New Watch! (Seiko5 GMT) and a Controversial Opinion: GMT Hands should be set to UTC/ZULU/GMT and Caller GMTs are fine for travel as long as they have a rotating bezel.
Hey-ho Everyone! I just picked up a Seiko 5 GMT watch as part of my inscrutable watch collecting habits, and I have to say that I really like it a lot, although the included bracelet link adjustment tool bent immediately when I tried to use it to resize the watch bracelet. (However I did discover a really loose pin while messing with it. Thankfully my $25 watch repair kit from amazon was more than capable to get the watch properly sized.)
The mineral crystal bezel is beautiful, even though it does collect fingerprints. Also, the watch didn't fog when I christened it by taking it into the shower with me, so I'm happy with the water resistance as well.
After using it for a day, it seems 2 seconds fast right now, which is nice~
But while messing with it, I felt a Hot Take overcoming me that I felt the need to share...
For the longest time, I was hesitant to get a Caller GMT movement as opposed to a Traveller's GMT, despite the fact that I don't really travel anywhere, but after setting the GMT hand to UTC, and moving the bezel to reflect my own time to practice focusing on the GMT hand for hour reading, I think that most Caller GMT's are perfectly fine for travel, just so long as you have and use the rotating bezel for your local time, and don't move the GMT hand from UTC time. The Seiko 5 GMT makes this easier because it also has the 24 hour markers on the chapter ring as well.
The only Callers that wouldn't be as good for travelling are the ones with fixed 24 hour bezels.
And thinking about it further, Flyer GMTs don't really need movable bezels, since the jumping hour hand can take it's place, assuming that the GMT hand is indeed set to UTC, but a rotating bezel can be nice to quickly check other time zones.
Personally I find the whole 'You can track three time zones at once!' thing to be more of a silly life hack than serious use of a watch with this kind of complication.
What do you'll think? Good hot take, or bad hot take?
(Also, if you examine the picture of the watch carefully, it will reveal where I am longitudinally... can you figure it out? [Yes, daylight savings time is a factor])
All the Cat Girls Shout "Nyaaa!"
Believe it or not there is a very odd, very niche use for three time zones at almost a glance.
Local time: SE-ish Asia
2nd Time: Someplace in Europe
3rd Time: Home
Or
UTC
Destination Time
Local time maybe?
I've never used a GMT like this, but have seen/heard of some doing it like this.
To your specific point tho, I'd agree. I find much more use out of a GMT with an elapsed or countdown bezel insert, and a 24 hr scale on the dial. Like the Lorier Hydra SIII.
Believe it or not there is a very odd, very niche use for three time zones at almost a glance.
Local time: SE-ish Asia
2nd Time: Someplace in Europe
3rd Time: Home
Or
UTC
Destination Time
Local time maybe?
I've never used a GMT like this, but have seen/heard of some doing it like this.
I guess that I don't count UTC as a real time zone, but rather as a reference to find times in other time zones. What I mean by 'three time zones' for a Caller GMT is where the gmt hand is on a destination time zone, and then the rotating bezel is offset from that, which just seems confusing. While keeping the GMT hand on GMT helps to conceptualize the time zones better. You need -8 UTC? Twist the bezel so that it's eight spaces back (16 in the 12 o'clock position) That sort of thing.
As someone who’s abroad right now with a flyer GMT, I’d say caller GMT’s are perfectly fine for travel, even without a 24 bezel. It’s a minor inconvenience to hack and change the local time, and then reset the 24 hand to home time, but that’s doable in a couple minutes. It’s just a very minor inconvenience that you only need to do twice (going and returning) on most trips.
The only instances where a caller could become annoying is on a trip where you’re in multiple time zones in a very short period of time. A transatlantic cruise, or multi-stop vacation or work trip across Europe, Asia, or the US - that kind of thing. But that’s such a tiny use case - less than 0.1% of trips, I’d imagine - that it’s not worth worrying about.
As someone who’s abroad right now with a flyer GMT, I’d say caller GMT’s are perfectly fine for travel, even without a 24 bezel. It’s a minor inconvenience to hack and change the local time, and then reset the 24 hand to home time, but that’s doable in a couple minutes. It’s just a very minor inconvenience that you only need to do twice (going and returning) on most trips.
The only instances where a caller could become annoying is on a trip where you’re in multiple time zones in a very short period of time. A transatlantic cruise, or multi-stop vacation or work trip across Europe, Asia, or the US - that kind of thing. But that’s such a tiny use case - less than 0.1% of trips, I’d imagine - that it’s not worth worrying about.
Nah, you don't even need to adjust the 12 hour hand. If you leave the GMT hand on GMT, and use the rotating bezel, you could just adjust the bezel for each stop, and leave the 12 hour hand as your home time. Heck, if you removed the 12 hour hand on a seiko 5 GMT, you'd basically have a Glycine Airman. That's kinda what I'm getting at.
