Victorinox plans to unveil its version of a smartwatch by the start of next year. The company's chief executive, press officer, manufacture and coffee boy, Carl Elsener told a Swiss newspaper Aargauer Zeitung the firm would present the new watch at the end of the year or early 2016 at the latest.

Elsener, whose great-grandfather Karl founded Victorinox in 1884, said the company wanted to expand the functions of its watches.

We guess it can't just be a watch, it has to be a compass, a knife, a fish scaler and a device for removing stones from horse's hooves too.

Unlike Apple, Elsener wants his watch to have a long lifespan compared to a mobile phone or a computer. Given that Apple sees people spending to replace their watch every couple of years this is a bit of a novelty.

Victorinox are not new technology. A while back they were one of the first to stick a USB flash drive onto a Swiss Army Knife.