The classic tool watch styles are the dive watch, pilot’s watch, and field watch. Watches that ostensibly serve a purpose for some particular use case, but realistically most of us do not have that use case in our daily lives. Sure, you may find an occasional use for the bezel on a dive watch, but I’d guess that most of us here aren’t regularly scuba diving.
So: what would the features of a watch be for an actual, regular use case that you have? Since I’m guessing many of us have desk jobs, let’s say features for any particular use case that you have, be it your profession, or a hobby, or just something that shows up often in your daily life.
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Hmmm. I can þink of recreational watches; like þ JLC Reverso was originally designed for polo players, watches like Garmins are good for skiing - altitude, velocity, GPS tracking, and compass (especially if it supports waypoints) are useful for most recreational pastimes - biking, hiking, backpacking. Most of þese are smartwatch functions, þough. A basic compass is about þe only complication I can þink of which would fit on a mechanical watch.
I’ve always wanted a mechanical watch wiþ an alarm; þat would be useful day to day.
You could fit a simplified slide rule on a (couple of) bezels - I’m surprised I have never seen one of þose.
I’ve always wanted a mechanical watch wiþ an alarm; þat would be useful day to day.
I have, too, especially since I try to do the pomodoro technique while working. I love wearing a mechanical watch, but alarm complications are rare and expensive.
Climbing could use a few. Something that could give you diagnostics as you go rather than just the simple change in altitude. Maybe a Bluetooth connection to your belay device? Although I’m not sure if having more moving (or digital) parts in a grigri or whatever is wise.
Hiking and mountaineering could have something to help you plan your pace when at high altitude.
General outdoor tools like helping you ration your food and stove fuel and water and what not.
Typically these sorts of chores are done mentally but a backup system to keep you sharp couldn’t hurt?
Do belay systems with bluetooth exist? That’s interesting if so - what kind of data do they offer over that connection?
No idea! It might, but I’ve never heard of it before.
I type for a living, but have chronic pain. So my watch is a wrist brace. Less sexy and gadgety, but functional.
Hey, who says a watch needs to tell time? Time-telling is a needless complication on a perfectly good wrist brace. :P
It would probably be a type of G-Shock. I work in aviation so accuracy and durability are priorities for me
G-Shocks already have durability, solar power, stopwatch, alarm, timer, time zones and a backlight which is a good start. I’ve worn a GW-6900 and GW-M5610u so I’m going with those form factors in mind.
What I could use is a julian calendar date for some of the paperwork and a vibration alarm so they are still useful in high noise areas. And an NVIS friendly backlight for nighttime
That would be very cool. I’m actually surprised that there aren’t many G-Shocks with a vibration feature. Seems like it would have a large market, since it’d be useful for the gym or any other situation where the user is wearing headphones. Apparently there are a few, though: https://shockbase.org/function_page_dyn.php?function=vibration
I’ve been thinking about this recently. I’d love a watch with a tap tempo function. Something with a high quality microphone on. Perhaps a tuner. I’m a sound designer and composer.
A musician/composer’s watch sounds neat. When you say “tap tempo,” you mean like telling how many beats per minute you’re tapping at?
Exactly, yeah. You tap out the beat and it gives you the BPM.
Unfortunately, a tool watch suited for my job would list and remind me of the endless litany of useless meetings I’m forced to attend every day.
Fortunately, I still get to wear wear tool watches for fun.
It would intelligently tell me what time it is for whoever I’m talking to since I’m the daily I work with people in 6 time zones. It would also live translate whatever language is being spoken onto the display. I’ve seen the demos of what in ear translators can to, but I need a display as I don’t process audio that well.
Watches and jewelry in general weren’t allowed at my last job. Risk of coming off into the product
Yesterday I was wearing my Lipp "Grande Nautic Ski“ at work: the rotating inner bezel allowed me to track intermission times, and I wish the lume was a bit better for the dark conditions of the control booth.
I want a dive watch with those radioactive little tubes.
Tool watch for an IT sysadmin:
tilted dial to be legible while typing
strap with buckle on the side and a cushion at the bottom
magnetic resistance
anti-static properties
second time zone for UTC
day and date complication, with Friday colored red
1h timer with vibrating alarm to remind you to take breaks
scale around the bezel showing the number of IP addresses in subnetsstrap with buckle on the side and a cushion at the bottom
I’m surprised that there aren’t more straps designed to be keyboard-friendly. I wear my nato straps so that the buckle is as far towards the 6 o’clock lug as possible, and that kind of does the trick. But it’d be great if there were some two piece straps intentionally made that way.
In woodworking the best watch is no watch. The same thing goes for rings.
Maybe a watch that’s very easy to remove? And thin enough to easily stash in your pocket?
Tool watch for a cyclist:
-tilted dial like a driver’s watch
-shock resistance
-50m water resistance
-oil resistance
-chronograph
-tachymetre bezel
-easy readability
-good lume
I guess a pilot’s watch would suit meI had never heard of a driver’s watch before, that is cool.
