13 Facts About G-Shock

G-Shock is a line of watches manufactured by the Japanese electronics company Casio, designed to resist mechanical stress, shock and vibration.

G-Shock was conceptualised in 1981 by Casio engineer Kikuo Ibe when he accidentally dropped and broke a pocket watch given to him by his father.

The G-Shock was conceived as a watch which would have "triple 10" resistance, meaning it would have a battery life of 10 years, have a water resistance of 10 bar and could survive a fall of 10 metres.

Shock-resistant design on the original G-Shock has 10 layers protecting the quartz timekeeping module, including a urethane rubber bumper, the stainless steel case, the hardened mineral glass watch crystal, the stainless steel screwed down caseback, and the "floating module" where the quartz mechanism floats free in a urethane foam cradle, with the outer buttons and LCD module attached with flexible cables.

In 1989, Casio introduced the AW-500, which was the first G-Shock featuring an analog display with a digital sub display at the 6-o'clock position.

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In 2013 in order to celebrate 30 years of the G-Shock, Casio arranged a party in New York and showcased new models as well as various prototypes of upcoming models.

G-Shock watches are popular with mountaineers, firefighters, paramedics, people working in the offshore, police officers, astronauts, film directors and soldiers.

Since then, G-Shock watches have become very popular with Special Forces groups in both American and other NATO nation units, due to being "battle tested".

The GW-M5610 would spawn many variants, the most notable being the GW-5000 which was a steel cased screw-back variant like the original G-Shock but featured diamond like coating on the case and caseback and the GW-S5600 which featured Casio's first application of carbon fibre in a watch strap along with the use of titanium in the caseback, screws and buttons, making it the most lightest G-Shock model available.

In 2012, Casio released the GB-6900 and GB-5600 which were Bluetooth-enabled models of the G-Shock giving them the ability to connect to a smartphone via an app, allowing the users to adjust various functions of the watch using the phone and receive notification alerts of the phone on the watch.

At Baselworld 2015, Casio introduced the "Dream Project" concept which was a Casio G-Shock square having most of its parts constructed of 18 Karat solid gold as part of the 35th anniversary celebrations of the G-Shock lineup.

In September 2018, to mark the 35th anniversary of G-Shock, Casio released a collection of four clear model of G-Shock watches called "The Glacier Gold" collection.

The G-Shock is the first watch by any company being able to withstand the challenge.