The Most Useful Gadgets In James Bond History

Just like Bond girls and the opening gun barrel sequence, Bond gadgets are a quintessential element to the franchise's popularity. We're talking about X-ray glasses, underwater cameras, and explosive glasses. The first Bond gizmo appeared way back in 1962's Dr. No, when James Bond asked for a Geiger counter from MI6 to detect radiation. Ever since then, nifty tools became a staple for the films that followed, often helping Bond infiltrate lairs, take out henchmen, or escape dire situations. Of course, we have to mention the mastermind behind most of those gadgets — Q, who is MI6's weapons developer.

Over six decades and 20-plus Bond films, we've seen tons of fascinating gadgets. Some of them were extremely useful ... others not so much. And that's where this article brings us. From multipurpose wristwatches to nifty cars, these are the most useful gadgets in James Bond history.

One quick consideration before we dive into our article: Some of these gadgets are inherently outdated because so much time has passed. We tried our best to consider these tools in their historical context when they were more novel. Nevertheless, newer films have a natural advantage because more advanced technology was available to them. Still, we will mention some older gadgets that were incredibly useful for their time.

As all Bond film enthusiasts know, the wristwatch is a classic Bond gadget. It's kind of like the secret agent's Swiss Army knife, with multiple features and capabilities. What makes this particular gadget so darn useful is that not only is it multipurpose, but it is also conveniently small and always within reach. Over the decades, Bond films have showcased various tricked-out wristwatches. For example, in Live and Let Die, Bond totes a Rolex Submariner which can spin rapidly, turning into a mini saw. Bond ends up using this to cut some rope to escape being tied up. The Bond creators continued to upgrade these watches with each film, giving them amazing capabilities, like pulling metal objects to them with magnetism and shattering glass in the distance with sonic technology. 

Even though many of Bond's wristwatches are useful, perhaps the best one is the Omega Seamaster Wristwatch, which debuted in the 1995 Bond film GoldenEye, starring Pierce Brosnan. The Omega Seamaster has a freaking laser gun in it, which Bond uses to cut through a metal floor on a train. The Omega Seamaster can also activate remote mines that Bond places. If you played video games in the 1990s, you will fondly recall using this wristwatch on the Nintendo 64 game GoldenEye. Oh, and in the following films, it comes with a grappling hook that allows Bond to scale incredibly high walls.

In classic Q fashion, he just takes a regular everyday item and turns it into super useful spyware. In this case, Q takes regular-looking sunglasses and equips them with X-ray powers. Roger Moore first used a pair of glasses like these in 1985 in A View to a Kill, where he used them to look through tinted glass. However, in 1999's The World is Not Enough, Pierce Brosnan used an upgraded version of these glasses at a mob-run casino.

Bond walks onto the floor to get a lay of the room. He dons his X-ray glasses, which allow him to see the weapons underneath everyone's clothes. And he can conveniently also see people's undergarments and naturally takes the occasion to ogle some women. Classic Bond. While Bond sneaks a peek or two, he's really here on business to meet with a mob boss named Valentin Zukovsky. Using his glasses, Bond identifies a henchman who can lead him to Zukovsky and also what weapons the henchman has. When the henchman approaches Bond, Bond man-handles him and disarms the guy. Bond looks awesome in this scene, but he never would've been able to look that cool without the intel he got from his X-ray glasses.

In the 1971 film Diamonds Are Forever, James Bond must go undercover as a drug smuggler known as Peter Franks. And, as we all know, whenever a good guy goes undercover, the bad guys must thoroughly vet them to make sure they are who they say they are. The bad guys aren't just going to check out Peter Franks on social media, so Bond has to be super convincing.

Diamond smuggler Tiffany Case intends to verify James Bond's (posing as Peter Franks) identity by using fingerprints. Her plan is subtle, as she discreetly takes a glass that Bond touched and removes his fingerprints from them. In her home, she has a fingerprint recognition machine (which were apparently massive back in 1971). But Bond is one step ahead of her. Before he used the glass, Bond put on fake fingerprints, essentially pieces of thin rubber with another person's prints. And it works. Case confirms that Peter Franks is indeed a fellow smuggler and totally not an MI6 agent. Bond doesn't seem interested in reusing this nifty tool, but we imagine that these false fingerprints could be used in a dozen other ways, such as getting past fingerprint recognition software when accessing high-security rooms.

The most useful Bond gadgets are often the multipurpose ones, and that's exactly what we have here with the whistle-activated keychain. It debuted in 1987's The Living Daylights, wielded by Bond star Timothy Dalton. This is perhaps one of Q's greatest gadgets. It looks like a simple keychain, but it's able to pick almost every single lock in the world. That alone puts it on this list because that is just downright useful. But it doesn't stop there. The keychain also has stun gas, serving as a weapon for Bond in dire times. But the cool thing is, the way you activate the gas is by whistling to the tune of "Rule, Britannia!" The keychain can also explode, which is also activated by whistling, but this time a simple wolf whistle will do.

Naturally, Bond uses this much-needed gadget in a time of need. While in prison, some guards are holding his keychain. Bond takes the opportunity to take a few steps back and starts whistling "Rule, Britannia!" And later, when villain Brad Whitaker is chasing Bond, Bond places the keychain in a strategic location and whistles at the right time to kill Whitaker. What makes the whistle-activated keychain so useful is that it's extremely deadly but disguised as an everyday object. It's often this combination that allows Bond to escape so many desperate situations since villains believe the gadget is harmless.

As much as we love the Aston Martin, there is one amazing feature that it lacks. In The Spy Who Loved Me, Bond gets a different snazzy car — a Lotus Esprit that can convert into a submarine. Yep, that's right. This thing retracts its wheels, and fins come out. First, let's just pause for a moment and appreciate the sheer awesomeness of a car that can both drive on land and travel underwater. Alright, moving on. The film's main villain, Karl Stromberg, lives in a moving underwater city called Atlantis. So naturally, Bond is going to find himself underwater trying to catch this guy. And it'll be pretty difficult to pull that off in his typical scuba gear. The Lotus Esprit submarine saves the day, which is one of the big reasons it makes this list.

It's really hard to argue with the utility of this invention. Basically, Bond can go anywhere in the world now, and he doesn't even have to switch from a regular, measly land car to a submarine to catch the villain. Bond vehicles are always a quintessential aspect of any solid Bond movie, but in this particular film, the creators went all out with a submersible car. The Aston Martin will always have a place in our hearts, but we've got to give it up to the Lotus Esprit for its underwater capabilities.

Sooner or later, Bond is going to finish his mission, and that means he's going to need to be extracted from whatever crazy place he ended up in. In Thunderball, Bond finishes off the villain after a pretty intense speedboat chase. After a massive explosion, Bond and his companion Domino (Claudine Auger) are stranded in the middle of the ocean. Fortunately, MI6 has a system in place for retrieving their agents in such a situation. It's a surface-to-air recovery system, and while it's a tad crazy, it's super cool.

While Bond is in the water, a plane flies overhead, dropping an inflatable raft. It seems Bond has used this system more than once because he certainly knows what he's doing. He boards the raft and starts pulling straps and hooking things together while Domino observes curiously. Finally, Bond lets a balloon go into the air with a wire attached to his body. The aircraft turns around, catches the wire, and pulls Bond and Domino with them as it flies away. It's pretty epic, but we wonder how long they had to travel like that and what it's like to get off. But alas, we will never know because the film just rolls the credits.