Overrated watch Features. Who needs That?
I’m just going by my personal experience and obviously yours will differ and that’s fine, but a lot of touted features of a particular watch mean nada, zero, zip to me. First up is Lume. So you’re in a dungeon held prisoner and the rescue team is extracting you at 14 hundred hours and you’re not on time because the lume on your watch sucks? And if I roll over at 3 am wondering where am I and what time is it I’ll just look at my phone. If the escort hasn’t stolen it. Next up is power reserve. Sure that’s great if you wear your watch in the morgue waiting for your autopsy and can’t move but be real, do you really believe buying into that “70 hours power reserve!” which demands a premium is worth the one minute to wind and shake a dead watch? And last, this will get a response, is water resistance. Watch brands should limit this to two, you can wear in the shower or you can fall off a cruise ship and sink to the bottom and the watch will still tick but you won’t. How many of you folks crossed that 300 meter threshold only to realize your watch was rated at 100 meters and disengrated in your wrist? All comes down to what you want, not me or anybody else.
I see you’ve had experience with escorts 🤣
The thing I dislike is Cyclops
I worked nights for 5 years in facilities that considered lighting to be luxury, phones were prohibited for security, and of course everything was time sensitive. Tritium was my only choice.
I’m with you on power reserve.
I’d say for me the most over rated is hacking. Watches that don’t have it, if they’re within a minute or 2 I’m fine. If it hacks, I’m compelled to set it to the second. Then check to see if it’s off a few times a day.
Two points:
1) Leave the valuables in the car/safe when the escorts are around.
2) Lume is better for your sleep. Bright light from a phone is far more disruptive to your natural sleep than a bit of tritium glowing.
Bonus point: Kick the escort(s) out when it's sleep time, there is no point paying them to sleep.... 😉😂
Date. There, I said it!
I must have all the features!
(#seiko SPC251 #perpetualcalendar)
I like most of these functions while acknowledging they’re not at all needed.
A legit 10m WR would do it for me.
I get the point of extended power reserve, but there’s no reason to muck up the dial with a gauge for it.
Lume is cool, but largely unnecessary.
Then again, the unofficial mottos of the U S of A is “The More the Better”, so the more stuff a watch can do, the more American it is and thus the more I love it.
So in summation, you’re a commie and watches should do as much as possible.
Definitely agree about the cyclops. I’d rather wear glasses than have a watch with a cyclops.
I wore my plastic fantastic Casio MW-59 today. It has zero luminescence, probably 50m water resistance that has never been used, and it is quartz so power reserve is measured in years. It does have a date feature, which I used while at the bank. Never mind the fact that as I raised my arm to read it, I saw the digital wall clock with date right in front of my face. I want light wieght, small, and practical in style. It delivered all that I wanted and needed, this five year old $18 watch.
Sapphire.
Too reflective. Too smudgy. Too blue.
And agree to disagree on the lume front, YMMV 🤪🫣
Date. There, I said it!
I agree. Dates mess up the dial too much and they take twice as long to set when changing watches. I’d rather rely on my phone if I need the date. However so many watches have a date that I end up taking the extra time to set the date when changing watches. Can’t bring myself to leave it set wrong.
I agree with everything on this post, including sapphire added by someone in the comments.
Erm, how do you usually get your escorts? Online? Referrals? Asking for a friend.
Power reserve and in-house movement.
Sometimes "because I can " is reason enough
I see you’ve had experience with escorts 🤣
The thing I dislike is Cyclops
These become more and more useful as you age.
Definitely agree about the cyclops. I’d rather wear glasses than have a watch with a cyclops.
Sometimes you need both
These become more and more useful as you age.
Maybe you need the $69 Muff Diver
Maybe you need the $69 Muff Diver
I was talking about Cyclops, but I see what you did there.
I was talking about Cyclops, but I see what you did there.
Who says I wasn’t talking about Cyclops 🤣
The most romantic yet useless feature is a Moonphase 🎑
Lume?? I feel sorry for anyone who says this because they clearly never had enough glow in the dark stickers as a kid. 😬 I agree with water resistance and power reserve though. Most people will never even need 10 bar and the power reserve just makes the dial uglier IMO. For me it would be cyclops. I might as well wear a monocle while I'm at it! If I ever were to change the glass to crystal on my Seiko 5 GMT half the reason would be to have sapphire and the other would be to get rid of the cyclops.
