What is a World Time Watch?
A world time watch tells the time across 24 time zones simultaneously, making it the perfect timepiece for frequent travelers or folks who conduct business across international markets. The watch will typically have an internal bezel that displays 24 major cities, each representing a different time zone, along with an adjacent 24-hour ring. This layout makes it easy to know the time across the entire planet with just one glance at the dial. The world time complication has been around since the 1930s and today, a handful of top-tier watch brands specialize in world time watches.
From its history and how they work to some of the best examples available, here’s a comprehensive guide to world time watches.
Brief History
In 1885, Emmanuel Cottier designed a “heures universelles” (French for world time) mechanism but it was, unfortunately, met with a lack of interest. The system of worldwide time zones was proposed by Sir Sandford Fleming in the 1870s and formally established by the 1884 International Meridian Conference; so perhaps Emmanuel jumped the gun a little too early.
However, Louis Cottier believed in his father; he built a working world time mechanism using his father’s concept as inspiration. Louis Cottier patented his invention, comprising of an inner dial with the traditional hands and 12 indexes, a 24-hour ring, and a 24-city ring, in 1931.
Patek Philippe took particular interest in Cottier’s work and both parties worked together to release the first “Heure Universelle” (HU) watch, the Patek Philippe ref. 515, in 1937. Fast-forward to today and Patek Philippe World Time models, whether vintage or modern, are recognized as some of the best on the market. They often feature beautiful cloisonné enamel dials depicting maps.
Further reading: Patek Philippe Introduces the Stunning 5935A World Time Flyback Chronograph
How Does a World Time Watch Work?
While a world time watch dial may seem elaborate and complex, they are quite simple to set and read once you understand how they work.
It’s important to point out that there are a variety of world time watches available, which not only offer different ways to display multiple timezones but have different operating instructions.
So we’ll stick to explaining how the most classic world time variants work, which are characterized by two rings on the dial – one with 24 major cities and one with 24 hours. The 24-hour ring, which completes one rotation per day, is synced up with the center hour and minute hands; however, the hands turn clockwise while the 24-hour ring turns counterclockwise.
Watch: A trio of World Time watches on Grey Market TV
Setting a World Time Watch
- Pull out the winding crown to the city-ring setting position; keep turning the crown until your home city (or city with the same time zone) is situated at 12 o’clock. For example, if you live in Philadelphia, you would set New York at 12 o’clock.
- Push the crown to the local time-setting position; keep turning the crown to set your local time correctly.
- Secure the winding crown back into place. Each of the hours on the 24-hour ring now aligns with the cities that represent that particular hour.
- You can now read the time locally via the traditional center hands and various timezones by looking at which 24-hour number lies next to the representative city.
Note that some world timer watches will have a pusher to move the rings (instead of a crown). Moreover, some models require the local city to be set at 6 o’clock rather than 12 o’clock. As always, make sure you read the instructions for your particular watch carefully before attempting to set it.
Notable World Time Watch Models
While we’ve focused largely on Patek Philippe watches, there are plenty of other watch brands that offer world time watches in their catalogs. Some of our favorite models include:
- Patek Philippe 5231
- Patek Philippe 5230
- Patek Philippe 5935
- Vacheron Constantin Overseas World Time
- Breguet Hora Mundi
- Jaeger-LeCoultre Geophysic Universal Time
- Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris Chronograph WT
- Omega Aqua Terra Worldtimer
- IWC Pilot’s Watch Timezoner Top Gun Ceratanium
- Breitling Transocean Unitime
- Bulgari Octo Roma Worldtimer
- Greubel Forsey GMT Balancier Convexe
The World on Your Wrist
Even if you don’t travel often or have any practical reason to know the time in other areas of the world, there is something inherently magical about wearing a world time timepiece. With just one quick look at the dial, you can know if it’s morning in Bangkok, evening in Madrid, or the middle of the night in Dubai.
In short, a world time watch offers a personal view of the globe on your wrist, which is an impressive feat for a mechanical timepiece.
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