TECHNOLOGY

WATCHES THAT ARE NO LONGER WATCHES

This time of year, while perfume is the most promoted seasonal gift for women, it is the wristwatch which dominates male gift advertising.   Most notably fronted by Leonardo DiCaprio and David Beckham.   Sorry, Tiger Woods, your time is up.

Just check Sharp magazine’s Dec 12/Jan 13 issue and its numerous watch ads and extensive main article on the four different watches every upscale male needs – yes, minimum 4.

Unfortunately, if you glance at magazine ads, read expert articles or check the watches in store after store after store, you will find the male wristwatch has now totally lost its way and primary function!

This all came to my attention when I recently had to replace my damaged 15+ year   old Casio watch, a thin all metal rectangular gem that not only told the time but had a small digital screen for day, month and stopwatch features.  The style is prominently displayed by the main character in the British Life on Mars TV series – set in 1973.   

Yes, the design is a classic, and harkens back to Cartier’s WW1 tank watch concept, when men’s wrist watches were first invented. But whether the dial is rectangular, square or more often round, it was designed  to allow a quick check of the hour and minute at a glance.

In contrast, today’s plethora of male wrist watches - from under $10.00 to over $5,000.00 - have morphed almost entirely into fancy jewelry and gaudy bling -- making quick telling of the time very difficult.

What has gone wrong?

Firstly, dials and hour and minute hands are no longer designed for maximum contrast and easy vision.  Dial numbers are often down to just 4 from 12 and sometimes left totally to the imagination.  Multi-coloured backgrounds, pictures, inscriptions and even transparent backgrounds - so you see the mechanism – all hinder visibility. Watch arms that blend in have also become the norm.  Black on black or steel grey on grey is not helpful!

Secondly, the wealth of ‘add ons’, technically and correctly called complications, have run amuck.

A small calendar date window or weekday and date window has long been popular and helpful and cause little distraction from the basic function.  Even my Casio’s tiny digital screen -- so muted when inactive and out of the way—was not a hindrance.

But the addition of 3 mini-dials to track stop watch time – seconds, minutes and hours, or phases of the moon, or 24 hour numerals or naming up to 2 dozen cities on an outer ring – is overly complicated and distracting from the main function – a quick and instant glance at the exact time.

Thirdly, scuba diving specialty watches – extra large, extra thick for waterproofing, and extra heavy (but not an issue under water’s buoyancy) – has become the normal size and weight for nearly all men’s wristwatches.  Face dials are now twice as wide as the traditional norm.

So now your wrist is getting weight training non-stop and your shirt cuff on the watch side needs to be extra wide, left open or is constantly blocking the time if you have large arms.

 

Put briefly, thin, lightweight and easy to read watches is now the rarity. Gaudy and overly complex bling has become the norm.