Different ways of displaying time
Apart from the usual way of displaying time the old-fashion way there are several watches that don’t use hands to display the time.
Combined display
Some brands use combinations of displays. Sort of like a regulator watch where hours and minutes are displayed separately. Hours are displayed digitally on revolving bars in all 4 sides of the skeletonised dial while the minutes are shown by a traditional hand as can be seen below.
Digital Display
Although these aren’t really watch hands a digital display is worth mentioning as they also indicate the time and can be found in a watch. Great samples are the A. Lange & Söhne Zeitwerk and 4N MVT01 watches. Both very different in style but using the same large digital display to tell the time.
Liquid display
Again a combined display but this time using a tube with separated liquids as we all know from HYT watches. Hours are displayed where both liquids meet while minutes are indicated on a subdial with a normal hand.
Revolving watch display
Some creative watch brands use complicated mechanisms to display time using rotations and revolving watch displays. Urwerk is a great sample for this as can be seen in the sample images below.
Static watch ‘hands’
Although these aren’t really hands, amongst some other styles. We did want to include them in the watch hand style overview as they are also use to tell the with. Yet in a different way as they are more indicators than actual watch hands.
If you think one or more are missing feel free to let us know! We will update this already extensive list when possible.
Gallery
Very enlightening compilation. If you look around you may find other types of hands depending on where you look for them but I believe the ones shown in the article pretty much cover the vast majority.
This article is truly informative for watch aficionados.
Thanks a lot, Bert!