The Watch Thread

Derphound01

Derphound01

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Post up what your EDC watch is.

My current one is an Apple Watch Series 3 LTE that I bought new with an iPhone 8 in 2017. Still works, however it will no longer let me swipe down to clear notifications.

IMG_2733.jpeg
 
I'm also looking for ideas. I have reached the age where I am tired of everything in my life being "smart" and "connected", including my watch. Specifically, I'm tired of having to make the screen turn on when I look at it. I'm also tired of my wrist buzzing whenever an app decides to ignore my notification settings and push one through to the watch.

I'm considering a Seiko or Seiko-based automatic watch. Only requirement is that it has a GMT 24h hand and bezel. I still listen to shortwave and have my amateur radio license. Everything in the radio world runs on GMT/UTC. I also don't want anything larger than my current 44mm Apple Watch. Price range is <$500 for the watch itself, and I already have an automatic winder.

Two frontrunners are the Relax Parody GMT and the Seiko SSK035. Both run Seiko Automatic movements and have the GMT hand. The Relax is the size I want and the parody aspect is amusing to me. The Seiko has that beautiful green dial plus a second 24h bezel, but it looks huge in all the review photos.

I'm interested to see what everyone else has and how they like it.
 
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I prefer to keep it simple. I've had one of these on my wrist for the last 15 years or so. Inexpensive, timer, atomic time, selectable time zones that shows the local time in whatever time zone I want for when I'm abroad. When they break it's usually because the resin wrist band dries up and cracks - IME they go about 2 years. They can be replaced but typically the plastic the pin that holds them to the watch base is made of also dries out and cracks, usually 4-5 years. In short, by the time the battery dies that's an indication there's only 6-12 months left in it before it physically breaks apart.

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I currently wear an Apple Watch 9. Keeping track of meetings, emails, etc at work is a huge benefit.
I totally prefer simplicity, my previous watch was a Movado, 2 hands & a dot.
 
Kidd-7 said:
I currently wear an Apple Watch 9. Keeping track of meetings, emails, etc at work is a huge benefit.
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I used to be the same way, but I ended up getting a work phone issued to me.

So now my watch doesn't track any of that because I have to keep the iCloud accounts entirely separate for work vs. personal. My work phone is my calendar for things like that.
 
I never had a personal iCloud, so even though this is a work phone my watch is synced to it.
 
I usually wear a Casio MRW200H-1BV. Cheap, holds time well, looks nice, even the battery lasts long for a quartz analog

IMG_7836.jpeg
 
I wore an Apple Watch Series 6 all the time, but like you I was tired of everything being smart, and tired of being connected all the time. I just decided one day to stop wearing it and I haven’t replaced it with anything yet.
 
Old Korean War era Bulova. Probably needs a new crystal, but it is fine. I don't wear it much for fear of damaging it, but this thread prompted me to dig it out. Maybe I'll start wearing it again so I don't have to carry my phone around with me at work to keep track of time. My dad bought it presumably second hand in the mid 60's since it went out of production before he went in. Yes you have to wind it.

IMG_3569.jpg
 
I inherited my dad's watch collection after he passed; I either wear his accutron, or the self- winding one, if I wear one. with cell phones, it seems more like an affectation, lol.
I was amazed how many were radioactive as fuck; I have one that measures 50mR thru the crystal, and 5mR to the wrist. It was glow-in the dark, at one time, but the phosphor dies over time, so they reapplied the Radium paint :)
According to my gamma spectroscopy system, it's radium 226, and would require a license to get, now.
(I worked in PET imaging for 15 years, and the test systems were all isa bus, which was surpassed by pci on motherboards, so when they replaced them I Snagged the cards, which were 3500 bux in 1986,lol. Radium gives off alpha radiation,so I'm trying to measure those.
 
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I've been running Garmin vivoactive for 6-7 years now. This one is the "4". I like it for it's adaptability to my taste in view, and it's pretty simple. It has a lot more function than I'll ever use, but it functions will without all of it turned on. The only notification I have on is text messages. Anything more than that is too connected. I'm connected all day at work, and get enough of that.

