Calendar types in watches | Hacker News Reader

Calendar types in watches

arslan.io

179 pointsfarslan72 comments

Being used to the world of software, where only ignorant and amateurish systems don't handle the 400-year rule in the Gregorian calendar, it's eye-opening to find out that people are paying thousands of dollars for a time-keeping device that needs the date to be manually fixed five times a year.

First off, not all Calendar complications are made the same. The standard Patek Phillipe Annual Calendar needs only one correction per year – from February 28 or 29 to March 1. The 'plain calendar' complication needs adjusting five times a year for months of less than 31 days, but the far more popular perpetual calendar requires no adjustment whatsoever.

Secondly, your argument is fairly analogous to having to tune a Violin when perfectly good Violin virtual instruments and samples exist, indistinguishable for the use-case in question. By framing the question like that you're kind of missing the point about Horology and owning mechanical trinkets for the sake of marvelling at their construction and innovation.

While the rest of what you said is true, perpetual calendars require setting for the year 2100, still a while to go though!

The article points out some mechanisms that account for that.

However, at that time scale, I have to wonder whether the mechanism can, or should, run for over a century without stopping, which would seem to imply running without being cleaned or serviced beyond a certain point.

There's still a big difference in the sound of an actual violin and a digital recreation. But both a mechanical and digital watch will display the same information.

> ... it's eye-opening to find out that people are paying thousands of dollars for a time-keeping device that needs the date to be manually fixed five times a year.

People used to wear gold as jewelry thousands of years ago. And some people still do just that. That behavior predates a great many currencies. For example I'm pretty confident people shall still wear gold as jewelry long after the EUR currency shall be dead.

Enter any jewelry store in the west now and they'll tell you: men buy jewelry too now. But it didn't use to be that way: typically a watch was the only jewelry a man was allowed to wear.

I've got a very nice japanese mechanical watch which shows day of the week, day of the month and power reserve in addition of the time. Got it for 300 EUR brand new at a "family sale".

When I'm wearing that watch there's some device responsible for the zombification of the west I can do without: my smartphone. Adjusting it manually once in a while doesn't seem that bad of a deal.

A watch and a signet ring. In the UK at least, rings were a common piece of male jewelry.

> Enter any jewelry store in the west now and they'll tell you: men buy jewelry too now. But it didn't use to be that way: typically a watch was the only jewelry a man was allowed to wear.

Historically speaking, this was only true in recent times (the last few hundred years). Visit a history museum and you'll find all sorts of jewellery and ornaments worn by men over time.

I suspect people who buy expensive watches aren't bothered by having to adjust them a few times a year, assuming they didn't buy those watches as investments.

I have a very cheap (~$10) mechanical pocket watch, and it's not all that accurate in keeping time. But to me, winding the watch and adjusting the time is part of the fun. Even more fun is watching the gears and listening to the ticks, and pulling out my pocket watch when my friends started looking at their smartwatches.

idk what to say, its cool to see a bunch of gears tracking time and stare at it while it works ._.

Patek Phillippe has a complication not mentioned on this list that is one of the most complex complication ever built: the Calibre 89 [1] that can keep track of when Easter is (to a point).

Another contender is the Vacheron Constantin 57260 [2].

Here [3] is a good demonstration of how a perpetual calendar works.

[1]: https://hausmann-co.com/en/the-patek-philippe-calibre-89-the...

[2]: https://www.prestigetime.com/blog/worlds-most-complicated-wa...

[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YERho3Q4Abo

Ah yes, the Hebrew calendar on the 57260 is sorta mind-bending to figure out. It's hard to imagine figuring that out by mere observation and tabulating records. Their more recent Berkley Grand Complication [1] took things a step further with a Chinese Perpetual Calendar, which is kinda hard to explain. The article linked does a better job than I would at walking through the system.

1: https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/introducing-vacheron-const...

Personally I find it more handy to know day (of week) than date (of month), but I don't think I've every seen a watch that does day-only, usually either date-only or day-date.

I think the idea here might be that people already know what day it is but they have to think about the date.

> I think the idea here might be that people already know what day it is but they have to think about the date.

I don't know about you, but for myself I find the days kind of blur together (especially (during-COVID, post-COVID) WFH).

I rarely need to know day-of-month.

That might even be true for many of the population, but I'm exactly in the target demographic of people who get unsure of such things.

My favourite ever gift from friends was that people bought me (last century, long before smartphones) a 24 hour radio synchronized digital alarm clock which knew the day and full date including year. Because while often I know 0600 from 1800, not always, and on a particularly bad day maybe I'm not even sure which week this is. I didn't need the year really, but it felt appropriately completionist, just in case.

