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When is a Wristwatch more than a clock?

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
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First, let me admit that I am sort of a watch geek. I've got quite a few. My favorite watches are Duograph and GMT watches that feature multi-time zone functions with one face. But I have been thinking of taking an extended trip across that would require travel in several time zones and several lattitude changes. So that said I started to look for a good watch for travel that would work with me. Normally I only consider mechanical watches, because that is what I like, but the two watches below are just interesting enough to consider and both are fairly modest in price too.


TISSOT has a nifty watch that has a host of features:
Tissot T-Touch offers 8 separate functions, activated by pressing on the crown and then pressing on the touch-sensitive screen. With an accurate Altimeter (in feet and metres), Chronograph (split and add time), Compass, Alarm, Thermometer (in ºC and ºF), Barometer as well as Date and Time.

http://www.tissot.ch/?mod_collection/id_touchscreen

Of those functions, I like the compass and barometer, as both can be helpful when traveling. An alarm is a nice addition. I can usually figure out if it is hot or cold just by checking my nipples, so ther thermometer seems sort of pointless. For a Snow Trac or Jeep adventure in the mountains an altimeter might be handy for keeping track of engine performance at various altitudes, but not really needed. I've never really seen the need for a chronograph function on a watch. But again, nice to have the barometer, compass & alarm added to the watch feature. Photo #1 below is the Tissot.


I also stumbled on YES WATCH. This is a new concept to me. This is the most bizarre watch I've seen, and it seems interesting too. There are 2 photos of the YES ZULU watch below.