Now, if you don't want any of the health tracking it's likely not worth the few hundred bucks for is other features. IMG_20251105_201531430.jpg
 
Derphound01 said:
I'm also looking for ideas. I have reached the age where I am tired of everything in my life being "smart" and "connected", including my watch. Specifically, I'm tired of having to make the screen turn on when I look at it. I'm also tired of my wrist buzzing whenever an app decides to ignore my notification settings and push one through to the watch.

I'm considering a Seiko or Seiko-based automatic watch. Only requirement is that it has a GMT 24h hand and bezel. I still listen to shortwave and have my amateur radio license. Everything in the radio world runs on GMT/UTC. I also don't want anything larger than my current 44mm Apple Watch. Price range is <$500 for the watch itself, and I already have an automatic winder.

Two frontrunners are the Relax Parody GMT and the Seiko SSK035. Both run Seiko Automatic movements and have the GMT hand. The Relax is the size I want and the parody aspect is amusing to me. The Seiko has that beautiful green dial plus a second 24h bezel, but it looks huge in all the review photos.

I'm interested to see what everyone else has and how they like it.
Click to expand...
The SSK035's case length (lug-to-lug) of 46mm approaches the limit of what I consider to be properly sized on my wrist. There was a Bulova Sutton skeleton that randomly caught my eye when I was image searching watches with my coworker one day earlier this year, as he was just getting into the hobby. However, that Bulova, despite also having a 43mm case diameter like the Seiko SSK035, has a much larger lug-to-lug of 52mm, which is insane and would fit me about as well as those giant Invicta watches that were trendy 15 years ago.

Anyway, I think the SSK035 would look fine and I have relatively small wrists.
 
Brandon, that's a really nice one. I have 2 Elgin pocket watches, but both have a cracked crystal bearing, and it's like a 4r70 tailshaft, the last thing out. :(
 
When we inherited it a few years ago the original second hand was broken; fortunately there's a local jeweler that still does this kind of work and he was able to find a "close enough" replacement. We had him clean and oil it as well. I've got it adjusted to within a couple seconds per day. As best as I can tell (given the movement serial) it dates to 1912.
 
KevinVarnes said:
Old Korean War era Bulova. Probably needs a new crystal, but it is fine. I don't wear it much for fear of damaging it, but this thread prompted me to dig it out. Maybe I'll start wearing it again so I don't have to carry my phone around with me at work to keep track of time. My dad bought it presumably second hand in the mid 60's since it went out of production before he went in. Yes you have to wind it.

View attachment 15290
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This is awesome.

theterminator93 said:
If windables are eligible, does this guy count? It belonged to my wife's great-grandmother; still holds impeccable time. ;)

View attachment 15301

When we inherited it a few years ago the original second hand was broken; fortunately there's a local jeweler that still does this kind of work and he was able to find a "close enough" replacement. We had him clean and oil it as well. I've got it adjusted to within a couple seconds per day. As best as I can tell (given the movement serial) it dates to 1912.
Click to expand...
This is also awesome. I have my grandfather's and great-grandfather's pocket watches in the fire safe. They still work for the most part. I get them out every so often and wind them, but I haven't checked their accuracy lately.
 
Irv said:
The SSK035's case length (lug-to-lug) of 46mm approaches the limit of what I consider to be properly sized on my wrist. There was a Bulova Sutton skeleton that randomly caught my eye when I was image searching watches with my coworker one day earlier this year, as he was just getting into the hobby. However, that Bulova, despite also having a 43mm case diameter like the Seiko SSK035, has a much larger lug-to-lug of 52mm, which is insane and would fit me about as well as those giant Invicta watches that were trendy 15 years ago.

Anyway, I think the SSK035 would look fine and I have relatively small wrists.
Click to expand...
I think we would be in the same boat. The more I read the reviews on that series of Seiko watches, I'm seeing a lot of complaints that the bezels are habitually loose and move around too much. May go to see if I can find one in store somewhere to look at in hand.
 
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Most of the existing pocket-watches were railroad watches, accurate to ~2seconds a day; most electronic watches have more error than that,due to temperature changes affecting the 32khz crystal that they all use
 
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