The reason watches are jewellery

This week, we prove that watches are jewellery.

The watch of the week is water resistant to 50 metres. It has a backlight so it can be seen in any light. Analog hands so it's easy to read at a glance. And a digital display that will tell you the time in every time zone on the planet, by city name. It has 5 different alarms, and a stopwatch. It's got a "perpetual date" which accounts for leap years. It remembers Daylight Savings Time.

It is the most accurate watch in the world. It never needs to be set. Ever.

Oh - and it costs about $25.

It's the Casio wave ceptor.

It has a radio receiver that automatically dials in the frequency of the US Military atomic clock in Boulder, Colorado every night. It receives this time signal (generated by an atomic clock - which works by counting the radioactive decay of a molecule, I think, of Cesium) and automatically resets the hands and the digital time. Keep in mind that this is a quartz movement anyway - so it only gains or loses a second or two a day. But it receives this time signal and adjusts, automatically. Every night. Using the same clock that's used to calibrate satellites, stealth bombers, and the like.

Pretty neat.

Yes, I have fancy watches (like the Breitling discussed below). And that watch is a "COSC certified chronometer". And it's quartz, so the criteria to be a COSC certified chronometer is even more arduous. But this Casio is the watch I use to set the Breitling, because it's more accurate.

Anything costing more than $25 is a piece of jewellery. Its function is incidental. Since this watch is a better, more complete timekeeper and costs $25.

The interesting thing is that (these days) most men will only wear jewellery that has a soupcon of function to it. A watch. Cuff links. A wedding band. Anything else is "gaudy" because real men don't wear jewellery. But that's just a fancy excuse. Your $5000 Rolex? Jewellery. Your $100 Fossil? Jewellery. Because this watch has them beat in terms of function.

I'd go on about the esthetics of this watch, but I won't. It's well laid out. Easy to read (though the digital screen sometimes gets obstructed by the minute hand). Easy to use, with labels for each of the buttons, both on the front and (more detailed) on the back of the watch. It's fairly light and comfortable to wear. The blue strip running around the bezel from 9 to 12 is a nice detail; not sure why it's there or even if it's intentional. More than that, you don't need to know. It's main objective is function, and it's the most functional watch I've ever seen.