Types of Watches You Must Know
For some people, wrist watches may not mean anything. These people see all of them the same among dozens of different types of watches. They are people who think that clocks only tell time and do nothing else. Maybe you think so too, and all you expect from the wristwatch you will choose is that it only shows the time.
If you think so, you probably have no idea how much a watch can help your daily life. Maybe you haven’t started using the amazing features of your watch or you are not aware of your watch variant.
Clocks are never as simple as they seem. Once you understand the different types of watches available in the market, you will realize that this variety contains many things that will make your daily life easier.
Thus, you can find a watch type that will meet your needs in your profession, hobbies or just in your daily life, and you can narrow down the options when you want to buy a gift.
You must admit that the world of watches is an endless sea and there are many different types of watches. The situation becomes especially difficult when you imagine them all to be the same. When you have a detailed knowledge of the watch types, you know what to buy and you don’t waste your precious time.
What’s more, you’ll shop knowing which one is truly worth the price. Knowing the types of watches will help you understand why Defacto watches are so cheap and Omega watches so expensive.
It must have caught your attention, with the rapid development of technology, many new types are emerging, unlike other types of daily watches. There are different kinds of watches in the watch world than you might imagine. Most watch users are confused about how to categorize these variants. This is exactly what this article is about. Classifying the types of clocks.
This watch category is the easiest way to diversify with analog, digital, haptic and touchscreen watches. In short, they are clocks that can be read from its surface.
Undeniably, the most traditional type of display clocks are analog clocks. It has an hour hand that shows the hour, a minute hand that shows the minute, and often a hand that also shows the seconds.
As we said, this is the most traditional type of clock, and most likely the one you see in your home, school, and pretty much everywhere else. You’ve probably used an analog clock even when learning clocks. It’s so common that it doesn’t even need an explanation.
Digital watches use an LCD screen to display all the information available on the watch. Since it is a type of clock that needs electrical energy, it is counted among quartz clocks.
As can be understood from the term itself, it is a type of clock that combines analog and digital clocks. At first glance, it looks like a regular watch with hour and minute hands and seconds to show the time just like a regular analog watch. However, hybrid watches also have the features of digital watches with LCD screens and offer much more features.
Some hybrid watches may look just like digital watches with an LCD display, but in some models you can track your workouts. You can even connect to a smartphone and use other features available in other smartwatches. As we said above, hybrid watches are a type of watch that combines both types.
Unfortunately, this type of watch is not very common in watch stores. Many brands do not need to produce. Many who hear the word tactile may also confuse these watches with touchscreen watches. In fact, tactile clocks are designed to tell time without even looking at the clock.
Although produced for the visually impaired today, the first tactile watch was produced with pocket watches in the early 1800s. In this way, you could secretly control the time without even taking the watch out of your pocket. However, since pocket watches are now such a rare option, tactile watches are often produced for the visually impaired.
There is a wide variety of designs for tactile clocks. The most produced are tactile watches with two ball bearings that rotate around the hour and minute clock instead of the hour and minute hands, while the other is tactile watches with openable covers. So you can touch the hour and minute hands and read the correct time.
Because smart watches fit a lot of features on the screen and offer more features, they are produced with touch screens to easily navigate the menu and other functions. As the name suggests, it is necessary to touch the screen to control the watch functions. The Apple Watch is one of the best examples of this. While many have traditional watch crowns or buttons, the different features are mostly controlled by touching the screen.
This category is more about the design and visual of the watch. Is the watch for everyday use or a classic watch? Maybe it has a very eye-catching design.
Casual watch models, which we can also call daily watch models, are casual watches and are the most common type of watch design in terms of style. They are not very elegant watches, but they go well with any style of clothing. Specifically, it is most meant for everyday use and is designed for people who aren’t looking for a lot of detail. That’s why the most affordable watches are usually casual designed watches. If you are going to buy a gift for someone whose style you are not very familiar with, this style is always the best option.
Unlike the casual design variant, classic watches are best for business and formal wear. The best dress watches are those thin enough to go under a shirt or dress. They generally have simple designs and yet are very elegant. It is a great complement to the wearer’s dress. Classic watch types do not attract much attention, but their harmony with shoes and belts is great, especially when they are preferred with suits.
