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Thread: Tried the Omega World Timer….

  1. #1

    Tried the Omega World Timer….

    I had the good fortune of trying Omega’s Aqua Terra World Timer this week, ref O22010432203001.

    As some of you know, I have a soft spot for world timers. The AT is a proper Cottier world timer with the modern conveniences and reliability of Omega, not to mention a very pretty map on the dial.




    The whole thing is massively robust and confidence-inspiring. The familiar AT lines are all there and in steel on the bracelet it looks smart.

    It’s perfectly weighted on the wrist, and there’s no question that there’s that familiar frisson at first blush that often prefigures a ringing till.

    However, some of the design decisions just seemed odd to me and made the watch, to my mind at least, at little less urbane and sophisticated than is wanted from a watch of this type.

    First, it’s 43mm. I mean, it actually wears well for 43mm, but it remains far too large. Heretofore, I wasn’t aware that the U-Boat demographic was into world timers….

    Second, the cottier ring is too small and has insufficient contrast. Given the sheer real estate of the dial, it’s odd that the core function isn’t elevated and celebrated. As it is, the daylight side was almost illegible to me without specs - a first for any element of a wristwatch.

    Third, on leather the design looks wonky - it has the strangest vestigial centre links protruding from the case at twelve and six. I think leather is nicest on a world timer, but here the bracelet is clearly the better option.

    But even if the above are not insurmountable, there’s one element that I simply cannot understand or reconcile: a fixed city ring.

    Normally, a world timer has a rotatable city ring, programmable by the crown (or a second crown). This allows the traveller to set the handset to local time and read the home time from the cottier ring. With a fixed city ring though, what do you do? Assuming you want to see (non-Greenwich) local time on the handset, the watch immediately falls over: none of the displayed city times are correct.

    Am I missing a trick, or was this designed by a team without experience of the instrument in use? A ponderous position.

    Keen to hear your thoughts 🤔
    Last edited by JGJG; 16th October 2021 at 17:42.

  2. #2
    Grand Master Sinnlover's Avatar
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    Is the inner ring (around the globe) not a adjustable GMT ring? Therefore you can see what the time is at any point in the world at glance? (So a gmt and not a world timer)
    If not I agree it does not work

  3. #3
    The inner ring is a cottier ring - it turns as the handset turns, and the time read off the ring at a fixed point (it’s usually at “12”, on this watch it’s at “6”) matches the time displayed by the handset….

    So, I think we’re on the same page here!

  4. #4
    I should add, too, that the AD hadn’t the faintest notion as to how the watch operates vis-a-vis the world time element. I can’t see Omega missing this though, it’s all a bit odd.

  5. #5
    Grand Master
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    Its fairly simple, the time is set as usual with the inner ring displaying the time in 24h against the home time, in this case London. The world time can be read against the time zones on the outer ring.

    The hour hand is a true GMT hand and can be set independently of the worldtime function, so if you pop over to Paris just advance the hour hand 1 hour so the watch displays the local time while the inner ring is left as is to enable the reading of the worlds cities.
    Cheers,

    Ben



    ..... for I have become the Jedi of flippers


    " an extravagance is anything you buy that is of no earthly use to your wife "

  6. #6
    Grand Master Saint-Just's Avatar
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    Is there a World Time watch that caters for India (IST) too?
    'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by ben4watches View Post
    Its fairly simple, the time is set as usual with the inner ring displaying the time in 24h against the home time, in this case London. The world time can be read against the time zones on the outer ring.

    The hour hand is a true GMT hand and can be set independently of the worldtime function, so if you pop over to Paris just advance the hour hand 1 hour so the watch displays the local time while the inner ring is left as is to enable the reading of the worlds cities.
    Excellent. That simple addition of a true GMT hour hand - decoupled from the cottier ring when advanced - means the city ring can function even if fixed.

    I was really puzzled by this, actually it’s a very elegant solution and one that Omega needs to inform their ADs of ;)

    Many thanks for the input!

  8. #8
    Grand Master Saint-Just's Avatar
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    Tried the Omega World Timer….

    Also, if the city ring is fixed, does it mean the watches are set differently depending on the market they will be sold on? I am not sure Americans care much about GMT.
    'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Saint-Just View Post
    Also, if the city ring is fixed, does it mean the watches are set differently depending on the market they will be sold on? I am not sure Americans care much about GMT.
    Yes, the rotating ones get round that quite nicely, and some manufacturers will add a coloured index against a different city depending on the market. I suppose the London-centric one works for the principle of the date line at least.

  10. #10
    Master
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    Ghastly, & that winding crown?


    Sent from my Nokia 3.1 using Tapatalk

  11. #11
    Grand Master MartynJC (UK)'s Avatar
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    This IWC world timer has the same principle - rather more legible!!



    The city names remain the same place - but using the rotating 24hr time ring you can instantly read off time in any zone. GMT or DST (if in US) reads from the dots so no need to change even if GMT ends / begins. The Hr hand is independent for your local time.

    Here is the JLC Geophysic version - more refined. And IMHO infinitely preferred to the Omega

    Last edited by MartynJC (UK); 17th October 2021 at 08:30.
    “ Ford... you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.” HHGTTG

  12. #12
    Two great watches there Martyn; I really liked that IWC when you had it, but didn’t realise that it too had a fixed city ring and GMT hour hand - for what it’s worth, I also prefer the way they kept all the city names pointing inboard (like traditional WTs with rotating city rings), when they could have flipped those on the lower half for readability. Very cool watch.

  13. #13
    Grand Master oldoakknives's Avatar
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    It’s a shame that Omega didn’t quite hit the target with this one.
    I like the overall look of the watch. Perhaps if they had simply made the 24hr ring more legible, maybe with black on white and white on black, it would have been the watch it’s trying to be.
    Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.

  14. #14
    Aesthetically prefer the IWC Worldtimer. I don’t need a world map on a Worldtimer.

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