Watch is a showcase of your personality. It may convey your taste, athleticism, hobbies, wealth, and humor. Without a doubt, a watch is a part of your fashion. Watches are not only for time showing; they have some incredible features that make them unique and valuable. Once you get to know about different types of watches, you will understand how watches differ from each other.
Watch industry can be very complicated when you want to buy you a watch; in this article, you will know about different types of watches and their description.
Different Types of Watches
To some people, watches are not a big deal. All watches are the same for these people. They believe watches are only for showing the time. Watches are not simple as they look. Different types of the watch offer different things.
Isn’t it would be awkward if you give the same watch to your wife and teenage child? Everyone’s watch is different-A lawyers watch different from the police and more distant from the medical field; this is why you should know the different types of watches.
There are so many types of watches available, and people get confused. This article is all about different types of watches.
By Watch Display
This is the easiest way to categorize watches. Watch display is watch face.
Analog, Digital, Hybrid, Touchscreen, Tactile
Analog Watch
Analog watches are also an analog watch. Analog watches have an hour hand, a minute hand, and sometimes analog watches also have a second hand. Some watches have traditional numbers and roman numbers. Analog watches are traditional and the most common watch. Probable you learn to read time with an analog watch.
Digital watch:
Digital watches have an LCD screen to display the time and other available information on the watch. Digital watches require electric power.
Hybrid watches:
This type of watch is a combination of analog and digital watches. It will look like an analog watch with hour, minutes, and seconds, but they offer more LCD screens. Many watch lovers like the classic analog watch look with the modern smartwatch features.
Tactile watches:
This type of watch is built to tell time without looking at it. A primarily tactile watch made for the blind. The first tactile watch is known as a pocket watch, invented in the early 1800 s, and watch wearers know the time without pull out from the pocket. Nowadays, pocket watches are rare; tactile watches are built for blind people.
Touchscreen watches:
Smartwatches offer lots of features that could fit in the watch screen. Touchscreen display made it easy to use all the functions. You can control all the watch functions by touching the screen. The apples watch the perfect example of a touchscreen watch.
By Watch Styles
This category is the visual appeal of the watches. We can categorize watch styles such as Casual, Dress, Fashion, luxury. Can everybody wear the watch or it’s for formal wear?
Casual watches
Comparable to clothing items, Casula watches one of the most common in watch style. A casual watch is for everyday use, and it’s designed for people who dont need much from watches. A casual watch is affordable, and it will not make you stand out with a casual look.
Unlike casual watches, dress watches are best for formal wear to compliment your suit and tie. Dress watches are for a business meeting, a wedding, or a fancy date. The best dress watches are designed to be slim, can be hidden under the sleeve of your shirt or suit. These type watches are simple yet elegant and add complement to your attire.
Dress watches have just an hour and minutes hand to keep it simple. Dress watches are the best choice for a CEO, Investment banker, or lawyer, and They are also the right choice for people who go for a minimalist lifestyle.
Fashion watches
In general, fashion watches refer to watch bands that do not specialize in watchmaking or have any horological history. Many repeated fashion bands sell fashion watches. Even many brands manufacture watches by other companies. Fashion watch is mainly focused on branding. Mane brands use inexpensive quartz movement and sell them high price because of their brand reputation and demand.
Examples of fashion watch brands are Gucci, Emporio Armani, Michael Kors, and Guess Hugo Boss.
Luxury watches
There is some argument about luxury watches where a particular style or the watch brand reputation made the watch luxury. Fashion watches are different from the luxury watch. Generally, Luxury watches are produced by companies with a long history of watchmaking. Some luxury watches are made with gold, diamonds, and other jewels. These watches have high-end movement, and they are craft carefully by hand.
The best-known luxury watch brands are Rolex, Patek Philippe, Hublot, Vacheron Constantin, Audemars Piguet, Lange & Söhne, Jaeger-LeCoultre, and Tag Heuer.
By movement Type
Quartz watches
A most typical type of watches. Quartz watch don’t depend on complex mechanical parts to operate. In the 1980s, Quartz watches become popular, and most wristwatches and clocks use quartz movement now. Quartz watches offer you accuracy at an affordable price, and they are durable compared to automatics watch.
Mechanical automatic watches
A self-winding watch that uses the mainspring of a mechanical movement, from the watch’s motions from the wearers’ wrist. An automatic watch is also called a self-winding watch. An automatic watch is expensive and not accurate because of the run by mechanical movement.