http://www.yeswatch.com/wrist-watch/timekeeper/index.html

From a YES review here are the functions/features of this odd 1 handed watch:
  • Digital timekeeping. Although the YES watch's specialty is celestial timekeeping, of course it conveys standard hours, minutes and seconds, as well. The upper portion of the watch's face is a dot matrix LCD which, in standard "home" mode, ticks off time just like any other digital watch.
  • Analog timekeeping. Both in contrast to and complimenting the digital portion of the watch, YES watches have a single analog 24-hour hand powered by a Swiss-made quartz movement. The 24-hour hand makes one full revolution per day, indicating the time in both 12 and 24 hour formats, and also indicating the sun's current position in the sky, which brings me to my favorite feature of the YES watch:
  • Solar time. The digital and analog portions of the YES watch collaborate to convey solar time. Below the dot matrix LCD, the YES watch contains a sort of pie chart consisting of a bunch of thin LCD slices representing 15 minute intervals which divide the watch face very intuitively into day and night. As you change the watch's location, or as the year progress, the LCD changes to represent the appropriate day/night ratio so that it is accurate anywhere in the world, anytime of the year (up to the year 2100). When the 24-hour hand reaches the first shaded LCD segment, the sun is setting, and as it moves out of the shaded portion of the watch face, the sun is rising. A quick glance at the watch indicates how much light you have left in the day, or how much darkness is left in the night.
  • Lunar time. The YES watch's outer LCD ring indicates the time the moon rises and sets, similar to the way solar time is indicated.
  • Lunar phase. The YES watch contains a small circular LCD which waxes and wanes along with the moon. A quick glance at the watch will let you know how much of the moon is currently illuminated.
  • Date. Press the upper right-hand button and see the month, date, and the day of week.
  • Multiple time zones. You can use the YES watch to officially keep track of three different time zones, though it occurred to me that you can eke out a fourth if you really need to. The digital portion of the watch supports two time "profiles": home and away. Each are set by picking from a list of 583 cities around the world, or by specifying your longitude and latitude. You can maintain a third time zone by rotating the outer 24-hour bezel to compensate for the offset between the time indicated by the 24-hour hand, and your third time zone (much like a Rolex or Omega GMT watch). If you really need to, you can actually track a forth time zone by first setting your 24-hour hand to a third time zone (so that it is out of synch with the digital time), then setting the 24-hour bezel to a fourth time zone. The celestial data will out of whack, though, but in a pinch, it will get you through. Anyway, without cheating, it easily supports three time zones.
  • Sun and moon calculator. The YES watch can calculate sun and moon data for any location between the years 2000 and 2100. Simply select the location, year, month, and date, and the watch will give you day of year, longitude and latitude, sunrise, sunset, solar noon, moon illumination percentage, moon rise, moon set, date and time of the next new moon, and date and time of the next full moon.
  • Phase Elapsed Time (countdown timer). Rather than simply specifying a number of hours, minutes and seconds as you would with a standard countdown timer, the PET lets you specify a date (year, month, and day), and a time. The watch then counts down the number of days, hours, minutes and seconds to that event. For instance, as of the time of this writing, I know there are only 340 days, 22 minutes, and 51 seconds until Christmas, 2005. If you specify a date in the past, the time actually counts up rather than down. In other words, the watch indicates how much time has elapsed since a particular event. The documentation states that the PET feature is a NASA standard. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I certainly do see how it could be incredibly useful for counting down to a mission.
  • Automatic daylight savings adjustment. The digital portion of the watch will automatically adjust for daylight savings time based on your location and the date. This function can be manually overridden if you're in a location with non-standard DST rules. The instruction manual contains a chart outlining the DST rules the watch observes for specific locations, so you can be sure if it will work for you or not. Unless you live a pretty exotic life, however, and frequent some pretty obscure areas of the globe, it will work just fine. (Note that the analog 24-hour hand will not automatically adjust, so remember to reset it manually.)
  • Stopwatch. The YES watch contains a 24-hour stopwatch with a lap function. Time is only measured in full seconds -- no fractions. The interface is not like any other stopwatch I've used before. You use one button to start it, and another button to stop it, but there is no way to reset it. Instead of resetting it, you can either restart it again at 0, or simply leave the stopwatch mode. It threw me off for a minute, but you can actually do all the same things with it that you can do with any other stopwatch, and in fact, one could argue that it's more efficient since it saves you a step between resetting and restarting.
  • Alarm. The YES watch contains a single standard daily alarm. The one unique feature it has is a 10-minute snooze. The volume is adequate. I was thrown off by the fact that the alarm is not accessed by cycling through various modes as it would be on pretty much any other digital watch. When in time mode, you access the alarm feature with the upper left-hand button as opposed to navigating to it via the mode button on the bottom left. I think the idea is to make the alarm quickly and conveniently accessible, which it certainly is, but it makes the watch slightly less intuitive for the first-time user.
  • Sunrise alarm. The sunrise alarm will sound 30 minutes before sunrise, and right at sunrise. The tone is different from that of the daily alarm to make them easily distinguishable.
  • Solar noon indicator. Rotate the bezel so that the "sun stone" (the yellow jewel at the top of the bezel) is halfway between sunrise and sun set. When the 24-hour hand points to the sun stone, it's solar noon.
  • Compass. Not a magnetic compass like you might find on a Casio, Tissot, Timex, or Suunto, but on a sunny day, you can align the sun stone to solar noon, then point the 24-hour hand toward the sun. The moon stone (the blue jewel at the bottom of the bezel) will point north, and the sun stone will point south.
  • High and low tide indicators. Rotate the bezel so that the moon stone is halfway between moon rise and moon set. The tide will be high when the 24 hour hand hits the sun and moon stones, and low tide will be where the bezel changes from light to dark. (Note that these are only indicators, and one should not bet one's life on the YES watch's ability to determine high and low tide since it cannot take into account topographical features that also effect tides.)
  • Solstice and equinox alerts. The YES watch will alert you on solstice and equinox dates by the center LCD turning into a sun icon every 30 minutes, and either the word "solstice" or "equinox" flashing on the dot matrix LCD.
  • Time data rotation. If you press and hold the upper right-hand button for two seconds, the watch will cycle through all kinds of time and celestial information like location, year, day of year, week number, longitude, latitude, sunrise, sunset, solar noon, moon illumination percentage, moon rise, moon set, date and time of the next new moon, and date and time of the next full moon.
  • One-handed time. I don't know what the official term is for this function, or even if there is one, but I think it's an interesting feature nonetheless. Push the backlight button twice and the dot matrix LCD goes blank, leaving you to deduce the time from only the single 24-hour hand. If your life is planned down to the minute, this isn't going to do you much good, but since each hour is divided up into 15 minute intervals, you can actually get a pretty good approximation of the time.
 

