No, they are not designed to be inelegant and "ugly", they are designed to function without the need for electricity.
A digital watch like Casio or Timex are designed to be practical, but your taste is pretty....unorthodox if you think a Timex or Casio looks better than a beautifully crafted mechanical piece.
Your statement about smartwatche is also...bizarre, especially since you just praised Timex. But again, I think you have a very different definition for words such as "elegant" and "gaudy" than most people out there.
> No, they are not designed to be inelegant and "ugly", they are designed to function without the need for electricity.
Yeah, and electronic watches are designed to function without mechanical intervention. You say this like electrical systems are somehow less reliable than mechanical systems; and it couldn't be further from the truth.
Complication is inelegant. Adding jewels to hidden parts of your mechanism is bound to make it more prone to failure, considerably harder to build, and with no tangible benefit. It's a status thing, like pouring champagne on the floor or having a seven-car garage full of vintages and imports. In my opinion, all this flaunting shows a lack of class. It becomes about how much of your income you put toward useless nonsense.
I put complicated mechanical watches right up there with oxygen-free all-silver HDMI cables, pretending that vinyl sounds better than CD, and using "organic" household cleaners.
It's not a status thing...necessarily. There are a lot of people, myself included, who enjoy collecting mechanical watches and don't flaunt them. If you're wearing a Rolex Yachtmaster, yes alright maybe it's a status thing. If you're wearing a Patek, Lange, or VC it's probably for legitimate appreciation though. They are understated and virtually unknown outside of collectors or people who know collectors. You'd be very disappointed if you were wearing them for status - almost no one would recognize them on you.
Try not to compare peoples' hobbies to "pouring champagne on the floor." You may not think they're legitimate, but that doesn't make it so. I'm happy to admit that mechanical watches are inefficient and poor timekeeping devices compared to modern technology. But they're supposed to be a form of art that you personally enjoy that happen to tell the time. Comparing mechanical watches to electronic ones on the basis of utility is missing the point (and so is calling them a status symbol).
My original response is not about it being a valid hobby or not. I'm simply saying that there's nothing about mechanical watches which should seem particularly attractive to a software developer, which was the original assertion of lunaru.
A "Developer" should have an appreciation of quality engineering in any form -
At my first Job at CIT one of the other tenants had a side biz in rebuilding spitfires and we used to all go out a watch when they where showing it off - if seeing and hearing a spitfire doesn't make your heart sing then I am sad for you
Yes, because your taste represent all software developers right?
I'm a software developer, I've worked at YC startups as well as big companies like Google, and I have a degree in Computer Engineering so I know the hardware side of things as well.
I am not into mechanical watches at all, but I see a big point that is common with software: the incredible scale of the complexity that can be reached by a craftsman. You often have to go into large scale engineering to find that in other fields.
I'm speaking particularly of the purely-decorative ones; or the ones added to up the "jewel count" to some nice round figure for sales. I doubt that those have any positive impact on the functioning of the device.
You won't find many manufacturers (if any) that use jewels in the movement for anything other than efficiency purposes. Rubies are actually one of the most low friction natural materials known to man, so watchmakers have been using them in movements for a long time.
Only recently have we started seeing more advanced materials/alloys being used in lieu of Rubies.
I think you may be referring and responding negatively to decorative watches found in fashion stores typically sold for a few hundred dollars. The mechanical watches discussed here and in the original article are in a different universe.
Woah, you don't know much about watchmaking do you? Can you name one single respected watchmaker that adds jewels to increase "jewel count"? Hell, not a single haute horology house advertises how many jewels they have in their movement. They simply label it, and you won't see it in any marketing material because it's irrelevant.
Jewel inflation used to be a big thing in the 60s and 70s, with watches advertising 70+ jewels,most of them completely non-functional. These days there are standards on how jewels can be counted and it doesn't occur that much. It's mostly only done by the cheaper brands.
How is having a seven car garage the same as pouring champagne onto the floor? What if you legitimately like cars? It's not like they drive them into trees to show off they can afford them.
I'm sorry, but you sound extremely shallow minded, if not downright bitter, about some people's hobby just because they are expensive.
And no, jewels are used in watch movements for legit reasons, and no haute horology manufacturers add them for the sake of status symbol, you are just making it up there.
I actually don't think you know much about mechanical watches at all, and if you think mechanical engineering is the same as Monster's cables...then I really don't know what to tell you.
>Adding jewels to hidden parts of your mechanism is bound to make it more prone to failure, considerably harder to build, and with no tangible benefit.
The "jewels" you find inside a watch movement actually do serve a purpose. They're there to reduce the friction between metal parts at the points of heaviest wear like bearings and pivots. Also, they are mostly extremely inexpensive synthetic rubies.
A digital watch like Casio or Timex are designed to be practical, but your taste is pretty....unorthodox if you think a Timex or Casio looks better than a beautifully crafted mechanical piece.
Your statement about smartwatche is also...bizarre, especially since you just praised Timex. But again, I think you have a very different definition for words such as "elegant" and "gaudy" than most people out there.