Wristwatch

A wristwatch is a timepiece worn around the wrist and held in place by a strap or bracelet, designed to keep accurate time despite the movement of the wearer's arm. Watches themselves originated in the 16th century in German cities as small mechanical devices driven by a wound mainspring and regulated by an oscillating balance wheel, and the Nuremberg clockmaker Peter Henlein is often credited as an early maker of such miniature timepieces, though other German clockmakers of the period were producing similar small watches as well, so no single inventor of the format can be established with certainty; watches later moved from being worn as a pendant or carried in a pocket to being strapped to the wrist, and their movements have since evolved from mechanical works to electronic quartz mechanisms, dominant from the 1980s, and touchscreen smartwatches from the 2010s.