Moon phase watch is a very interesting watch. Not to mention beautiful and cool, though not really useful. But eye-catching nonetheless. And for that reason alone, you should get one - that is if you're looking to add a cool watch in your collection. But if you're not a watch fan, then moon phase watch will not be at the top of your priority. So What Is A Moon Phase Watch All About?Well, as the name suggests, moon phase watch is a watch that can show the current moon phase. Now, why would someone need that information? Frankly speaking, I'm not entirely sure. For all intent and purposes, moon phase is not really used in modern times. It does, however, have its usage for religions and tidal variations - tides are based on the moon position with respect to the sun and earth, the very reason why there's moon phases in the first place. But for most people, moon phase carry little to no meaning. So why did I say you should get one? Although moon phase watch don't have any real life use (at least for most people), it does have 2 main advantages: 1) It Looks Very Cool Look at the moon phase watch photos that I've included in this article and tell me how does it looks? Different than ordinary watches? More unique and amazing to look at? You bet it is. Granted, these are the pictures of higher end watches but in general, most moon phase watches (even from Japanese brands such as Orient and Seiko) have appealing aesthetics, more so than normal watches. Part of the reason is the moon phase indicator is usually designed beautifully. I've never seen any moon phase indicator that is ugly (except on digital watches LOL!). For example, just look at the Vacheron moon phase watch above. Imagine how does the watch looks like without the moon phase indicator at the bottom of the dial. Pretty boring right? That's the power of a moon phase indicator. With it, any boring and simple watch can be turned into a beautiful piece of art. 2) A Higher Form Of Complications In Automatic Watch Now let's get a bit technical. Even though its aesthetics is the first thing that draws most people into it, moon phase watch is also attractive to watch fans due to its complications. Specifically, the moon phase complication. It's another thing that sets it apart from normal automatic watches. While normal watches only need to show the time (and day & date, depending on the watch), this is quite normal which can be done by any watches. The moon phase function, however, requires extra complexity in the movement. The reason lies in the timeline for a full moon phase cycle. Things will be much easier if the moon phase cycle has a definite timeline i.e 29 days or 30 days. But the problem is the full cycle is in the form of decimals i.e 29.530588853. What happens then is the timekeeping has to be a bit complex to ensure the moon phase function is accurate and not off. For example, typical low-mid range moon phase watch uses 53-tooth gears for the moon phase indicator and this will be off by one day every 2.5 years. Watch the video below for more information about moon phase watch: Hope this short article about what is moon phase watch is beneficial to you. Do let me know what you think about the moon phase watch and do you think that you'll get one or not. Cheers!
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A very basic question that most new watch fans ask is about automatic vs quartz watch movements. Everyone knows that the quartz watch is the typical normal watch that runs on battery. But there's also the automatic watch, the so-called "OG" of the watches. Apparently, it's automatic watches are there before quartz watches was invented. It does not need battery to function, has awesome sweeping second hand, and is also more expensive than quartz watch. It's this higher price of automatic watch that gives the impression that it's better than quartz watch. But is this true? Which Watch Movement Is Better?As this article has pointed out, there's two side of everything and this is true for both automatic and quartz watches. Both have their own advantages and disadvantages and you really need to have a look at this before deciding on what watch you want (I really recommend to read the article to know more about the pros & cons of automatic and quartz watches). Below are my thoughts on what kind of watch movement is better for a specific guy with specific purpose:
Cheers! Hi Guys! In this post, I'm going to talk about problems surrounding automatic watch. While I absolutely adore these little timepieces, unfortunately like other mechanical things, automatic watch is not free from problems. It turns out, there are about 8 common problems with automatic watch (as can be seen in this article here). But I will only talk about the problems that I've personally had with my watches. Let's start! 