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mtntopper

Back On Track
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Someone has just too much time on their hands already....I would never be able to remember how to make all the functions work unless I kept how to notes in my pocket and would just settle for the clock function!!!!!
 

bczoom

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Nice watches Bob but is there a question in there somewhere?

Personally, I just look at the time on my cell phone. Your nipples and GPS can give you the rest (temp, barometric pressure...).:whistle:
 

XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

Master of Distraction
Staff member
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Actually, I used a Timex Datalink for years and it was useful but since I had carpal tunnel surgery I stopped wearing watches. They seem to bother me for some reason.

I'm looking for a cheap wind-up watch that is reasonably durable. Seems everything needs batteries these days.
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
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Well the YES watch is just different enough that you might look at time differently if you wore it.

One thing I love about it is that it calculates the number of SUNLIGHT hours left in the day and graphically shows it to you, that is very helpful when in strange areas of the globe while traveling if you are trying to plan outdoor events. And it is always visible.

And since I don't always travel with a cell phone or a GPS, but always have a watch so some of the other features are handy too. The barometer on the Tissot can tell you of weather changes coming before they get to you . . . another handy feature while traveling.


PB said:
I'm looking for a cheap wind-up watch that is reasonably durable. Seems everything needs batteries these days.
Rather than wind up why not look at automatic watches. They are mechanical and wind themselves. Oris, Fred, Berne are 3 high quality brands that have models that can be had for under $400 if you shop around (some for half that price). All are durable as all get out, waterproof to 100m, etc.
 

Junkman

Extra Super Moderator
I rely on my old faithful time piece. It has worked for years without being wound, or repaired. It doesn't require batteries and is always accurate. It is adjusted for latitude, which is close enough for my purposes. Overall, it is a great time piece with classic lines and what makes it even better is that it is a 100 year old Tiffany...... The only thing that it doesn't do is adjust for Daylight Savings Time.....
 

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DaveNay

Klaatu barada nikto
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B_Skurka said:
One thing I love about it is that it calculates the number of SUNLIGHT hours left in the day and graphically shows it to you, that is very helpful when in strange areas of the globe while traveling if you are trying to plan outdoor events. And it is always visible.

While I haven't worn or owned a watch in almost 15 years, that YES watch does look interesting. How does it know it's location? Is it automatic via GPS, or do you have to enter Lat/Lon info to update?

And of course the big question.....would it set me back a years pay?

I actually really like the one handed time feature. I never worry about being super precise to the minute.
 

Melensdad

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Ahh, but Junk, it doesn't keep time after dark and is tough to carry while traveling.



Dave . . . the prices of the YES watches are roughly $400 to $800. I've seen them for less. One model as low as $99.00 being closed out.

As for the location issue, it is programmed with almost 600 cities, you simply enter the nearest city to where you are at the time.
 

thcri

Gone But Not Forgotten
Junkman said:
I rely on my old faithful time piece. It has worked for years without being wound, or repaired. It doesn't require batteries and is always accurate. It is adjusted for latitude, which is close enough for my purposes. Overall, it is a great time piece with classic lines and what makes it even better is that it is a 100 year old Tiffany...... The only thing that it doesn't do is adjust for Daylight Savings Time.....

The only problem Junk is you would have to get off the couch to read the time. :D
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
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DaveNay said:
While I haven't worn or owned a watch in almost 15 years, that YES watch does look interesting. How does it know it's location? Is it automatic via GPS, or do you have to enter Lat/Lon info to update?