> My favourite ever gift from friends was that people bought me (last century, long before smartphones) a 24 hour radio synchronized digital alarm clock which knew the day and full date including year.

I know a retiree that got this as a (sort-of, sort-of-not joke) gift because she mentioned that she sometimes forgets the day:

* https://www.lacrossetechnology.com/products/513-1419v4

(Works best near a window where the radio signal from Colorado can be heard.)

I've gone into the office on Saturday more often than I care to admit.

not once ever have I made that mistake. I might have woken up on a Saturday and thought it was a weekday, but well before appearing at work was that confusion cleared up. How does one do that more than once?

Even work from home is immediately cleared up once I look at my computer screen.

I'm also that demographic.

In my case, a combination of having no kids, being entrepreneur (self employed) and having ADHD.

I have to ask people "is it tuesday or monday today" at least once a month. It gives strange looks. People often look at me, clearly trying to figure out if I'm bullshitting them. But I honestly forget such -for me- unnecessary details.

But I guess having children, or a regular job, or both, gives a firm anchor of weekends and weekly rhythms. I've had long periods of jobs were I too had such anchors.

Best way to explain it, is when you are on holiday (in one place), for a few weeks, you also don't know what day it is. I guess I always have holidays?

>But I guess having children, or a regular job, or both, gives a firm anchor of weekends and weekly rhythms.

I think it's not having the "regular job". I have a kid whom I daily bring to day care and I regularly don't know what weekday it is.

Reminds me of the Downton Abbey joke(not really a joke) about "what is a weekend?": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onUkNsXks54

How do you know if it's the weekend or not?

Yup. I totally get (from other comments here) that there are exceptions, because everyone's different!

But most people always know exactly what day of the week it is, but rarely know the date. (The only time I'm ever unaware of the day is on vacation occasionally.)

And the date is needed basically every time I sign anything on paper, as you almost always put a date next to any signature -- whether you're writing a check, filling out forms at the doctor's office, signing consent forms for an activity, and so forth.

That's me as well; I had to look through so many watches that show the date with so few that show the weekday. I wish my Seiko didn't show the date because I have to adjust it 5 times a year, but the day-of-week is always right.

Also, Seiko's watchfinder won't let you filter based on whether or not it has a DoW complication; very annoying.

This would actually be a very nice complication, as it would never need to be reset, as long as the watch stays wound. I’m surprised it’s not something I’ve seen, or even thought of.

I ended up settling on no-date watches, as I find setting the date to be annoying, and it’s not something I need that often. When I do need it, I have my phone. I think I’d ultimately feel the same way about a day of the week complication.

This[1] 1980s Raketa has an interesting visual display of the day of the week. The red dot corresponds to the current day. It does however show the date as a number on the bottom as well.

[1]: https://mroatman.wixsite.com/watches-of-the-ussr/raketa?ligh...

An excellent visual+interactive deep-dive into the internals of a basic mechanical watch - inc. complication for a simple date:

https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/

Calendars is a part of why I've been wearing Casio digital watches for a long time.

The display on the Timex Expedition is my favorite. For some reason I just find it more readable than a casio- maybe it's because the display segments are closer together? Or the greater font-size contrast in the time vs date?

I spent years looking for my perfect travel watch after being bit by the watch bug. After looking for years (literally 10 years), I’ve found it and couldn’t be happier… the Casio world time.

My first thought was to go for a GMT, but those can’t handle time zones that aren’t on the hour, like India. Trying to find a mechanical watch that solves for this is very difficult. I was stuck in this purgatory for so long.

I don’t remember what led me to the Casio, but whatever it was made me completely reevaluate what I wanted out of the watch. The quartz movement became a feature, thanks to the 10 year battery. I can grab it and go whenever I need, and change the battery whenever I renew my passport. The low cost is a feature, as I don’t have to treat it well or worry about it, or worry that it will make me a target. If anything happens, oh well, it was $40. It has 37(?) timezones and can handle the odd ones, and handles DST independently for each timezone. Its fantastic. I don’t think any mechanical watch can do what it does, and if one can, it would cost more than my house and take the better part of a day to set.

The Casio is one of the cheapest watches I own, but whenever I put it on it makes me so happy, because it reminds me I finally solved my travel watch problem. I just finished my first trip with it and already saw the value of the independent DST function.