1- Automatic watch stopped working after taking it off The first problem that I encountered when using automatic watch years ago. This problem taught me that even though the manual says the power reserve of a particular watch is XX hours, most likely than not your watch don't have that power reserve all the time. It turns out that using automatic watch is NOT enough to fill in its power reserve to full due to sedentary lifestyle of working at a desk. Just sitting on a desk and doing work won't move our hands a lot, which in turn means our automatic watch's rotor is not moving as frequently as it should. So when you put your watch down at the end of the day, it actually don't have enough power reserve to last through the night, and causes it to drop dead the next morning. What can we do then? For a start, a few turns of the crown will do the trick of filling it with some much needed power reserve. You can do this when storing the watch at the end of the day so that it can last throughout the night. 2 - Automatic watch not accurate Accuracy is a delicate matter with automatic watches and can be very hard to predict. As it's a mechanical device, lots of factors contribute to its accuracy such as quality of assembly (even same factory can produce different levels of product quality!), usage pattern, temperature of the skin of owner, climate of the use, etc. All of these affects the mechanical device. For example, someone that is very rough with his watch and frequently uses it to do outdoor activities will cause more stress on the watch, and the fine details on it might be out of place. This won't necessarily cause it to break down but its accuracy can be affected. Likewise, two owners of the same watch but at different climate - say hot Egypt vs cold Canada - will see their watches perform at different accuracy. It's well known that most materials will expand when heated and shrink when chilled. The same will happen with the numerous stainless steel inside an automatic watch. This expansion or shrinkage WILL affect accuracy of your automatic watch. The only thing that we can do is to regulate it by bringing it to a watchmaker and let him adjust the speed of the watch. 3 - Watch inside watch One thing that I will never forget is to ensure only a watch with sufficient water resistance rating to be brought underwater. I've had one great looking watch by Timex before. It's a mix of dressy and casual, but features a low 30 or 50 m water resistance rating. Thinking that it can be brought underwater with that, I foolishly used it for swimming. And that's the last time it went underwater because as soon as I finished and get off the pool, water vapor cloud began to form inside the watch. It's one of my biggest regret since I like that watch a lot and it's also a present from my dad. But it did taught me an invaluable lesson: water resistance rating is not dependable! Yes, some watches might be able to be used underwater but not ALL watches. Nowadays, I only bring my diver watches with screw down crowns for swimming. As the crown is the only ingress point for water, the screw down mechanism will help to avoid any water from coming into it. In addition the lume on the dive watch looks stunning underwater =) So what types of problems have you had with your watches? Let's share it here for everyone to know. Till next time then. Cheers! Ain't it a beauty? I still remember when browsing through watchuseek on what watches were the forumers were wearing, the Seiko SARB017 (or Alpinist as it's better known) popped up. And following that, they were lots of people complimenting on that watch. I thought to myself, sure, this watch is odd with that green dial, but it's not that pretty. A couple of years gone by and by this time, I've seen it a few times - both online and on-hand (courtesy of my friend) - and suffice to say the Alpinist grew on me. Seiko had a knack in producing different and unique but endearing enough to create a cult following (the Seiko Monster is the one that came to my mind). This Seiko Alpinist is the same. It's very different than the other watches out there. I mean, it's not common for a watch to have a GREEN dial face. I can only think of Swatch that have green watches in their stable. But almost everything looks good when it has metallic surface, and the green dial also is the same. Upon closer inspection, I found the dark green dial to be quite charming even though it's a bit weird. Seiko also tactfully combined the dark green dial with golden accents used on its hands and markers. I really can't tell from where they got this idea but it really works well. At first I thought the watch was something done in a jiffy but it's evident that they did took enough time and deliberation to design the Alpinist to stand out from the rest of the watches in the market. Speaking about the hands, I can only say how I adore the old-fashioned mercedes hands. Yes, it looks like a copy cat of the Submariner but it really give the Alpinist an extra punch. Speaking of punch, the watch also has a feature that's not common on other watches - the compass ring. As you can see, the outer edge of the dial got the compass markers (North, West, etc). This is the compass ring that can be used to find the directions if you know where the sun is. To rotate the ring, simply rotate the crown at the 4 o'clock of the watch. And in case you want to learn how to use this compass ring, I've included a very helpful video below:
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