Nepro, the brand that reinvented the alarm clock

Nepro Watch was founded in La Chaux-de-Fonds by Paolo Spadoni in 1951. Right from its inception, the brand stood out for its innovative products, such as the pocket-sized radio alarm clock, Minivox, launched in 1961, Zanzara and Minisonic mini alarm clocks, and Eletric table clock. It will therefore come as no surprise that the name Nepro derives from an abbreviation of “New Products.”

The Minivox alarm clock was the first pocket-sized radio alarm clock in the world, but it is just one of many of the brand’s firsts: Rotocontact Nepro, also released to market in 1961, represented the first ever clock with electrical radio-contact. This was followed in 1963 by the Diplomat, a battery-powered radio alarm clock.

The innovation continued throughout the 70s. The Nepro Zanzara was the first clock in the world to feature an electric alarm and a mechanical movement, but the company’s real success came in the form of the Minisonic – the smallest alarm clock in the world – nearly 700,000 of which were sold.

In 1972, Nepro presented the Memotron in Basel: this automatic wristwatch with alarm featured the world’s smallest acoustic generator – the Micro-Buzzer 500. The same year saw the launch of the Elevox – a mechanical watch with an electric alarm. The main resonator is formed by the glass in connection with a piezoelectric resonator. The Elevox also came in a pocket watch version.

Despite the sub-par economic situation in Switzerland at the time, in 1976 Nepro founded MSA-Electronic Modules – a company involved in manufacturing and
assembling LCD modules. In 1989, Nepro marketed the first generation of Magic Touch timepieces: a watch with no crown that instead is set by pressing directly on the glass of the watch face, thanks to an innovative micromotor that enables the hands to be driven both forward and back.