I’ve found some mod sites that sell nicer cases and bands to make it more durable, but I decided that defeats some of the purpose, as the cheapness is a feature. It was helpful to find out an eraser can be used to remove some of the ridiculous text on the case. That makes it look much better.

Not just in watchmaking but in general I agree with this idea that the cheapness is in and of itself, a feature. Like, not only because you can afford it, but the fact that something is so inexpensive actually enhances my enjoyment of it, or rather, something being very expensive detracts from it. It's the same with, say, bicycles. Yeah, people can fork over $5k for a carbon fiber state of the art road bike, but then it weighs on you when you take it out. Don't want to lean it against anything, worried taking it downtown in case someone mugs you for it, can't leave it out to pop into the shop. You end up just not even having a good time, compared to a beater. Same for cars, furniture, instruments, etc.

I recently got a russet brown Vario strap for my silver "Casio Royale" and I do rather like it. I'm not ashamed to admit I prefer cheap and cheerful digital watches to pedigree analog watches. We are programmers/electronics folks after all. I got a Sensor Watch Lite board for my F-91W after reading about it here on HN and it's brilliant. I've written a bunch of hobby-related complications for it.

If you're settling for Quartz, why not split the difference and get a good Atomic Time watch for under $500 like a Citizen?

https://www.citizenwatch.com/us/en/collection/mens-atomic-ti...

I looked at Citizen briefly during my search.

I don’t think they have anything that solves the non-standard time zone problem.

At $500, it’s moving into a market segment where I’m going to care if something happens to it. I want to be carefree on vacation.

In this particular case, the Casio is unapologetically quartz. I don’t think I’m settling here, and it’s not a cheap watch pretending to be a more expensive watch. It’s a cheap beater watch that also happens to have a world time function. With an analog watch, I’d feel like I was settling for quartz… unless it’s a Spring Drive or F.P. Journe.

At home I have some nice automatics that I general wear. For these, I prefer a very simple aesthetic, a no-date dial is ideal. Citizen tends to have very busy designs.

Are these watches actually atomic clocks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_clock) or are they "atomic" in some other sense?

They receive a signal from an atomic clock on a regular basis to sync up and avoid drift. Between those signal, they use a quartz movement to keep time.

I love the look of the Casio World Time with some of the screen color filter mods. Those are quite inexpensive if you're willing to install them yourself.

Perpetual calendar complications are approaching the territory of mechanical computers and thus hold interest to me. It is interesting challenge to think of how to accomplish some other alternative calendars mechanically.

As much as I will most likely never spend 6 figures on a watch, I greatly appreciate their engineering. Tangential, does anyone know how easy is it to design and build your own movement?

I don't know about the difficulty, but you can look at the complexity of this ETA 6497 movement on GrabCAD [0]. After seeing this a while ago, it made sense to me why small/new brands generally use a Seiko NH35 or something similar that they can buy in bulk.

[0] https://grabcad.com/library/eta-6497-1-complete-watch-moveme...

Thanks a lot! Sounds like reverse engineering a complicated (heh) watch movement could be a fun challenge to start with!

> As much as I will most likely never spend 6 figures on a watch, I greatly appreciate their engineering.

How about in the US$ 9000 range? Frederique Constant Manufacture Slimline Perpetual Calendar:

* https://www.chrono24.com/frederiqueconstant/manufacture-slim...

(Perhaps as a gift to yourself for a major milestone: 50th birthday, retirement, etc.)

Thanks for the suggestion, certainly possible I think. Honestly it depends a lot on how my career/income turns out, but the watch looks good!

Anyone know about any mechanical wall clocks, grandfather clocks, or mantle clocks (? I mean ones that stand on their own) which show the date? It seems that this is a really commonly sought after feature of wrist watches but for some reason hard to find or non existent in mechanical non-wrist clocks.

Unfortunately they're not really a thing. Some grandfather/grandmother clocks came with moon phases, but innovation never made it further.

IMO mostly has to do with the fact that mechanical clocks didn't see much innovation over the past century. The most talented watch makers have gone on to watches and people largely stopped buying Grandfather clocks.

Not to mention, other obvious problems of weight, material costs, and the increased size requiring more power to turn all those gears.

Dang that's a shame. One would think though, if the mechanical design is already done for wristwatches, it should be trivial to port that design over to full-sized clocks, literally just scale the mechanism up!

I think at this stage of the game, none of these things are made for utility, they are made to flex watchmaking skill. Building something big isn’t as impressive and building something small. Unless you’re talking about the air clocks of Paris. Those are still rather impressive, because of the scale [0].

