Watches

Table of Contents

Analog watches vs Digital Watches

With an analog watch, you can instantly visualize ’the time’. With a digital watch, you are looking at a string of numbers, which you have to ’translate’ to ’time'.

e.g. - if you look at your watch, and it’s roughly midnight, you know it’s basically ‘midnight’. But if you see “23:57” or “00:02”, your mind has to do some gyrations to translate that to ‘midnight’. Further - if you see the ‘big hand at the bottom’, you know it is ‘half-past …’ whatever. But if you see 05:27, or O5:32, you again have to ‘convert’ the 27 or 32 into ‘half past’.

Also - imagine you are driving and you know it’s going to be “3 and a half hours” to your destination; you look at your watch and it is 7:30. You can visually determine it will be 11pm when you arrive, without having to calculate (hours) 7+3 = 10, and (minutes) 30 plus 30 = 60 = 1 hour extra …

The hands are way better at displaying what’s left of an hour instantly for example, because they do it in a graphical way.

Time on an analog clock face is a more fundamental presentation that your mind can instantly grasp. The relative positions of the ‘big’ and ’little’ hands means more than just numbers. 23:57 and 00:02 both mean basically ‘midnight’, but you have to convert the numbers to get there. When you see both hands at the top of the face, you know it’s midnight.

This is similar to how analog speedometers are superior to digital speedometers on a car.

The only benefit of a digital display is when you need precise minutes - like boiling water for 11 minutes, or whatever.

Good models of analog watches to keep in mind

Very popular models

  1. Casio f91w
  2. Casio Duro
  3. G-shock Square models

Some models that I looked at in the past:

  1. Casio 5420
    1. One sub-dial for date of the month
    2. One sub-dial for week of the day
    3. One sub-dial for hour of the 24-hour day
  2. Casio 5679
    1. Analog watch to show time
    2. 3 alarms
    3. stopwatch
    4. timer
    5. 10 year battery life
  3. Casio 5565 - Men’s HDC-700-1AVCF
    1. Analog watch to show time
    2. 3 alarms
    3. stopwatch
    4. timer
    5. 10 year battery life
  4. Casio MTP-VD01L-1EV Men’s Enticer - (MTP-VD01L-1EVUDF - A1371)
    1. Analog watch to show time
    2. Shows date on the dial
    3. Minimally water resistant
  5. Armitron Sport Men’s Analog-Digital Chronograph Resin Strap Watch, 20/5372
    1. Item model number ‏ : ‎ 20/5372BLKTB
    2. chronograph
    3. three alarms
    4. hourly chime
    5. military time
    6. dual time
    7. Water resistant to 330 feet (100M)

Casio watches

The $20 Casio watch is way better than anything that is more expensive that I purchased and used in the past. Do not buy things to impress other people. There is beauty in simplicity. Need to remember this when looking to buy a watch or anything else in the future.

Buying watches in India is a waste of money. At first sight, it might appear that they are a lot cheaper compared to the watches in USA. But, they are much more expensive in India compared to the US.

The models in US are much better.

For a decent watch, they charge about Rs. 10,000/-, which is, about $120. We could get a decent watch in the US for $30.

I tried wearing a watch. Now I can’t stop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrWaCxNPr3k

Source: Youtube Gbay99

I’m about to tell you three things that will probably sound insane.

  1. Number one, you should wear a watch even though your phone already has the time. That’s because
  2. two, buying and using a wristwatch is the single greatest way to instantly improve your life. But be

careful because

  1. three, collecting watches is a real addiction. Probably on the level of heroin. Yeah, I’d say that’s about right.

If you’re already into wrist watches, you know exactly what I’m talking about. But if all of this sounds insane to you, I promise by the end of this video, you will understand exactly what I mean by all of these points and you may just walk away forever changed. That sounds a bit dramatic, but if your brain works like mine, there is no going back from this. You have been warned.

