What are watch complications? Why should you care?

Finally, complications — any feature in the watch that does something other than telling time — can also hint at a watch’s build quality. Though internal mechanisms drive them, their functionality often appears on the dial of the watch. If a brand adds a day date, moon phase, annual calendar, etc., to a watch you are headed in the right direction. But, beware.

These complications are, well, complicated to produce in a watch and often take hundreds of hours to complete. If a brand tells you that they placed a tourbillon — a complication considered by many to be of the most challenging of watch mechanisms to make — in a watch that is only a few hundred dollars, somebody is probably lying. The A. Lange & Söhne 1815 Tourbillon will set you back $140,000 alone.

What is the difference between quartz, mechanical & automatic watch movements?

Let’s not forget about the most crucial aspect of a watch, the movement. If you have an awesome-looking car but a shit engine you won’t get far. The movement of a watch will dictate the overall experience with the timepiece. A great watch movement can last for decades if properly taken care of.

Watches come with three different types of movements, quartz, mechanical, and automatic. Quartz utilizes a battery as its primary power source and is typically the type of movement that you will find in your standard, no-frills watch. Timekeeping is regulated by a quartz crystal that vibrates at a certain frequency. Compared to their mechanical cousins, they are far more accurate and reliable when telling time.

The world of quartz watches gets a lot of slack because they are relatively easy and cheap to mass-produce, making these movements the go-to for fashion watch brands. However, don’t let watch enthusiasts convince you that quartz movements are bad. There are solid quartz watches out there like the Hamilton Khaki Field and Jaeger LeCoultre Reverso Classic.