WATCH MOVEMENT TYPES

Think of the mechanics behind the watch movement as your watch's engine. It pays to know what's under the hood. Decide how much maintenance you want to perform and head in the right direction.

automatic

Self-winding or automatic watches store kinetic energy produced by your hand and wrist's movement. They never need a battery and require little care.

quartz

Quartz movement watches are the most common battery-powered timepieces. An electric current vibrates a quartz crystal to move the watch's hands.

DIAL FUNCTIONS

analog

The classic watch display. An analog dial features two to three hands, with stick indices, numbers or Roman numerals marking the hours.

chronograph

This indicates that a watch is capable of stopwatch functionality in addition to timekeeping. Different types of movements offer this functionality.

digital

Digital time is displayed in numeric format on an LCD (liquid crystal display) or LED (light emitting diode) face. Some even have touch-screen capability.