Other than that, ironically (and I may get flak for this) I'd say watch accuracy. Have you sweated being 30 seconds late to something? If it was that important you'd be arriving early anyways. If you truly need accuracy just look at your phone. Barring something wayyy off how accurate do you really need?
Tourbillon by far is the most useless watch feature there is. However, it is by far the coolest.
I agree on lume and power reserve. The first requires charging to be effective and so it's irrelevant to what happen in real life when day gradually turn into night. For me It's more of a party trick than something really useful.
Power reserve is another feature that leaves me puzzled as to why manufacturers are wasting their time over it. It's usefulness is restricted to those who time their watch rotation to match, and I'm willing to bet that it's not a whole lot of people. I may be wrong here but I don't see how an extended power saves a lot of work or solves any major problems.
I'm pretty much indifferent to WR rating I own watches with both a 1ATM (aka zero) WR and other that proved that they can still function under 800m and I wear them all with equal passion.
Date
The most overrated feature for me is accuracy. I'm wearing an already obsolete mechanical watch more as a style piece than a device to tell accurate time to the second. I couldn't care less if my watch is off by 4 seconds or 20 by the end of the day, it's still more than enough. Heck, my home clock, my oven and my microwave aren't set to the second and I still look at them for time.
After a day it goes back into the watch box to die and the next time I pick it up I'll have to set the time all over again. If accuracy was so important to me, I'd only have quartz watches because it's simply better.
Some super high luxury watch loses 4 seconds a month? Wow that's sick, it still stops ticking after a day and a half in the box. 😂
Watching a test to destruction depth test on two lower budget dive watches 100&200m, both hit well over 700m without issue.
The pressure eventually built to the point the case backs bowed in and impeded the movements. Long before the crystals popped.
Coupling this, with learning to a scuba dive around 10m and knowing amateur scuba diving limits are 30m, it really highlighted to me that 100m in a Swiss made watch is going to be absolutely fine for all but deep sea rig divers.
Some of these comments are hilarious.
Light/Lume: My phone goes in living room when I go to bed I got 2 options for bed G-shock or Watch with lume, I've learned to just use g shock because when not wearing my mechanical watch i've knocked it off the night stand before, but lume for checking if it's 3 am or 5 am and it's time to get up is king. Alarm, non optional I have a child and she sneaks into my bed every night and i gotta get out of bed like it's an SAS operation.
I did try a bedside clock with a light... the light was way too bright so I put it in the living room now... next to the phone.
Date: used once a day at home, used 10-20 times in the supermarket when checking the use by date on an item, why can i keep todays date in my short term memory, because that part of my brain was cannibalised to facilitate being a parent.
power reserve: meh, I have a watch with 42 and a watch with 70 i like that I can test the accuracy thats about it, wish my solar g shock had one though, gotta use the app (bluetooth) annoying but not a dealbreaker.
WaterResistance: I used to swim with a 30m quartz chrono years ago because i didn't know I wasn't supposed to... works fine. Do I like the water resistance though yes, less so for diving more so for water sports like surfing.
Moonphase... pretty, I do have a telescope but I see no need for it. Suppose it's an essential in werewolf country.
Sunrise/Sunset Times: this one i suppose is on the digital side, I like a lot, I forget to check and sometimes, applications:
camping
photography
phone does this one.
Day complication- I NEVER need to check the day on the fly, the date sure, date never.
Month: WAI?
YEAR: GTFO
And today on totally useless in 2023-
Pulsometer
Tachymeter
24 Hour subdial... why? spelunking?
I used to think a GMT was the most essential thing ever, but i have very clear memory of my dad just doing the math for the time zones... still does... my dad wears a casio royale (world timer,gift from my sister)... he has 0 idea how to work it... uses the stopwatch though when he runs.
GMT still on the fence, my maths sucks first thing in the morning.
Hate the Cyclops on my seiko 5 GMT with a passion.
Watch is useless if ur prisoner
300m doesnt mean ypu can dive 300m
My friend thanks you.