
One of the most complex wristwatches ever made - wilsonfiifi
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/celestia-vacheron-constantin-complicated-watch
======
shubhamjain
This cynicism in this thread is disappointing. Of course, the things that this
watch shows can easily be achieved by the most rudimentary computer but
imagine the patience and skill needed to mechanically move sunrise and
sunsets. Doing complex calculations all through gears and fitting it in a tiny
wristwatch.

It can be regarded as a pinnacle of human engineering. I am sure it's possible
to draw parallels with equally complex software but thinking of the effort
involved in making this, there would hardly be any equivalent.

~~~
shusson
> It can be regarded as a pinnacle of human engineering

I would argue it is pinnacle of art and not of engineering.

~~~
Insanity
Or a bit of both really. I am impressed by the work put into it and the actual
engineering, though it does feel like a piece of art as well.

~~~
justinjlynn
I think their point was that engineering is the process of finding the most
efficient way to accomplish a given goal given the whole of science and
technology with which to accomplish it. In this way, a purely mechanical watch
attempting such complex calculations is suboptimal. As such, it's existence is
a form of art -- it is engineering only in the sense that the restrictions
imposed are themselves non-optimal (for instance, the requirement that purely
mechanical mechanisms be used). Something at the pinnacle of engineering would
seek to optimise not only the solution, but also the requirements.

~~~
Someone
If you don't allow that kind of restrictions, many modern bridges should be
consider art by that logic because "while looking good and distinct" was one
of their design goals.

~~~
justinjlynn
Precisely. They are both art and engineering -- that's the point. Generally,
the art aspect consists of the aesthetic restrictions you've placed on your
engineering efforts.

~~~
blubb-fish
restricting a machine to mechanical operations takes severe engineering effort
- what you are doing is just playing with words. you can program to display a
time on a watch running Python inside - but you probably would have to
research for years before coming up with a reliable and usable mechanical
watch - not to mention the advanced features at display here.

~~~
justinjlynn
Playing with words is the point, in this case. The distinctions between art
and engineering are as real as the words we use to describe them.

------
eps
There's one complication that I've seen in another watch and that puzzles me a
lot.

On its back this watch has sunrise/sunset times. These times are derived from
a so-called sunrise equation [1] which depends on the day of the year _and_
the latitude, and is expressed via trigonometry functions.

I can see how this can be translated into some sort of irregularly shaped
gear(s) if there were a single variable (the day of the year), but I have no
idea how one could also allow for different latitudes.

Does anyone know or care to guess?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunrise_equation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunrise_equation)

~~~
xtagon
I don't know what watch you have seen, but here is an explanation of a similar
watch: [http://newatlas.com/krayon-everywhere-watch-sunrise-
sunset/5...](http://newatlas.com/krayon-everywhere-watch-sunrise-
sunset/50150/)

TL;DR: The factors such as latitude are user-programmable.

~~~
seedie
This clock is really impressive, but it took me nearly 10 minutes to find out
what time it is on the pictures. The graphical display of sunrise and sunset
on the other hand is genius.

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blubb-fish
A mechanical watch is a beautiful little creature living on my arm. I love to
take off my automatic Seiko and enjoy looking at the pulsating balance wheel
through the transparent back. It reminds me of a heart beating. If I don't
feed it enough by moving my arm it goes into sleep. Then I have to wake it up
by shaking it or by operating the manual wind.

I am a reasonable person - I wouldn't spend excessive amount of money on a
watch. Mine did cost 300 Euro - that's the right price and you can get a very
nice one if you look around. I even took the hassle of importing it from
Japan.

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twiceaday
Isn't the complexity here trivial when compared to the complexity of the cpu
in smart watches?

~~~
gerdesj
By smart watch I take it you mean one of those gas guzzling things that
doesn't quite manage to do anything particularly useful that the phone you
probably carry as well does rather better 8)

I strapped a Citizen Eco watch on my wrist about 12 years ago. It charges
itself via four solar panels behind the hands - they simply look black. The
only pains are I have to do BST/GMT adjustments and worst of all: "30 days
hath September ..." Oh, and its not water proof. The time keeping is good
enough.

I am surrounded by more ntp daemons than you can shake a stick at if I need
millisecond accuracy, eg this laptop:

$ ntpq -p remote refid st t when poll reach delay offset jitter
==============================================================================
+server1.webster 193.190.230.65 2 u 237 256 377 15.144 0.081 0.713
*85.199.214.100 .GPS. 1 u 11 64 377 12.541 -1.346 0.698 -ntp3.ds.network
203.135.184.123 2 u 196 256 377 334.847 4.998 23.715 +babbage.betadom
80.94.65.10 2 u 177 256 377 10.992 -0.505 1.023

Tut! one of the servers I'm using is showing an offset of nearly 5ms but it's
OK: that system has a - against it.

