The Top 5 Coolest Casio Watches of All Time

Casio is a brand that needs no introduction. They have been making watches for 52 years after the launch of the Casiotron in 1974. A pioneer of digital watch technology since the very beginning, they have revolutionised the watch industry becoming one of the largest global watchmakers and earned themselves ‘God-Tier’ status among enthusiasts.

I have decided to condense this great history and achievement into just five watches to give you my top 5 coolest Casio watches of all time. And this really is a list of cool watches, not iconic. There are definitely more iconic or significant models from this brand than my choices here, but they’re not as cool as these ones. So, in no particular order, let’s dive into these digital delights.

Starting off with a cool classic, this is the A-158W. Part of being cool is being effortless, and to me this watch is effortless in its simplicity and style. I see this watch out in the real world a lot and without fail it looks super cool on the wrists of men, women, young adults, older folks, and anyone else that wears it. I can hear you thinking to yourself "but the F-91W is more well known and cheaper and blah blah…" Yes, you are right the F-91W is more iconic, but that’s not what this list is. This watch has everything that made the F-91W great but is housed in a chrome plated resin case with a surprisingly comfortable stainless-steel bracelet that looks timeless. That to me is cooler.

Anecdotally, I think this watch is extra cool as in 2023 I bought one for my good friend, Joe, for his birthday. He not only loves this watch but has worn it on several of his expeditions to the jungles of the Philippines in the search for the extremely rare and under-studied Philippine Hawk-Eagle! It doesn’t get much cooler than that!

I have to give credit to A Blog to Watch for this pick, as I was not aware of this reference before watching their video “The Best Casio Watches of the Past 50 Years”.

Think of the DBC-V500 as the Apple watch of the 1990s. Before the iPhone, before the Apple Watch, even before the Blackberry smart phones there was this. A watch with more functions than most of my collection combined! Handily, these features are also listed in its name. 'DB' stands for Data Bank, a feature that came out on Casio’s prior to this model allowing the user to store up to 30 phone numbers or codes! 'C' stands for calculator, an infamous feature on Casio watches most notably being worn by Michel J. Fox as Marty McFly in Back to the Future. And the 'V' stands for voice recorder which allows you to record voice memos directly into the watch itself. Combine all of these features and you get the coolest ‘90s business accessory for reminders, contacts and quick deal-winning sums and I love it. It isn’t the sleekest on this list, but it was the smart watch of its time. A time where things went at a slower pace, fashion was different, the internet was new and exciting which all adds to this watch’s cool factor. As you can tell I have a very romanticised view of what business looked like in the '90s

I didn’t think technology like this existed in 1984, let alone in a wristwatch. This is a calculator watch, but it doesn’t look like one. There is no keypad, and it has an analogue set of hands that tell the time. So how do you use the calculator function? As the name of the watch suggests, you use gesture control. Yes. Gesture control in 1984. I thought this was only a recent technology that was making its way into BMW cars and my latest Apple Watch but no, apparently, it’s been a thing for decades. To use this calculator, simply draw the number or symbol you want to input on the crystal, and the watch recognises the characters! I must once again credit A Blog to Watch’s video for introducing me to this technical marvel.

While the first G-Shock, the DW-5000C, was launched in 1983 and revolutionised the world of durable watches. My pick for the coolest G-Shock is a little more contemporary.

Back in 2021 G-Shock in collaboration with Hodinkee and John Mayer launched this watch. A baby blue beauty that encapsulated the classic G-Shock aesthetic and was a notable homage to Casio as a brand. Need I remind you that Casio don’t only make watches? Casio have been a pioneer of not just digital watches but also electronic musical instruments, calculators, projectors, label printers, cash registers, mobile data capture devices, and even medical equipment!

With such a wide variety of products, Mayer and the team at Hodinkee wanted to highlight particularly the musical instrument aspect of Casio. The PT-1 keyboard was the first keyboard that Mayer ever owned and likely contributed to his love of music at a young age and subsequent successful career. The keyboard sported a baby blue colouration and still to this day produces some awesome vintage synth sounds that instantly make me think of old Nintendo games. This colour palate made its way onto the limited-edition watch making for a fun and meaningful collaboration. I’m a big fan of Mayer and Hodinkee and baby blue come to think of it, so this watch is cool on cool on cool for me. I wish I’d bought one, but at the time the $180 asking price was enough to make me think twice as a new graduate. My hesitation cost me in the long run as they sold out fast and I still regret not picking one up, but I did get to spend some time with one at a RedBar event and it was just as cool as I hoped.

Have you ever been sitting watching the TV and thought ‘this show is really boring, I need to change the channel’, but then gone to find the remote and realised you left it over by the TV and you’re nice and warm and comfortable? Casio heard your struggles and created a watch in 1992 that used infrared signals to be able to change the channels of your TV from your wrist. Never again will you have to get up from the sofa to fetch the remote you left behind when your trusty Casio is on wrist. It’s almost spy gadget levels of cool being able to interact with other pieces of technology using your watch and, like with many entries on this list, well ahead of its time.

These watches now fetch premiums of upwards of £700 because they’re just that cool!

As this is my list of coolest Casio watches of all time, I’m going to throw in an honourable mention that is very personal to me. I’d like to take you back to the summer of 2011. I was just about to start secondary school, completely obsessed with the band Muse, and my love of cars was reaching a peak watching Top Gear every Sunday night with my Dad. One morning, over a bowl of muesli, I was flicking through the Argos catalogue, as I so often loved to do, and came across the watches section. Not my usual section of choice as there weren’t many Nerf blasters or Hot Wheels in this bit (I am 11 years old in this story), but something drew me to it that fateful morning.

To my amazement, I found an array of watches that not only looked cool, but I could actually afford with the extremely limited money that I had to my name! Before this I had thought that watches were only something grown-ups had because they were expensive and made of metal. In my excitement I trawled over all the options in that catalogue looking purely at their design, knowing nothing about movements or materials or really anything to do with watches. After finishing my bowl of muesli I had picked my favourite, the AE-1000W (not that I knew the name at the time, just the Argos collection code). The world map and digital and analogue readouts really captivated me along with the black resin casing and strap. It looked like the sort of watch a man of international mystery would wear while jet-setting off to drive fast cars and do business, which is very much how I thought the world worked at that age!

I showed the watch to my Dad all over-excited, and he said “OK, let’s go pick one up”. He drove me to our local Argos, and I made my order with almost all the money I had saved, which was £19.99. I remember the feeling of waiting for it to come down the conveyer belt, the anticipation and excitement. I unboxed it and put it on before we’d even had a chance to leave the store. I was immediately in love with it. It’s not the prettiest watch in the world, nor the one with the most features, or the coolest to anyone reading this but as an 11-year-old it made me feel more confident, capable, and able to accurately time car journeys to my Granny’s house. It’s a feeling I still get when putting on my favourite watches now and it all began with this humble Casio almost 15 years ago. And that is why, for me, the AE-1000W is the coolest Casio watch of all time.

I’m sure many of you reading this, like me, started your watch collecting journey with a Casio, so I’d love to hear in the comments which was the model that ignited your passion?