Below: Sinn UX with quartz movement in oil-filled case of tegimented steel
The wristwatch presents severe design and performance constraints due to its complexity and its form factor. Timekeeping accuracy, durability, legibility and affordability are the key criteria for a well-designed timepiece.
Automatic movements of any kind are ruled out immediately by their inaccuracy and bulk, particularly case thickness. Cases of more than 11-mm thickness are awkward on the wrist and damaging to shirt-cuffs. The best-made and most costly automatic movements in the world will lose or gain 4 to 15 seconds per day. If they are not regularly subjected to moderate physical force they will stop running within days. Thermo-compensated quartz movements may not show such variance in one year.
The most suitable material for watch cases and bracelets is titanium. It is best to leave aside soft, precious metals such as platinum and gold which are fragile, kitsch liabilities in any watchmaking application. Steel also is easily damaged unless subjected to costly and complex hardening processes, is reactive to acid and is heavy on the wrist. Titanium, though vulnerable to marking and scratching has about half the density and mass of steel for equivalent strength and has other properties functionally convergent to watchmaking such as low acid reactivity and hypoallergenic properties.
The most legible watch face achieves maximum contrast between white markings reversed from a black background. All mission-critical or ‘tool’ watches conform to this convention. Watches with chronograph and date complications are less legible than those with a rotating bezel. A bezel suffices for count-down and most other duties for which a chronograph is designed in daily use. Watches lacking hour numbering are less legible than those that are numbered.
To my knowledge the illustrated watches are first among the very few that satisfy most of these criteria. All have drawbacks: The Tudor Pelagos has an inaccurate automatic movement and has sacrificed hour numbering to minimalism. The Sinn UX is over 11 mm thick, is too large in all dimensions for everyday wear, has no hour numbering and requires special servicing at the manufacturer, albeit at long service intervals. The Citizen Promaster makes some concessions in build quality (eg, it has no ceramic bezel); the IWC Chrono Alarm suffers legibility compromises because of its chronograph displays, is no longer manufactured and its complex hybrid movement may be increasingly difficult to service at the recommended intervals.
The strengths of these designs are complementary to the weaknesses. The Tudor’s aesthetic presentation, bracelet clasp design and build quality are the most finely resolved. The Citizen’s solar-cell power source and monocoque case comprise the most technologically elegant design solution here. The Sinn is the most robust and, due to the oil-filled case, pressure-resistant and legible underwater. The IWC is suitably sized for everyday wear, and its extremely accurate hybrid, battery-powered movement behind its imposing case and face aesthetics would be one of only two in the list still operating after the watches had spent a month in a desk drawer.
Below: IWC Chrono Alarm (now discontinued) in stainless steel with ‘Meca-Quartz’ calibre 631 hybrid quartz-mechanical movement
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