Sports Watches
What are sports watches, actually? Watches you wear when performing a sporting activity? Watches you wear when attending a sporting event as a spectator? Has this moved on from those ideas to mean some kind of butch dress watch, or some kind of glamed-up field watch? When you google them you get something like the image included - I'll be damned if I can tell a common design language between those.
So, folks, can you help me out? From the POV of a watch nerd, what actually is a sports watch?
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Balthazar
UK-based German expat. Likes cheap watches. Not bothered about brands.
Member since
Last active: 16 hrs ago
In all honesty, I think "sports watch" is a catch all for watches that don't fit neatly into another category. In my mind, diver's, pilot's, and field watches are just specific sub-categories of sport watches.
That said, I'll take a stab at it...
A sports watch is the following:
normally made of steel, or bronze; has 50m WR , or more; legible dial, with a shatter resistant crystal, or a way to cover the crystal; less "dressy" looking than a dress watch; and has luminous markers, and hands.
Kristian is on the money, sport watch is kind of used as a catch all these days it seems. I’ve always taken it to mean a rugged (typically stainless steel) watch with an emphasis on legibility and most of them to be lighter on the wrist. I think it’s a “know it when you see it” kind of thing.
A lot of watches fall under that definition and they vary in style and construction. When I think classic sports watch I think Rolex Explorer, Patek Nautilus, and G shock. I think between those three you’ll get a sense for what a sports watch is.
It's my understanding that they are watches to be worn while engaging in "sport" … as it might have been defined 80 to 100 years ago. As @KristianG mentioned, it includes divers, chronographs, pilot watches, and racing watches … and maybe a few others that I'm not remembering at this moment.
While there's a somewhat unified design for each subcategory of sport watch (e.g. dive watches have bezels that serve a utilitarian purpose, chronographs have extra buttons for the timing functions), each subcategory is somewhat unique from the other subcategories. Therefore, there's no unified design theme across all sport watches.
Lots of good points made in the discussion already, but I would add that to me, a sports watch is a watch that has a function that applies to a sport or sports in addition to being tough. The diver's watch has a function for timing dive length, most watches for runners have stop watch functions with split-time capability, the Daytona has a chronograph function with a tachymeter, etc. and consider this Hublot.
A watch to track your golf game. To me, that is what makes a watch a sports watch; a function that applies to a sport or sports.
It's my understanding that they are watches to be worn while engaging in "sport" … as it might have been defined 80 to 100 years ago. As @KristianG mentioned, it includes divers, chronographs, pilot watches, and racing watches … and maybe a few others that I'm not remembering at this moment.
While there's a somewhat unified design for each subcategory of sport watch (e.g. dive watches have bezels that serve a utilitarian purpose, chronographs have extra buttons for the timing functions), each subcategory is somewhat unique from the other subcategories. Therefore, there's no unified design theme across all sport watches.
The opening sentence about cuts it for me. Let's be honest, nothing mechanical is truly going to be worn by any athlete. They are going to be wearing digital wrist computers that track many metrics relevant to their needs. So for me the whole term of Sports watch is simply a watch that may be a little more support looking or rugged than its dress watch equivalent.
To sum up some of the main points, and then add some of my own: