A mechanical marvel in every sense of the word, a world timer watch, also known as a unitime watch or a world time watch, indicates the time for the main 24 time zones, simultaneously. This is typically done by displaying 24 world cities, each representing a specific time zone. So, with just one glance at your world time watch, you can see the time in New York, London, Moscow, Toyko, and so on. Now that’s a super practical watch for a global traveler, indeed.
A world timer timepiece showcases the 24 world cities on an internal bezel, along with another 24-hour disc that completes one rotation in one day. To set your world timer watch, simply coordinate your home time with the corresponding hour of the day and city at the 12 o’clock position, and everything will line up accordingly.
For example, take a look at the image of the Breitling Unitime watch above, and you’ll see that the center hands on the watch shows 10:10, while the city at the 12 o’clock position says New York, and the 24-hour ring indicates 10. So if it’s currently 10:10am in New York time, then you can quickly see that it’s 10 minutes past the 16th hour in Paris (4:10pm), 10 minutes past the 22th hour in Bangkok (10:10pm) and 10 minutes past the 3rd hour in Auckland (3:10am) the following day.
This simple and elegant to read, yet highly complex watch mechanism was invented by Swiss watchmaker Louis Cottier in the 1930s and Vacheron Constantin made the world’s first pocket watch world timer during the same decade. Today, it remains a popular watch complication of top timepiece brands looking to flaunt their mechanical mastery.
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