A jumping GMT hand is useful if you want to put the GMT hand on home time to serve as a am/pm indicator or as a solar compass, but for travel, just leave it on UTC/GMT/ZULU and use the bezel.
Believe it or not there is a very odd, very niche use for three time zones at almost a glance.
Local time: SE-ish Asia
2nd Time: Someplace in Europe
3rd Time: Home
Or
UTC
Destination Time
Local time maybe?
I've never used a GMT like this, but have seen/heard of some doing it like this.
Actually when you see it from a pilots perspective it makes total sense. All our planning, filling, metars, pireps and such are based on Zulu Time. Then you have your local tome and your home time.
Unlike most people which barely track more than one time zone, the extra hour hand is more than enough to deal with that person you would like to speak to abroad.
I personally don't like the rotating bezel because of how easy they actually move, and at that point you are no longer keeping correct time. Anyone with a dive watch can confirm. But I cannot deny that it does make sense in some cases.
Actually when you see it from a pilots perspective it makes total sense. All our planning, filling, metars, pireps and such are based on Zulu Time. Then you have your local tome and your home time.
Unlike most people which barely track more than one time zone, the extra hour hand is more than enough to deal with that person you would like to speak to abroad.
I personally don't like the rotating bezel because of how easy they actually move, and at that point you are no longer keeping correct time. Anyone with a dive watch can confirm. But I cannot deny that it does make sense in some cases.
Agreed. For certain use cases it actually makes sense to have a mod, with a 24 hr scale unidirectional. Plus a GMT setup
Welcome to the Crunch Lufty! Congratulations 🍾 on the new time piece
Actually when you see it from a pilots perspective it makes total sense. All our planning, filling, metars, pireps and such are based on Zulu Time. Then you have your local tome and your home time.
Unlike most people which barely track more than one time zone, the extra hour hand is more than enough to deal with that person you would like to speak to abroad.
I personally don't like the rotating bezel because of how easy they actually move, and at that point you are no longer keeping correct time. Anyone with a dive watch can confirm. But I cannot deny that it does make sense in some cases.
I dunno, the bezel on my seiko 5 gmt is friction only, but is actually really hard to turn
Thinking of buying this as my first watch that isn’t an Apple Watch
I track London time and Tokyo time on my watch. However, the most useful GMT is in your brain. Not very difficult to know the time of major cities assuming you have a basic knowledge of geography 😊
I dunno, the bezel on my seiko 5 gmt is friction only, but is actually really hard to turn
I actually think a bezel should be hard to turn. Especially on a dive watch.
I track London time and Tokyo time on my watch. However, the most useful GMT is in your brain. Not very difficult to know the time of major cities assuming you have a basic knowledge of geography 😊
I track CET and CST. 7 hours apart and even though I basically know how to track time zones, it's so nice to have it saved on all my twin-timers, world timers and GMT.
This is a great take and makes me realize I don’t need a true GMT (besides the fact that I’m never more than 3 time zones away from my home)!
This is a great take and makes me realize I don’t need a true GMT (besides the fact that I’m never more than 3 time zones away from my home)!
Also, Caller GMTs have quick set dates while true GMTs don't.
(But I still have a spot in my watch box for a Mido Oceanstar GMT... Some day... some day...)
Eh, hot take, neither bad or good. I too like the 24 hour scale on the rehaut, really can give you a 3rd time zone. My guess is you’re GMT/UTC -7, somewhere in Alberta, Edmonton?
Eh, hot take, neither bad or good. I too like the 24 hour scale on the rehaut, really can give you a 3rd time zone. My guess is you’re GMT/UTC -7, somewhere in Alberta, Edmonton?
Congrats! The city isn't quite right, but the province is!
Eh, hot take, neither bad or good. I too like the 24 hour scale on the rehaut, really can give you a 3rd time zone. My guess is you’re GMT/UTC -7, somewhere in Alberta, Edmonton?
Also, my hot take is mostly because I got tired of youtube videos advocating that you just set the gmt hand to the time zone you want to track, when setting it to UTC and using the bezel gives you a much more powerful conceptual framework
I work in the EST time zone, and have to call the UK and India all the time, and sometimes Germany. I never use a GMT watch, as I can simply add the time difference in my head. It would be different if I was crossing time zones all the time, but when staying in the same time zone most of the time, I really don't have a need for a GMT watch, even though I own one.
Also, my hot take is mostly because I got tired of youtube videos advocating that you just set the gmt hand to the time zone you want to track, when setting it to UTC and using the bezel gives you a much more powerful conceptual framework
My dislike of the “you can track three timezones” thing applies to people saying this about Rolex GMTMs. I doesn’t really work if you can’t keep track of the second one. A trick isn’t a design intention, i think it’s fair to say. I think it just made sense for Rolex to keep the rotating bezel for user convenience and stuff.
I’m considering a few different Seiko and Islander GMTs I plan to use as my 3-timezone GMT until i can afford my grail GMT. Might get the SSK017 or SSK019