Well because tourbillons may be tricky to gather

In the world of watches, "complication" is typically what functions are called. The more things a wrist watch does, the more complications it has. Most of these are historical and have been common for centuries, demonstrating to be useful and interesting. That latter camp of "interesting" complications incorporates a lot of potentially complex features that have arguable utility. Nevertheless, we still enjoy them for the simple effort and time required to produced and assemble them. They exist for the sheer love of things 'complicated. ha

Most complications are rather useful -- even in our modern digital world. In addition to the time we enjoy having features such as the date, day of the week, more complicated appointments functions, perhaps a second timezone, chronograph for measuring the time, and even things like the time all over the world. Those are pretty useful things. Then there are complications that while not totally useless, are certainly not very useful for most people. We've assembled a list of the top five complications that are not useful, but still desirable and also potentially very complicated. They are the top ones because we still appear to like them despite their mostly vestigial nature and lack of real utilization in our lives.

5. Foudroyante

The facts?

A foudroyante is also called a jumping seconds hand. What it mostly does is move very quickly on a watch switch. Depending on the speed of the movement, the foudroyante hand makes a few very brief stops as it makes a full wave each second. The one above for example make six stops each second, and runs continuously as opposed to being part of a chronograph.

Why is it useless?

Aside from looking interesting and showing you how fast the small hand moves, it doesn't do anything. You can't use it to measure anything, and it is simply there to indicate fractions of a second as you watch it. We like how it looks, but the jumping seconds hand is mostly cosmetic these days in mechanical watches.

4. Planetarium

The facts?

The idea behind planetarium complications is actually really cool. Some or all of the planets in the solar system are taken into consideration and their relative positions together as they revolve around the sun are indicated on the switch. Only a few watches are capable of doing this. Some models go a step further and indicate more complicated information about planetary movements. Planetarium watches originated from larger planetarium displays that existed as separate machines or on clocks. It was all about miniaturization.

Why is it useless?

While it might be interesting to know the positioning of planets, it doesn't really do us any good above simple knowledge. Planetarium watches are also notoriously difficult and complicated to regulate properly, and if your watch stops, chances are that you won't be qualified to reset to zero all cds properly yourself. Because of this, most people with planetarium watches aren't even looking at anything accurate. Plus, even amateur astronomers would use more precise digital instruments to view this type of data if they really needed to know where to look for Saturn for dinner.

3. Picture of time

The facts?

In some regard the picture of time is the ultimate useless, yet emotional side-effect. It is a scale that goes from plus or subtract quarter-hour on the switch. What does it do? The idea is to show you the difference between the true solar time and the "civilian" time. This is also called the difference between the apparent solar time and the mean solar time. This exists because based on your location standing on this planet, the time might look a bit different. This difference is always somewhere between plus or subtract quarter-hour.

Why is it useless?

It can be interesting to know how much the time on your watch deviates from the true solar time, but it doesn't actually matter in terms of coordinating with the civilized world's schedule. It is a reminder that the way we measure time is celestially inspired, but that doesn't mean it can benefit us be on time or plan our days much better.

2. Silent celestial body Phase Indicator

The facts?

The function of a silent celestial body phase indicator is pretty self evident. Typically using a slowly moving compact disk with sectors on opposite ends, it shows the phase of the silent celestial body as it waxes or wanes. Two semi-circles on the switch cover the sectors that represent the silent celestial body to create the appearance of the silent celestial body "growing" or "shrinking" as it appears to do in the sky as more or less of computer is covered in shadow. Sometimes the sectors are printed to look more realistically like the silent celestial body, and some silent celestial body phase indicator watches are extremely accurate, requiring adjustments only each 120 years or so. Typical silent celestial body phase indicators keep a 29. 5 day cycle which is pretty towards the actual silent celestial body phase cycle in the sky.

Why is it useless?