All of this started for me at the beginning of this past year when my dad gifted me an old watch. It’s a quartz suntime New York Mets watch somebody probably gave him in the 80s or 90s. He found it laying around in storage broken, but thought that I might like it because I’m a big fan of the Mets. The New York Mets are the only reason that my mom and dad ever met. So, I credit them to cursing me with life, and I am now cursed to forever be their fan. Anyway, I was really interested when he gave me this watch because I had seen a YouTube video about how an analog wristwatch is a sneaky good productivity device, and I had wanted to try wearing one around. I took it to my local jewelers for repair. And as they were looking at it in the back room, I admired some of the watches they had in their display case. Watches really are a cool thing when you see a nice one in person. The jeweler came back and told me though that the movement was broken and would need to be replaced. It would cost about 80 bucks and take around two weeks to get done, but I said go ahead and do it since the watch had obvious sentimental value to me. Over the course of those two weeks, I started getting really excited about wearing this watch. This was around the time when I was first getting into real things. And when the jeweler finally texted me saying that my watch was ready, I was so excited that I instantly shoved the baby off on my wife, ran down to pick it up, and that watch was glued to my wrist for the next 3 weeks straight - by the end of which I couldn’t help but say that dude on YouTube was 100% right. Watches are amazing tools.

When you first start wearing a watch, it seems really silly at first because you already have a million devices around you that are already trying to give you the time. Your phone, your computer, mostly electronics. But with a watch, it is so much easier to check the time than to use any of those other devices. You just look down at your wrist and there it is, instantly, wherever you are. That’s a lot easier than having to fish a big clunky device out of your pocket. Not to mention, if you do try to check the time on your phone, or use some sort of electronic like an Apple Watch, you aren’t only getting the time, you’re getting notifications of all the work emails you’ve been ignoring. Social media pings, texts, and a million other things demanding your attention. A bunch of stuff that’s basically trying to distract you. But with a watch, you don’t have to worry about any of that. This guy is quite respectful of your time. I found out that when I wear a watch, I check the time more often throughout the day since it’s unironically a much better experience doing so. And because I check it more often, I started noticing how long it actually took me to do things. It turns out I used to be terrible at estimating time or even understanding it. Like when I was younger, I used to have this really terrible habit where every morning I would wake up and then lay in bed for a bit, telling myself, “Okay, I’m going to get up and get out of bed at 8:00 a.m. on the dot. that’s a good time to start my day. But then I’d roll over and scroll on my phone for 15 20 minutes and suddenly it was 8:07. So I would say, “Okay, let’s keep chilling until 8:10. That’s a good number.” But then I wouldn’t check the clock again until it was 8:19 when I would say, “Okay, let’s stay in bed till 8:30.” And on and on again until I’m lazing around for a full 60 minutes before actually getting up and starting my day. For some reason, I associated time with these rigid markers saying I’m going to do things on the hour or on an even number. But time doesn’t really have even numbers like that. When you check the time on an analog watch by comparison, you have a much better understanding. Like if I say, I’m going to start something at 8 and I see it’s a little past 8. Okay, it’s time to do the thing. Time isn’t even the way a digital clock displays it. It’s always moving forward. It’s only exactly 8:00 a.m. for one literal second.

But the coolest part about this watch to me was the simple fact that it was old and still working. like it needed repair and a new battery, of course, but with maintenance, this had lasted ages. In the world of technology and gaming that I spend most of my days inhabiting, I am surrounded by things that constantly need to be updated or devices that are literally designed to break. I have to replace my phone every 2 to 5 years because companies intentionally make them run worse, so you have to go buy a new model after a while. A watch is one of the few tools that people still make that is intentionally supposed to last your entire life. It’s something you are supposed to be able to pass down to your children and them to their children. Some watch brands literally have mottos like you never actually own one of our watches. You merely look after it for the next generation. Having something permanent like that in our disposable world, something that also reminds me of my dad and my family and the Mets. That’s really cool. And it got me interested to learn more about wristwatches.

