GMT watch usage : in different time zones
Please ignore my limited knowledge about the GMT watches! I tried asking this in several other forums but did not get a reply. So trying it in WC :)
As per my understanding most of these watches have an additional hour hand which can be used to read the time along with minute hand of another city / location. But how does it work if my location has a time difference of let's say 3.5 or 4.5 hours and not 3 or 4 hours, Is it stil possible to read time with these watches?
Thanks!
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Rajiv
Hi, I am a watch enthusiast and have been recently studying the various brands and the type of mechanical watches in the industry. Sucker for vintage looking dials and microbrands! Also into watch pho...
bengaluru
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No, the gmt hand marks the time zone hour. You’ll need to remember to add the half hour for those cases. For example, if India is 10.5 hours off from where I am, I would set the gmt hand to 10 hours ahead. Then when I read it, I would add 30 minutes.
It depends entirely on the watch in question. Most GMTs cannot make that distinction, as they simply divide the world into 24 time zones. However, something like the Seiko Astron has multiple time zones that include divisions of less than one hour.
No, the gmt hand marks the time zone hour. You’ll need to remember to add the half hour for those cases. For example, if India is 10.5 hours off from where I am, I would set the gmt hand to 10 hours ahead. Then when I read it, I would add 30 minutes.
Thank you, that helps!
It depends entirely on the watch in question. Most GMTs cannot make that distinction, as they simply divide the world into 24 time zones. However, something like the Seiko Astron has multiple time zones that include divisions of less than one hour.
Thanks, this is useful, so if I'm looking for a GMT watch for a time zone with half an hour mark i should look for these specific models
Some watches have a sort of watch within a watch complication that you can set to whatever time. I don’t call them GMT watches since they’d don’t have a single GMT hour hand, but they serve a similar purpose of tracking different time zones.
The jumping hour GMTs are really great to use when travelling, but the half hour timezones are problematic.
There are watches which have an independent hand which travels around the dial independently of the local hour/minute hand. You can set it to whatever time you wish and it will just run around the track once eery 24 hours.
Oris Propilot GMT as an example - red hand, with small white indices :
Montblanc do a nice twist on this with a red marker travelling around a sandwich type dial cut-out, tracking half hours and hours.
Another option could be to buy a GMT with a rotating bezel.. then offset your bezel by 30 mins. Ignore the minute hand and focus on the gmt hour hand and your bezel time. Thsi keeps your options open as many gmts have rotating bezels.
These are very interesting options, loved the GMT with rotating bezel as these will be relatively easier in India. Thanks a lot!
Some come with 48-click rotating bezel instead of 24-click. So you should be able to set it in 0.5 hour increments although it is not going to be intuitive to read the time.
This kind of “GMT” can take care of half hour time zones easy 😬
This kind of “GMT” can take care of half hour time zones easy 😬
Couldn't agree more!
My pink Casio poptone? That has Dual Time function, and you can set it on whatever time you wish