Classic watches are designed quite simply, like classic clothes. Usually only hour, minute and sometimes seconds hands are found. Rarely, a date window is added. Besides, in order to preserve the simplicity of the watch, the dial and bezel must be immaculate. Preferably white, black or metal should be preferred.
Classic dress watches are often a good choice for white collars, lawyers or bankers. However, due to its simplicity, it is also best for those who adopt a minimalist lifestyle.
Actually, there is no exact definition of the term fashion watch. It is generally used to refer to fashion brands that do not specialize in watchmaking or do not have a deep-rooted history, but rather license their brands and have others produce them. Fashion watches are sold by brands known for their reputation in the fashion world, rather than their expertise in watches.
As we said in the top paragraph, most of these brands, with exceptions, leave their watches to other companies and produce through licensing. These watch models usually focus on design, aesthetics and branding. There are distinctive, well-known brand logos. Many fashion brands use affordable quartz movements, but they can also be sold at very high prices due to brand awareness, brand prestige and preference by users.
Emporio Armani , Hugo Boss, Gucci, Michael Kors and Guess brand watches are examples of fashion watches.
We cannot classify watch types without talking about luxury watches. When defining luxury, it has always been a matter of debate whether there is a particular watch style or whether the watch brand’s own reputation should be defined as luxury.
However, there is a very sharp distinction between fashion watches and luxury watches. Luxury watches are usually made by companies that have a very long history in watch manufacturing, with many stories in their past. While some luxury watches use gold, diamonds, platinum and other precious materials that add value to their products, they also handcraft the entire process using high-quality watch movements.
Most of the luxury watch brands are Swiss, and they custom-make their watches, often with a limited number of hand-assemblies. These special watches are also sold at special retail outlets at a much higher price than other brands. These watches are generally preferred by watch collectors, the rich and famous.
Patek Philippe , Hublot , Vacheron Constantin , Audemars Piguet , A. Lange & Söhne , Jaeger-LeCoultre , Tag Heuer and Rolex are the main brands that produce the best luxury watches.
What we call the movement of the clock is essentially the component that gives life to the clock. In short, the mechanism that makes the watch move is the mechanism.
Quartz is the most common type of watch in this category. Accurate time display, durability and low cost make this type of watch popular
Initially, clocks were designed to operate using only mechanical parts, that is, without electrical assistance. These clocks compress the mainspring with the help of a rotor, and the mainspring slowly loosens and transfers energy to the wheels, so the clock starts to work. These watches are called self-winding automatic watches. It is also known as wrist watch that works with wrist movement.
An automatic watch is a mechanical watch with a rotor attached to the movement. When you move your wrist, the rotor moves and compresses the mainspring. The compressed mainspring oscillates slowly, causing the gears to move. When you don’t wear it on your wrist, the watch will stop after a while.
Automatic watches are not as accurate as quartz watches, as they are operated by a mechanical part. It is also usually more expensive than quartz watches.
The kinetic watch consists of a combination of quartz and automatic watches. Similar to automatic watches, the watch has a rotor that rotates as it moves. However, when this rotor moves, it is converted into electricity by an internal dynamo instead of driving the clockwork. This electricity is then stored in a power cell (battery). It shows the time with the power it gets from this battery. Kinetic watches must be actively used to charge.
As we mentioned above, automatic watches are not as accurate and precise as quartz watches. Clocks with a stopwatch feature fill this gap. Chronometers are made of high quality materials that are not affected by temperature changes. They are more advanced than other standard automatic watches to make the Movement (Movement) more accurate.
“ Chronograph ” is also used to refer to the stopwatch feature in watches. In order to technically call a watch a chronometer, it must have passed the test at the COSC test center in Switzerland and have been approved by authorized persons.
However, since this test is very expensive and incurs high costs to the watch, manufacturers also have their own standardized tests and precise stopwatches.
These are the types of clocks classified according to the energy sources that power the clocks to work.
Solar (solar powered) watches convert solar energy into electricity by taking the solar energy from the cells on the watch. This electricity is then stored in a power cell. Solar powered watches basically work like quartz watches. Citizen and Seiko compete against each other, with the Citizen Eco-Drive and Seiko Solar series. In addition to these two brands, Casio brand can be added. Compared to other brands, these three brands produce the best solar watches on the market.