See, going through all this unlocked a memory for me. When I was a kid, I remember one day my dad came home from work with a new watch he had just got that didn’t need a battery. He had just bought this watch that he said was automatic. And I asked him what that meant and he told me that this watch just had gears and springs and jewels inside it that somehow kept it running forever. There was no battery or electricity. Just the movement of his wrist across a day was enough to power the device. It was like the watch was some sort of living creature that was in a symbiotic relationship with him. As long as he kept living, that watch would keep running. And when I remembered all this, I said, “Okay, this is cool as hell. How did I forget about this? I got to get myself an automatic watch.” So, I start going around researching, and it turns out this is a huge rabbit hole, bigger than you could ever imagine. There are dozens upon dozens of watch brands out there, still making crazy cool automatic watches today, each with their own features and personalities that watch nerds apparently have very strong opinions about. Some watches are durable, others are flashy, some cost silly amounts of money since apparently watches are one of the ways that rich people try to flex on other rich people when they don’t have a personality to flex. But I’m not someone that wants to go chase a Rolex or something like that, right? I don’t need to spend thousands on a damn watch. I’m just getting into these devices because they’re awesome tools and I would love to own an automatic watch of my own that could last a lifetime. So, I start researching. What’s a great company that still makes highquality automatic time pieces at an actually reasonable price? Maybe a few hundred bucks max. And lo and behold, I come across the Japanese company Seikko. In the world of watchmaking, one of the oldest and most legendary brands comes from the company Seikko. They were founded in the 1800s and have been making watches ever since. Historically, watchmaking has been associated with the country of Switzerland, of course, right? with a bunch of old stuffy elitist companies that are headquartered there who make really great watches and movements of course. but who might get a little stuck in their old ways at times. Seiko being Japanese has allowed them to introduce some genuinely incredible innovations in the world of watchmaking. They were the first ones to ever introduce a battery powered watch back in 1969. Something that almost destroyed the entire Swiss watchmaking industry. They invented another watch movement in the late ’90s that is currently one of the most accurate movements in the world today. They even entered these Swiss chronometer competitions to see who could make the most accurate movement. And after nearly every one of their mechanical movements beat every Swiss competitor, the Swiss straight up rage quit the competition. They don’t even host those time trials anymore because Seikko beat them so badly. I’m a bit of a contrarian and a bit of a weeb. Learning about all of this made me really interested in the idea of getting a Seikko, especially because today they still make some of the highest quality, yet still affordable watches that are on the market now. And after searching through their catalog, I found a very cool looking model in the Seikko 5 Sport lineup, the SRPD55. It’s less than 300 bucks on Amazon. I can justify spending that and it should fit my 7in wrist very well. So, I pull the trigger and get my first automatic watch. When it arrived in the mail, I was firstly shocked at how cool it looks in person. Watch content that you see on YouTube always fails to capture how incredible these devices are. This video notwithstanding, because you have to use these macro lens and these zooms and all these close-up shots to show the details in these devices because they’re so small. But part of the majesty of watches is that they are these incredibly small objects somehow packed with so many features. Like this watch is a dive watch, meaning it has an external bezel. You can rotate it to align with the minute hand and then use that to easily track how much time has elapsed past a certain point. Divers use this to time how long they’ve been underwater. But more practically, you can use this to time how long you’ve been working on a task or how long the chicken’s been in the oven. This watch also has 100 meters of water resistance, meaning that you can swim with it, something you cannot do with a phone. It has luminescence on the dial as well, meaning that it glows in the dark. It also has a display case back so you can see the movement running inside. And finally, there is also a day date function on the front dial, which is very useful for me since every time I’m filling out a form at a doctor’s office, I can never remember what date it is, but now it’s a super easy and simple thing to check. So once again, when I first get this watch, it is glued to my wrist for weeks. I love wearing it. It has weight. It oozes quality and makes me feel like a serious person when I put it on. I mostly use it as a productivity tool first and foremost. But after a while, it just became really fun to wear. I liked dressing up in fancy outfits that felt like they complemented the watch. I liked taking it on little adventures outdoors. And I started to feel so much joy every morning that I put it on. It made me think, you know, 300 bucks isn’t that much money. And if one watch made me this happy, maybe a bunch more watches would make me a bunch more happy.

