As our world progresses around us, new and exciting things come about. For literally centuries now, technology has progressed around us at such a level that some of the newest stuff becomes useless within a few years alone. Of course, other long-standing things go as well, but this happens slower. Still, though, many things prove to be obsolete tech products after a while. It is likely you can think of things that existed during your lifetime that we no longer see today, or see very little of.
This would not even take you very long to think about. Other stuff, however, takes longer to think about. Meanwhile, there is some tech out there that most of us were not old enough to even recall. Even many of our parents and grandparents do not remember some. As a result, we decided to go back in time and bring up some stuff that was incredibly sophisticated and useful for its time. Yet, it one day simply became useless.
Hourglass
- Period of Use: 14th Century BCE to Late-1600s AD
- Made Obsolete By: Clocks and Watches
While you can still find hourglasses out there to purchase, most of the time it is only in use for the sake of novelty. Today, we simply have no need for them and it’s likely even our great-grandparents didn’t either. An hourglass was used for keeping track of time. There were various models made, some big and some small. The hourglass stood the test of time and was around for an incredibly long period in normal use.
They go all the way back to 14th Century BCE and are frequently utilized on board ships. Yet they’d become one of the world’s obsolete tech products when the clock came around. The first was invented in 1656 AD, with several popping up worldwide after. You could say safely by the late 1600s, an hourglass was truly useless. Clocks went from massive to smaller, but once the more portable watch came along by 1700 AD, the hourglass’s use was officially dead.