[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gol_p2aWrJg

Every 24 hours, advance the DoW through 360°/7 increments. At the same time, every 24 hours advance the DoM through 28, 29, 30, 31 increments. How do you now keep DoW and DoM in proper sync when DoM needs to be updated ~every other month?

Probably because you can more easily refer to a calendar on a wall when the clock doesn't move.

Imagine how well it would be received if you said "My grandfather clock has a date display- except it's manual, you have to twist a little knob once a day to keep it correct."

That's how I feel about wall calendars.

You can build a habit of doing it every morning, like brushing your teeth. The physical act of fixing the date every day can help ground you and slow down the passage of days.

Hm. Maybe so, interesting thought.

I have a mechanical wall clock in storage which shows the day of the week as well as the date --- it was made in Japan --- it's in storage 'cause it was over-tightened and the main spring broken, and rather than being repaired, it was just re-fastened, so now it runs fast and gains a couple of minutes each month (the chime is also rather loud for a 1,200 sq. ft. home).

FWIW I've seen some DIY enthusiasts do some really cool things, I think this one for instance turned out really cool and would be a breathtaking wall piece. Even better if it ran and was powered fully by the counterweight mechanism rather than electronically https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_8_N8HKOXw

A very good article, well explained, and I appreciate the photos of fine watches.

As shown, date complications are very tough to calculate and there are many levels of features.

However, the phases of the moon complication is not discussed in much depth here. Is it a simple calculation independent of the date?

Not a watchmaker, but I would expect those complications to just use average values to show the current lunation[1].

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_phase#Calculating_phase

The average duration between any two moon phases is 29.530589 days.

Many watches use 29.5 days between phases for simplicity. This results in the watch's moon phase display being off by one day for every two years the watch operates.

There are a few watch manufacturers that use epicyclic gear trains to make the moon phase calculation more precise. An example: the Ochs und Junior moon phase watch will operate for 3,478.27 years before its moon phase display is off by one day (https://www.ochsundjunior.swiss/watches/moon-phase/).

Question for folks who live in non-English speaking countries: do you guys wear watches with calendars in English?

Last time I was in a mall in Mexico City, I asked a guy behind the counter of some store if they had any watches that had either the months or days of week in Spanish... surprisingly, the answer was no. English only.

Same thing in Russia, only the old Soviet-era watches have calendars in Russian.

Weird. My Seiko 5 automatic (about $150, probably one of the cheapest self-winding mechanical watches) has the days of the week in English, Spanish, and French. Weirdly, (but I suppose it makes sense if you think about how the gears work), if you look at the watch at an odd time (like say 3am) it is showing the day in one of the two non-selected languages.

I have a cheap Casio watch that has both Spanish and English days

You can get German versions for most Swiss and German watches I believe.

For instance: https://thewatchguy.de/watch/18039-day-date-the-german-tropi...

It's a matter of replacing a dial: https://jmpwatches.com/products/rolex-datum-tages-scheiben-d...

I have a Champion watch that (inexplicably) has days marked in English and Portuguese. It was purchased in Sweden.

I'm in Germany, my watch originally came in German + English, but when the clockwork had to be replaced recently, the replacement was only available in Italian + English.

My Seiko SNK807, Seiko SKX009, and Tissot Visodate all have an English/Spanish date wheel. I believe JDM Seiko watches have a Japanese/English date wheel.

My other three watches (Hamilton, Tudor, Rolex) are simple three-handers with no other complications.

My eyes are so bad now that I would rather have a no date. Strangely the no-date watches tend to be out of my price range.

The Seiko Essentials series has several watches without complications; some have a street price of under $200.

Some even omit the second hand which is the most technically correct version of "without complications". Also the most traditional/formal for a men's dress watch or women's watch.

For an automatic with no date, the bulova hack is quite nice if the vintage field look works for you.

The one I had was great for the price, probably the most accurate automatic I ever owned but that could well be luck.

There is also an issue where some cheap no-date watches use a complication with a date, and just don’t cut out the dial to show it. I try to watch out for this whenever I’m looking for a watch.

> My eyes are so bad now that I would rather have a no date. Strangely the no-date watches tend to be out of my price range.

Have a look at Fleiger-style ("pilot watches") watches:

* https://timeandtidewatches.com/best-flieger-watches/

* https://www.gearpatrol.com/watches/a97397/flieger-watches/

* https://teddybaldassarre.com/blogs/watches/flieger-watches

Models available ranging from US$150 to $15000.

Hah, the author of the go-vim plugin!

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