So, I start researching. I’m learning everything I can about the world of watches. And wow, there is so much to learn. Okay, for starters, a ton of different watches have a ton of different complications. These are features that the watch gives you in addition to telling the time, like my Seiko 5’s dive bezel and day date function. Some watches are chronographs, meaning that they can be used as stopwatches. Some have little tachi meters you can use to track the distance objects travel in a certain amount of time. Some watches have slide rules you can use to calculate all kinds of stuff, while some watches have an extra GMT hand that lets you track two time zones at once. Others have full calendars built inside them, not just tracking the day and date, but the month, year, leap year, even moonphase. And some of these cost thousands upon thousands of dollars. I don’t need to spend that amount of money. But if I am willing to spend a little bit more than 300 bucks, I could find something really cool. How about $1,000? That could get me a used Sinn 556. Zinn is a German company founded by a former Air Force pilot in the ’60s that make some of the most robust tool watches on the market today. The 556 is an entry-level model that feels like it speaks to me on all kinds of levels. It’s not flashy in the slightest. It’s functional with an extremely legible dial. It’s minimalist with a high quality and accurate Swiss movement underneath protected by solid German engineering. Not to mention my dad’s family are all from Germany with many immigrating from Frankfurt where Sinn are headquartered today, giving me a little bit of a heritage connection to the watch. It’s a super cool watch and just over $1,000 for some used models on eBay. That’s a lot of money, but I could maybe justify it. Although, my favorite version that Sinn make is the more rare and costly 556 IRS with a red second hand. That’s that’s going to cost a bit more. Okay, but if I’m willing to go up to 1,700 bucks, maybe I should push that to 2K or 3K. Then I could get something else like a Cartier Tank that Muhammad Ali wore. Or I could get a good chronograph stopwatch. Or I could get a watch with radioactive tridium inside of it instead of loom so it always glows in the dark. But if I’m willing to spend 3K, I could get something really quality for 4K 5K. I mean, then I’m getting close to a grand seiko. A regular Swiss chronometer certified movement is accurate to minus 4 to plus 6 seconds a day. Meaning that at most it will run between 4 seconds slow to 6 seconds fast in a 24-hour period. That’s super accurate for something that’s only tracking time with gears and springs. But Seikoo’s luxury arm, Grand Seiko, invented a new kind of movement in 1999 called spring drive, which is accurate to plus or minus 15 seconds per month. But it doesn’t end there. Grand Seiko actually just released a new iteration of Spring Drive this year that is accurate to plus or minus 20 seconds per year. How is that even possible, guys? Okay, I’d love to own that. And wow, look how smoothly that secondhand sweeps. That new model though costs $10,000. That’s a lot of money. But I don’t know. I’ve spent stupid amounts of money on camera gear and graphics cards and computer parts over the years. None of them have made me as happy as this little automatic watch. But oh boy, if I’m willing to spend that amount of money, then I could get a Rolex. And it turns out I was completely wrong about Rolex. They aren’t just a dumb luxury brand. Their watches aren’t famous because they’re expensive. They’re famous because they were the first to invent a fully waterproof watch. They were the first to invent certain complications. They were the first watch to ever summit Mount Everest, swim the English Channel. So many times a great person accomplished a great thing, they did it with a Rolex on their wrist. And that’s when I realized something really dangerous. Every significant moment across history was achieved by a person that was normally wearing a watch while doing it. And I could have those pieces of history on my own wrist because they still make those exact same models available for purchase today. How about the watch made for Allied soldiers in World War II? The Hamilton khaki field. That isn’t even expensive. Hey, look. This model was the one Matthew McConna gave his daughter in Interstellar. Or I could get a Rolex because everyone from Ernest Hemingway to Ian Fleming to Hunter S. Thompson had a Rolex on their wrist while they wrote their great novels. If that doesn’t float my boat, how about the watches their characters wore? I could get my favorite James Bond watch from my favorite James Bond movie. Or if that’s not impressive enough, how about the watch that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin wore on the moon? The rabbit hole never ends. And if the past doesn’t interest you, the biggest figureheads today are still wearing watches that you can put on your wrist, too. You could get the Casio that Bill Gates loves, or the Seikko Steve Jobs wore. Oh, look, there’s a YouTuber and there’s a watch on his wrist. That one’s powered by the sun. I’m always trying to channel my favorite artists in daily life and when I’m making content. So, I’ve been looking at my favorite authors, noting all the watches they wear. My favorite directors, too. How about Ha Miyazaki? He loves the brand JLC with one of his favorite watches being a hundred-year-old model invented for polo players that has two faces you can flip between. And then suddenly you’re just too far gone. Every time you see a person in public, you’re looking at their wrist. It’s like a secret society. I lived 31 years on this earth, never noticing a person’s watch, but now I see them everywhere I go. I straight up learned we have a new pope because watch nerds were trying to identify what model he was wearing at his unveiling. And keep in mind at this point I still hadn’t even bought a new watch apart from my Seikko. I was just having so much fun learning. I was reading every article I could, reading every book out there, watching every YouTuber because wow, there is a huge group of people online who are apparently just as insane as I am. And I don’t think I can leave this cult anymore.

