People say you can tell a lot about a man from the shoes he wears, the belt, and most importantly his watch. It’s pretty accurate too; a watch is not just a time-telling piece of machinery. A watch shows the taste a person has and says a lot about the kind of a man they are.
There are many different watch brands out there, covering a variety of tastes from sport and military watches to luxury and smart ones. It can get quite overwhelming to try to choose a watch type, especially if you’re a novice with not much experience in the world of watches.
There are however some types of watches that are more popular than the others, and these are 10 of them you should know if you do indeed plan on getting into the extremely fun universe of watches.
1. Analogue watches
This is the first type of hand watches and it’s pretty much the oldest ever made. A typical analogue watch will feature numbers displayed from 1 to 12, with the latter being at the top of the watch. It also has hours and minutes hands, and some have a second hand, all rotating in a clockwise direction.
Analog watches are pretty traditional forms of watches and they come in Latin or Roman numerals, depending on your preference. Analog watches are definitely for vintage style lovers and those who’d like to steer clear from the digital watches of the modern-day.
2. Digital watches
A digital watch is pretty much the exact opposite of an analogue watch. Instead of a regular display with numbers and hand, a digital watch has a display where hours, minutes, and seconds are displayed as regular digits on the screen.
It’s a safe bet if you’re into digital watches that you’ve come across the Casio G-Shock, possibly the most famous and affordable digital watch that comes with a variety of options and cool tricks.
Digital watches tell time more accurately than an analogue, and you don’t need to guess the minutes because every detail of the hour is displayed in numbers. They also have a very cool option of having backlight that can be activated by the push of a button!
3. Automatic watches
Automatic timepieces are something special for a watch aficionado. They look sublime and they don’t require a battery or electricity to work. They rather work based on a special mechanism inside the watch that winds it when the wearer uses it. So basically the watch winds itself when you put it on your wrist and stores energy for some time after that.
4. Quartz watches
These run on a quartz crystal that powers an oscillator within the watch itself. Due to using the quartz mineral, this type of watches is far more accurate than most and it keeps time within a very small margin of error. They will need to have their batteries replaced from time to time, though.
5. Tritium watches
This is a new type of watches that has been gaining much popularity over the past few years. These watches are ordinary watches, but with the added feature of tritium, a radioactive gas that glows in the dark. As a result, tritium watches can maintain a light and opacity for a long time, up to 20 years.
This is why tritium watches are essential for military personnel or any person who spends a lot of time outdoors in dim lighted conditions. True, many watches come with options to glow in the dark, but none last as long as tritium or are as efficient. The cool thing is also the gas doesn’t require a power source or even the sun to operate.
6. Smartwatches
Smartwatches have been quite the thing for the past decade or so. They’ve integrated mobile software and user OS into watches so that they could feature much more options than your average watch. For instance, a traditional smartwatch would get connected to your smartphone via Bluetooth and it’d allow you to view notifications, take calls from the watch itself, play music, monitor heart rate and sleep, and so much more.
More importantly, smartwatches have been extremely popular amongst athletes and sports enthusiasts because they offer great options for exercise tracking and some like the Galaxy Smartwatch even come with the option of built-in exercise for you to follow.
7. Hybrid watches
While smartwatches are great and feature plenty of cool options, watch purists find them too artificial and gimmicky to use. This is where hybrid watches come in. They basically combine the options of a smartwatch in a classic design like your favourite leather watch. So you’d get the design you’d always loved along with some cool smart options.
8. Solar powered watches
From mechanical and automatic watches to quartz, energy sources have varied across the watch industry. It only made sense someone would think about capitalizing on the greatest energy source we have as humans, the sun. Solar powered watches operate by simply capturing energy from the sun and converting it to electric energy to operate the watch.
Citizen Eco-drive World Chronograph A-T solar powered watch
9. Diving watches
As the name suggests, diving watches are used for swimming, scuba diving, and free diving. They have some very interesting and powerful features that make them quite different from your different water resistant watch.
The most important feature of this is atmospheric pressure resistance, as divers need to go deep into the water. If your watch has 100 m (330 ft) written on it, then this watch can handle its own underwater.
Omega Seamaster Diver 300M Chronograph @monochromewatches
10. Luxury watches
The best of the best, luxury watches are gorgeous and they are definitely not for everyone. While they are out of most people’s budget range, it doesn’t mean you can’t look them up to enjoy their beauty and craftsmanship.
Some would say Patek Philippe is the most gorgeous watch manufacturer there is, and if you look into their designs and price tags, you’d find it hard to disagree with that claim.
Read Up On Watches
Truth is, there are many other types of watches other than the ones mentioned above, which even have different types and options within them. To get really acquainted with the different watches and very cool designs and options, you need to do your homework and get to know what watches are out there.
The world of watches is a truly magnificent one that can enrich you in more ways than you could know. It’s one of life’s greatest joys to purchase and wear a remarkable timepiece that makes a statement about who and what you are.
But before you can do that, learn all you can about the world you’re getting into, because it would make a great difference in purchasing a watch when you already know much about them.