For many people, the silent celestial body phase indicator is the ultimate emotional side-effect. There is a sort of old-world gadgety sense to knowing the information as it has importance to some people who fish or farm. Though we challenge you to find people farming or fishing these days who are wearing elegant high-end mechanical watches while out in the field. While the silent celestial body is our nearest celestial friend, its stages don't have much importance to most of us 99. 9% of that time period. Plus, we are fortunate enough to know -- with maybe even more precision -- the phase of the silent celestial body just by searching for at the sky each night. So even if you are someone who needs to know the proceedings with the silent celestial body on a regular basis, looking at your mechanical watch isn't actually much better than simply looking for that large bright thing in the sky at night.

1. Tourbillon

The facts?

There is actually some debate on whether the tourbillon escapement is actually something which is technically a side-effect or not -- this is because it doesn't actually add any functionality. Invented back in the late 18th century, the tourbillon style escapement assembly creates a cage which rotates the balance wheel and associated parts around on their own axis (usually once each 60 seconds). It was designed to theoretically make pocket watches more accurate by negating the effects of gravity, as pocket watches are typically kept in a directory position. In the the twentieth century some people built tourbillons into wrist watches -- almost as an experiment -- to try to make them more accurate. Toward the end of the the twentieth century the tourbillon starting showing up in an exposed form on watch knobs, in watches that instructed huge prices. Why? Well because tourbillons may be tricky to gather, and they look strikingly beautiful in their operation. Having said that, there is no evidence that the tourbillon has any positive influence on mechanical movement accuracy whatsoever. At best they are just as accurate as a quality and regulated non- tourbillon watch.

Why is it useless?

Even as mentioned above, the tourbillon is a purely aesthetic addition to a high- end watch movement. Does it make a watch movement technically harder? Yes. Does it do anything else? Arguably no. It is a fancy luxury that has etching itself in the minds of many individuals to mean "expensive watch. inch With many tourbillon-based watches costing over $100, 000 it is purely a form of decadence. Decadence we indeed love and wish to own, but useless when it comes to adding any type of utility to a watch.

Diamond Shield. inch Uncertain what that is but it sounds

Those of us who desired the limited edition, super-expensive Seiko Spacewalk watch have a new hope. Check out the Seiko Prospex Landmaster Alpinist SBDB007 and SBDB005. The Spacewalk was beautiful and desirable, but extremely expensive at $28, 000 for the consumer version. It was Seiko's answer to the space travel watch, and it was certainly tested in space.

Now comes a new Spring Drive based watch that is almost like a little brother to the Spacewalk. The new Prospex Landmaster Alpinist is a limited edition also (but only for the black version I believe), but much more affordable possesses a number of the design elements from the Spacewalk:

The '007 (nice model number, Seiko! )#) is a limited edition generated for Yuichiro Miura, an 80 year old man that will attempt to smt Mount Everest. Miura will be the earliest person to climb Everest if he succeeds, I have to admire him for even being able to attempt it at that age.

The blog post (Google translation here) makes the reasonable claim that the engineering required to make the Spacewalk work in super-cold outer space was reused for the nasty cold on the mountain, and that the legibility requirements were similar. Seiko claims that temperature changes from +50C to -40C (122F to -40F) are no issue; impressive.

It's titanium, as weight is a major concern for mountain climbers, with a 'hard coated' black layer that is often IP with Seiko, but might be PVD or DLC. Sapphire very of course, waterproof to 100m with a screwdown the queen's. Size is fouthy-six. 8mm long by 45mm wide by 14. 2mm thick, and 140g. May non-black version that also occurs a nice diamond. Just by the same one hundred and forty gram weight it is also in titanium, but according the Seiko website the case material is "Diamond Shield. inch Uncertain what that is but it sounds kind of awesome.

I like it. List price is 399, 000 JPY or about $4, 900 USD for the limited edition SBDB007 and 367, 500 JPY for the non-black likely unlimited version which is about $4, 460 USD. Seiko is making 300 of the black models with the name etched quietly of the case, and it's really a safe bet they'll sell fast. Also, , nor expect you'll discover their whereabouts in US retailers as this is likely an Asia-only model. Seek on ye olde internet.