Watchawa

A watch for snipers

Watch Blogger — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 21:44:49 +0000

WristWatchReview writes about the H.R.T. Tactical Sniper Watch, which obviously is a watch especially made for snipers taking out people at long distances, say 1000 metres and more. It can help calculating the point of impact by inputting critical variables that determine elevation and wind adjustments. Sounds pretty scary to me, but I guess it is very useful for people who have to engage in such business. I could not find any price tag for this watch, but I bet it does not come cheap. The titanium case actually looks very nice.

Citizen VIRT Bluetooth watch

Watch Blogger — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 09:50:37 +0000

Watch Report has a feature on the Citizen VIRT, which is the first watch to incorporate Bluetooth connectivity. The Bluetooth seems to be mainly for communictating with your cellphone, providing features like displaying caller ID on the watch or synchronising with the phones address book. The watch also features an OLED display, which allows a bright display without eating up the batteries too fast.

Watches in the movies

Watch Blogger — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 09:20:28 +0000

At Celebrity Watch is a long list of movies with pictures of the actors wearing interesting watches. This is great for trivia I guess: Who would have known that the Men In Black wear Hamilton Venturas or the Terminator wears an Audemars Piguet? I miss the fake Rolex of Uma Thurman in Kill Bill 2 though, as recently discovered at Fratellowatches.

Fiyta Chinese Taikonaut’s watch

Watch Blogger — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 05:24:45 +0000

Velociphile checks out the Fiyta Watch as used by the Taikonauts (Chinese astronauts) in 2003. While he declares its Miyota quartz movement to be officially trash, I think the new watch the Taikonauts use these days looks absolutely delicious:

I wonder if it has improved technically as well.

Christmas time, watches time

Watch Blogger — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 10:32:51 +0000

I wanted to know how interest in different brands of watches changed over time, so I used Google Trends to compare search volumes for some major brands:

What hits me are the two major spikes at the end of the year, which prove that interest in watches takes a huge leap around christmas time. Other than that, there seems to be a rather stable demand, not changing that much over the years.
I am also surprised about the relatively poor interest in Breitling. I consider their watches as some of the most beautiful and would have expected them to perform better when compared to the other brands. Seems like Rolex still generates the most interest though.

Low budget stainless steel Seiko

Watch Blogger — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 04:21:14 +0000

The Seiko SGF719 seems to be an excellent deal for a stainless steel quartz watch when on a budget. It is currently for sale on Amazon for $54.99. The watch features a decent looking black dial, Screw-in caseback, Hardlex crystal, day and date at the three o clock position and is listed as 100 feet water resistant.

How many jewels does a watch need?

Watch Blogger — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 19:48:22 +0000

As most of you will know jewels like ruby or saphire are used to reduce friction in the bearings of watches. While it is common belief that the more jewels there are the better the movement, this article explains how jewels have been added to watches just for marketing purposes, without providing any functional value.
There is an ISO standard which defines a functional jewel as a “jewel which serves to stabilize friction and to reduce the wear rate of contacting surfaces of the components of a timekeeping instrument” and a nonfunctional jewel as a “jewel used for purposes other than as defined in 3.2″ (ie a Functional Jewel). The author of the article provides some interesting examples of both functional and nonfunctional jewels and goes on to explain how watchmakers use jewels that are functional according to the ISO standard, but still useless, as they neither significantly enhance the performance nor the longevity of a watch.
It seems like the highest number of useful functional jewels a watch can have is 23, as shown by the example of a Hamilton Grade 923 movement. The author still doubts the value of jeweled barrels, so the actual number may be even less.

Watch Browser

Watch Blogger — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 17:57:25 +0000

Watch-Browser.com is a nice Ajax front end for finding watches at Amazon. You can select your upper and lower budget range from $0 up to $41400 using a simple slider, and you can search for keywords as well as brands with a nice type ahead function.
Using that tool I found out that the most expensive watch for sale at Amazon right now is the Breguet Men’s Heritage Watch, coming at a whopping $40,280.00 (a steal at $10,070.00 below the list price). I wonder if anyone buys that kind of items at Amazon. If I had the bucks to spent I sure wouldn’t miss the experience of getting it vis a vis from my jeweller of choice.
[via WristWatchReview.com]

Getting complicated

Watch Blogger — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 15:29:17 +0000

If you look up the term ‘Watch’ at Wikipedia, you will find a paragraph entitled ‘Complicated watch’. While I feel the term complicated has a negative touch to it, actually complicated watches are actually very interesting watches.
According to Wiki, it is used to describe watches that have additional functions beyond basic time keeping. Examples are moon phase watches or chronographs. Allthough I rarely have any use for the stop watch capabilities of a chronograph, I like the looks of watches like the Omega Speedmaster a lot. While simplicity can be awesome too, the additional knobs and hands make them look very interesting. Maybe Sophisticated Watch might be a better term for these devices.

Blogging watches

Watch Blogger — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 13:30:32 +0000

Watches - the tool of choice for tracking time ever since Patek Philippe invented the wrist watch at the end of the 19th century. They come in a stunning variety, starting as cheap as a five dollar watch to multi thousand dollar gadgets, being made of plastic, steel, silver or gold.
Although I have been fascinated with watches for quite some time now, I am by no means an expert on the topic. I am, however, determined to educate myself, becoming a true watch afficionado over time, and I will use this blog to keep track about what I learn. I will blog about luxury watches, budget watches and even interesting replicas. I am sure there will be a lot to learn and a lot to blog about, so stay tuned while I dig deeper and deeper into the fascinating world of the portable clock.