The Citizen Ana-Digi Temp is one of the most curious 80s artifacts you?re likely to come across, and the integrated thermometer is really just the tip of the iceberg. It?s quintessentially 80s in its design, and is the end result of years of jockeying for position between the Swiss and Japanese for control of the watch market as quartz began to take hold. Now, nearly 40 years after the watch made its debut, it?s getting a special edition run courtesy of Japanese retailer BEAMS.

Image courtesy Beams

Before we get to the new version of the Ana-Digi Temp, I highly recommend that you head over to Two Broke Watch Snobs and check out this post for a detailed and well researched account of how the watch came to be. Writer Damon Bailey goes deep into the history of the watch, and contextualizes it properly in the very volatile horological landscape that was the early 1980s. The Ana-Digi Temp has a complicated and fascinating history, and while you might think the thermometer played the starring role in the watch?s life story, it?s actually the development of the LCD screen, a burgeoning technology at the time, that had the greatest impact on the Ana-Digi Temp and other watches like it. Let?s put it this way: if you thought this was a purely Japanese technology, you?d be mistaken.  Now, back to the BEAMS limited edition. What we have here follows a collaboration between the Japanese retailer and Citizen from last year, where the two brands joined to release a limited edi...