Solar power watches
Solar watches use solar energy. They have photovoltaic cells on the watch’s face, and the solar watch captures solar energy by these cells and converts it to electricity. The electricity is stored in power cells inside. With the stored energy, solar watches work like quartz watches. Citizen and Seiko are known for making the best solar watches. Casio and some other brands also built solar watches.
Solar watches use other bright light also not only sunlight. This is the type of watch which can run forever. The stored energy can last up to 6 months; you need to leave the solar watch under sunlight or ant bright light for recharge.
Kinetic Watches
This is the type that combines Quartz and mechanical watches. The kinetic watch has a rotor same as the automatic watch. A kinetic watch is a unique watch, contains an electronic generator run by the kinetic movement of the watch wearer’s wrist. The electricity is stored in the rechargeable battery and requires less replacement than a standard quartz watch battery.
Spring Drive watches
In 1977, Yoshikazu Akahane invents the spring drive moment. Seiko first released the spring drive movement, and now they use this movement in their Credor, Prospex, and Grand Seiko watch lines.
Spring drive is similar to kinetic watches, they use a self-winding mechanism, but they are accurate as a quartz watch. Spring drive watches are one of the most advanced technology movements and offer more than kinetic watches.
Spring drive watches have a mainspring to store energy and a rotor to winding the mainspring.
By Functionality
Chronograph Watches
A chronograph is one type of watch that has a stopwatch merged with a display watch. A basic chronograph has a detached sweep second. It is used as a stopwatch. It’s the tinier circles with their own hands that you would find in a watch face. You can use it by the two buttons on the watch’s side, 1 for a start/stop while another is for reset.
GMT Watches
GMT means Greenwich Mean Time, and these watches do not follow proper 24 hour scales. It is solar time, according to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. It is different from the time zone the USA follows; GMT is not affected by Daylight.
Theoretically, when the Sun touches the Prime Meridian at its highest point of the day, it is noon in Greenwich. However, the actual noon GMT does not match the exact moment because of its elliptical orbit and bent axis. It is several minutes before or after.
GMT watches have an extra hand with the hour, minute, and second hands; this fourth hand rotates differently from other hands. It rotates only once every 24 hours around the face.
Calendar and Moon phase Watches
Same as chronograph, this watch has moon features that indicate the moon phase based on the calendar. It indicates night or day by showing pictures of the moon and Sun. Moon Phase watch tracks the lunar period precisely that it takes 122.6 years for the display to differ by just one day. Before the arrival of clocks, the Sun, the moon was our guiding, indicating the passing of days, months, and seasons.
Day & Night Watches
Day and night watches are similar to moon phase watches but a little different. They only show whether it’s nighttime or daytime.
Dive Watches
A dive watch is just a watch that has water-resistance till the depth of the dive. To lock-unlock, you need to use your fingers because their crown is often screw-down, and for better protection against water, they have a thicker rubber gasket. Most dive watches have a rotating bezel that helps drivers know how long they’ve been underwater.
Pilot Watches
These watches are specifically made for pilots. Initially, they were developed for a fighter pilot. They are made in such a way so that everything on the watch can be read quickly and have unique features that are useful for pilots. This watch has special tools such as altimeters, tachymeters, compasses and sometimes have a slide rule bezel to help make estimates on the fly.
Field Watches
Field watch, formerly called “trench watches,” a simple military watch designed for the soldiers. They can withstand dirt, water, mud, sand, and durable, and provide accurate time.
Smartwatches
Smartwatches are principally a mini-computer that is fitted into a wearable watch. Smartwatches are the trend now, and you connect to your smartwatch using Bluetooth. It is a watch with some functionality of a smartphone. Most smartwatches sync your apps such as notifications, calendars, email. A smartwatch is innovative because it does a lot of things better and more than a classical watch. It features a touch screen; a good example is the apple watch. Smartwatch such as the Apple watch provides more than notifications and email; This can accurately detect your heart rate. It features fall detection, and the watch automatically triggers an emergency call if it somehow detects the user fell to the ground.
Conclusion
Perhaps by reading a depth list of watch types, you may have realized that watches are not simple. There are watches designed for every aspect of life, for almost every profession, lifestyle, and few dollars to million-dollar watches available in the market. Look around and find the perfect watch for you.