And of course the big question.....would it set me back a years pay?

I actually really like the one handed time feature. I never worry about being super precise to the minute.

Dave, I was digging around the YES WATCH website a bit more and found a better photo that describes the various components of the dial. I also checked out the Lat/Lon question, and found out that if you want to be super accurate on the Sunrise/Sunset readings as well as the Moonrise/Moonset readings you can, in fact, set it for latitude and longitude.

I really think the Sunset feature makes a lot of sense. Especially when working outside, it would be nice to know how many hours of sunlight were left in the day.
 

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DaveNay

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B_Skurka said:
it would be nice to know how many hours of sunlight were left in the day.

When the big flaming God is swallowed by the earth God, and the cool mother God shines down upon you, it is time to go back to the hut and make fire and eat.
 

Junkman

Extra Super Moderator
You will need to carry the instruction manual with you just to know how to use all the features. :whistle:
 

Melensdad

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DaveNay said:
When the big flaming God is swallowed by the earth God, and the cool mother God shines down upon you, it is time to go back to the hut and make fire and eat.
Yea, that would be a good sign, but if you are in the field working, and you are trying to get something done before dark, then the sunset feature would come in handy.

On the other hand, if you are out traveling to Las Vegas and want to have dinner at the Stratosphere's revolving restaurant and would like to make your reservations for 45 mintues before sunset so you can view the city and the mountains as the sun sets and then see the lights of the city after the sun is down, then again, the feature comes in handy.

(BTW, for anyone going to Vegas, I strongly recommend you make reservations at the Stratosphere for a sunset dinner, pretty good food, but a really great view) :tiphat:

Then again, the alarm feature, combined with the Sun Rise feature would be great for fishermen and dedicated golfers!
 

DaveNay

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B_Skurka said:
Then again, the alarm feature, combined with the Sun Rise feature would be great for fishermen and dedicated golfers!

Ah Ha! Can the alarm be set to "1:30 before sunrise"?
 

mtntopper

Back On Track
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(BTW, for anyone going to Vegas, I strongly recommend you make reservations at the Stratosphere for a sunset dinner, pretty good food, but a really great view) :tiphat:

I will even vouch for Bob on this one, not many times you can say he is 100% on target, but he is right on on this one. Great view of Vegas and the sunset along with decent food. :a1: :thumb: :applause:
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
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mtntopper said:
I will even vouch for Bob on this one, not many times you can say he is 100% on target, but he is right on on this one. Great view of Vegas and the sunset along with decent food. :a1: :thumb: :applause:


Apparently I am good for SOMETHING around here :pat:
 

bczoom

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B_Skurka said:
I really think the Sunset feature makes a lot of sense. Especially when working outside, it would be nice to know how many hours of sunlight were left in the day.
Are you familiar with the way to do that using your outstretched arm and counting fingers?
 

Melensdad

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bczoom said:
Are you familiar with the way to do that using your outstretched arm and counting fingers?

No, I don't know that trick.

But I am also guessing that I am the only one on the forum who likes interesting or complicated wristwatches.
 

bczoom

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The trick...

Extend your arm fully out in front of you and point your fingers inward.

Position the bottom of your pinky on the horizon.

For most people, you use the knuckle where the red line is for measurement.

Each finger is 15 minutes. You stack your other hand on this one and keep going up the sky until you reach the bottom of the sun.

I can't speak for others but those watches do seem more complicated then what I would want to use...
 

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Melensdad

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bczoom said:
I can't speak for others but those watches do seem more complicated then what I would want to use...
Here is one of the watches that I use when I travel, this is a limited editon Breitling DuoGraph issued in a quantity of 1000, mine is #202, for the International World Cup of Aerobatics (airplane aerobatics) from 1995. It has quite a few features, some of which are apparent by looking at it, some only by using it. I often wear this as a daily watch and have it on today. I've had several airline pilots try to buy it from me. This model was discontinued from Breitling's line up several years ago, but is very useful for pilots and travelers.
 

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