the Technoluxury tagline — as wrist instruments rather than watches — offering 'innovative technology and affordable luxury' and marketed primarily to a 25–45 years old male demographic.
Marketed globally, initially in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Germany and Poland, TX offered numerous models across fifteen numbered 'series' and more than seventy models (color and band variations) — with a price range in Europe of €245 to €545 in Europe and in the United States from $375 to $626 — at the time, “the highest price yet for a Timex-developed product,” according to Herb Doscher, TX's U.S. brand manager. In the U.S., watches came with a two-year warranty.