Alarm
Watches
There are two general types of alarm watches,
quartz and mechanical. The appeal of quartz is
that it can have many more features and functions
than a mechanical watch. Also, the alarm func-
tion is where having the power of a ba ery really
comes in handy. With a mechanical watch, you not
only have to make sure you have set the alarm cor-
rectly, you have to ensure that your watch is fully
wound. If the watch winds down and stops during
the night, the alarm is not going to work.
QUARTZ:
Some of the latest quartz watches have
up to six alarms, the ability to chime the hours,
and o en have several different time zones. Also,
because of the power of the ba ery, the alarm can
be loud, and some watches allow you to vary the
alarm sound as well, or even have the watch vi-
brate and sound the alarm at the same time. Pre y
handy and very reliable.
MECHANICAL:
There are some very good me-
chanical alarm watches, but it’s much harder and
more expensive to design and make a mechani-
cal watch that looks good and sounds good and
performs reliably.
A reliable alarm watch is a boon to any traveler, as
hotel wake-up calls cannot be trusted. It’s so easy
to travel with a watch that has an alarm and, as
long as it is easy to use and reliable, it means one
less thing about which to worry.
Now comes the hard part, picking the one you
like best out of this spectacular selection.
2012
LUXURY WATCH GUIDE
52
SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE
U
NOVEMBER 2012
Newfoundland, Iran, Afghani-
stan, Venezuela, Burma, the
Marquesas, as well as parts of
Australia, use half-hour devia-
tions from standard time, and
some nations, such as Nepal,
and some provinces, like the
Chatham Islands, use quarter-
hour deviations.
The countries with the most
time zones are Russia and the
United States (and its territo-
ries), with nine standard time
zones each.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A
TIME ZONE WATCH
There are a number of ways that
timepieces accomplish displaying
more than one time zone, and the
one that suits you best depends
on how many time zones you
traverse. Some dual time watches
use two time displays, one above
the other (though sometimes side
by side), while others use a small
sub-dial on the main dial, which
indicates home time, allowing
you to set the bigger display to
the time where you are staying.
Quartz watches sometimes have
an analog display for one time
zone, with a digital display for the
second time zone.
GMT watches use a separate
pointer hand to indicate the sec-
ond time zone or to GMT/UTC
(
which you can then use to cal-
culate any time zone in the world
if you know the UTC offset, e.g.
Switzerland is UTC +1 hours,
while New York City is UTC -5).
If you only need to know two
time zones at a glance, then a
Tissot T-TOUCH Polished Titanium
Vulcain Cricket
FROM LEFT:
Patek Philippe World Time
Ref. 5131; Montblanc Star World-Time;
Omega Seamaster Aqua Terra GMT;
Franck Muller Master Banker