However, solar-powered clocks can store power not only from sunlight, but from any kind of light, natural or artificial, that shines sufficiently brightly. Therefore, it is a watch that can be used for decades with the developing technology.
First of all, quartz watches are powered by a battery that causes the quartz crystal inside to vibrate at a certain rate. Although the watches work more accurately thanks to the quartz piece, the disadvantage is that you have to keep changing the battery to maintain this precision. Otherwise, the clock will not work.
Smart watches are powered by rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. Therefore, due to this feature of smart watches, we have classified them among the types of watches connected to the power supply.
Being rechargeable is very important as smartwatches usually include a fitness tracker, camera, GPS, etc., all the other features that make them smart. They must have a rechargeable battery as it takes a lot of power to run these features.
Nowadays, wrist watches are not just an accessory that shows the time. They can do much more. Now there are so many types of clocks that apart from telling the time, they are also categorized depending on the features they offer.
Chronographs are often referred to as an additional feature of wristwatches. However, when chronograph functionality is added to a watch, that watch should be categorized as a distinctive type.
The chronograph functions as a stopwatch. It is controlled by the extra hands on the watch face or by 2 or 3 small dials. For use, there are two buttons on the side of the clock that surround the crown. One of them functions as start/stop and the other functions as reset.
GMT stands for Greenwich Mean Time. The most important feature that makes the GMT watch different is that it has an extra hand (an indicator like hour and minute hands). In addition to the hour, minute and second hands, GMT watches have an additional fourth hand. The fourth hand rotates on the surface of the watch for 24 hours, just like the hour hand. In addition, GMT watches may have rotating bezels (Bezel) that can be used to adjust for different time zones.
Similar to the chronograph, the moonphase is also a feature of wristwatches, and these watches are called moonphase watches. Moonphase indicates the moon phase according to the watch’s calendar. You can also keep track of whether it is day or night by showing a picture of the moon or sun.
Day and night clocks are practically similar to moon phase clocks, but a rather limited feature. You can only track whether it is night or day.
As the name suggests, diving watches are professional diver watches designed to withstand water.
The crowns of diver’s watches are screwed on tightly and it is necessary to tighten or loosen the screws to open and close the lock (these are buttons and can be opened and closed by hand). Diver watches have thick rubber seals for extra water resistance. Dive watches typically have rotating bezels that act as timers to allow divers to control their time underwater. Examples of diving watches are: Blancpain – Fifty Fathoms , Longines – Legend Diver, Omega – Seamaster , Rolex – Submariner , Panerai – Luminor and Breitling – Superocean .
Pilot watches are watches designed for the aviation industry. They were originally developed for fighter pilots. Therefore, they are designed to have an easily readable dial and certain features for pilots. Most pilot’s watches include features such as tachometer, altimeter, caliper, and have a slide rule frame to help calculate very quickly. They are usually produced in large sizes and in such a way that the numbers appear clearly on the watch face. Major sample models; It is IWC – Big Pilot , Cartier – Santos and Breitling – Navitimer .
Military watches are built to be functional for the military. Another name for these clocks is field clocks. They are manufactured to be durable enough to withstand water, dirt, sand, mud and even hard blows while showing the correct time. They have to be robust in order to be able to work smoothly in difficult field conditions and to assist the user. Casio – G-Shock series is the prime example.
Smartwatches are a next-generation wearable technology that allows connectivity with your phone and other devices such as Bluetooth headphones.
Smart watches are “smart” as stated, because they allow you to do a lot of things you can do with your phone. However, not all smartwatches are the same. Some are water resistant, some act as a shutter for your camera, some measure your heart rate and track your sleep. Some offer a combination of many, while others specialize in a single feature.
There are so many types of watches that they can still be categorized and diversified despite the dozens of types we wrote about in this article. Perhaps you have noticed that watches are no longer as simple as they seem, just an ordinary accessory that shows the time. Wristwatches can offer you much more than just telling the time. There are many types of wristwatches equipped with features to suit your needs. There are watches that you can use on the field, in the air, and even underwater.
In this article, we tried to help you by categorizing dozens of watch types that you will come across when you decide to buy a watch. Now you can think more broadly when choosing a watch, and categorize the watch with the features you want. You can directly choose the one you need among dozens of watch types.
You can also review our website for the Best Watch Brands.
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