I became a father this past year and for my first Father’s Day, after a lot of begging, my wonderful wife got me my first Grail watch, a Sinn 556 IRS. It’s stupid. It’s a stupid thing to spend the amount of money that you could use to buy a very decent graphics card on a piece of 100-year-old technology. But man, no purchase I have ever made has given me the kind of Christmas morning joy I got opening that box on Father’s Day. I wear this all the time now. It’s so fun. My Sinn still feels like a great productivity tool. First and foremost, I’m more productive with work, chores, and any and all tasks when I’m wearing this on my wrist. But more importantly, every time that I look down to check the time, this watch makes me think of my wife and daughter. I think I’m too far gone, though, because getting this Grail watch didn’t end it. I want to keep collecting. I’m more motivated than ever to keep learning and find a new Grail. Maybe a Grand Seiko, maybe a micro brand, maybe a Rolex or Cartier. There are so many kinds of watches out there and they are all so cool. Of course, being a dad, I have responsibilities. A kid, a wife, a house, a dog. I can’t just go and spend a huge chunk of the family savings on a Rolex tomorrow because that would be irresponsible. But now I think maybe every month if I can make an extra $2, $1 will go into the kids’ college fund and the other can go into dad’s Rolex fund or Cartier fund or grand seo fund maybe. I still haven’t decided on the new grail. I don’t know if I’ll ever actually save up enough for a true luxury time piece doing this. Real life and family will always be priority number one. And I don’t know how much it would take to scrimp and save my way to a point where I would feel comfortable blowing a stupid amount of money on another watch. It would be a very big journey, a chase that would likely take years to accomplish, if I accomplished it at all. But having something to chase in life, that’s really, really fun.

Anyway, that is all for today. Thank you very much for listening to me rant about my special interest for way too long. If you’re interested in any of the cheaper watch models I mentioned in this video, I will link them in the description down below so you can check them out for yourself. We will get back to video games and regularly scheduled programming soon, unless you guys want to hear me rant more about watches or other special interests of mine. But until whenever I see you next, thank you very much for watching. Good luck in solo Q and have a wonderful day.

My affordable watches (Affiliate links!) Seiko 5 Sport - https://amzn.to/44QLZLB Casio World Timer - https://amzn.to/3TXym8t Timex Expedition - https://amzn.to/3TFb5I9 Bill Gates Casio - https://amzn.to/44Jd8zP

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