In a few days time I will be firing up a new member for the general ntp
pool(s). I've been using it for many years and its time to give back. I'll be
following this guide: [https://www.ntpsec.org/white-
papers/stratum-1-microserver-ho...](https://www.ntpsec.org/white-
papers/stratum-1-microserver-howto/) Depending on how that goes, I may be able
to fire up quite a lot of them scattered across the UK. Some internet links I
look after are only for failover and are largely idle most of the time.

~~~
kqr
> doesn't quite manage to do anything particularly useful that the phone you
> probably carry as well does rather better

I don't have a full fledged smartwatch, but a running watch with some smart
features. Its killer feature is not to pretend to be a phone. It's much
simpler than that. Its receiving (only high priority) notifications on my
wrist. Incredibly convenient when I can't pick up my phone.

Edit: apparently my phone strongly prefers "it's" over "its".

~~~
Semaphor
> apparently my phone strongly prefers "it's" over "its".

Wanna swap phones? Mine always writes "its" which I almost never want -.-

------
amelius
I chose the wrong profession.

Whenever I write complex code, it is worth less instead of more.

~~~
BoorishBears
I'm sure on the level where it counts these wristwatch makers/designers are
rewarded for achieving their goal in the least complex way.

In the same way, when viewed at from a high enough level, developers are
generally paid more as the systems they work on get more complex

~~~
damnfine
But you don't "see the gears behind the code turn". I remember fondly the old
computers that flashed their memory at you, floppy access, or later memory
addresses, then later cpu and hdd activity, then just hdd, and now nothing.
The feedback, the pulse, of our devices is now so small to be hidden entirely.
I find I prefer physical switches and buttons over virtual "smart" buttons
almost every time. I miss knowing what a button does without having to examine
software. These watches speak to that in a way even good code can not (and I
can enjoy some good code). Its simply less abstracted.

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robertlagrant
Awesome watch. But they are anachronistic, if you'll pardon the pun. Any $0.50
quartz watch keeps better time!

~~~
LeoPanthera
I don't think anyone would buy a watch like this because they wanted to keep
accurate time.

There are in fact high-end luxury watches that keep unusually accurate time. I
own one - an Omega Speedmaster Skywalker X-33. It has a thermocompensated
quartz movement (TCXO) and so is accurate to ~10 seconds a year, compared to
the ~15 seconds a month of a normal quartz movement.

~~~
dopeboy
Genuinely curious (after looking up the price tag) - do you think the accuracy
justifies the cost?

~~~
LeoPanthera
The accuracy is not the only reason I bought it, it's a very capable
timepiece, but it surely helps. During the eclipse I used it to get 60 second
warnings of the start and end of totality.

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jchanimal
The Clock of the Long Now has a gear machined to match the earth's 26k year
precession cycle:
[http://longnow.org/clock/prototype1/](http://longnow.org/clock/prototype1/)

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yourapostasy
This watch reminds me a lot of the Antikythera mechanism [1]; exquisite
mechanical engineering and design, most advanced materials science of the day,
implementing the astronomical theory of the day, but never to be disseminated
as a mass-manufactured product. If one of these watches survives a couple
thousand years, then if our future descendants guess (like we did for the
Antikythera) that it was for a wealthy patron, then they'll be right.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism)

~~~
PoachedSausage
Yet those future archaeologists will be really confused when they find
landfill sites full of even more complex smart phones and other electronics.

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dheera
Excuse me if I'm ignorant; I get that it's a complicated watch but how are
complications a countable concept? They list "57 complications". If I just
added a 6 gears to the mechanism that do nothing, does that make it 63
complications? If I change the circle to a complicated shape with 25 vertices,
is that counted as one complication or 25 complications upon the simplicity of
the circle? If I tell time in binary, how do you count the added complexity?

~~~
kraig
a complication is each thing the watch does, so a date would be a
complication, a moon phase, etc

~~~
dheera
Why don't they just call it a feature?

~~~
chadash
Complication is just a watchmaking term for what others might call features

~~~
wbl
A pretty accurate one in software also.

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userbinator
As someone with a natural attraction to stuff like this, it would be very
interesting to see a parts diagram or even a service manual for one of these.

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samstave
Where exactly does one go to school to be a watchmaker?

Is there a place to read up on gear ratios/design patterns for complications,
and for linking complications together to form the mechanical watch?

Is there a watch designing application that would allow you to drop in a
complication (however simple) and learn how all the gears perform the
calculations needed for a complication?

I find elite watch designers to be fascinating.

Edit:

Never-mind this looks amazing and was posted lower in the thread:

[http://www.clickspringprojects.com/](http://www.clickspringprojects.com/)

~~~
wahern

      Where exactly does one go to school to be a watchmaker?
    

Here's a fun interview with Anthrax guitarist Dan Spitz, a master watchmaker:
[https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/interview-meet-dan-
spitz-a...](https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/interview-meet-dan-spitz-
anthrax-guitarist-turned-master-watchmaker)

The article mentions the Bulova School (closed since 1993 according to
Wikipedia), and WOSTEP.

------
TheAdamAndChe
It's a neat watch, but the display of opulence is rather disgusting. There are
people literally starving, social mobility is declining, yet there are people
willing to spend enough money that most people could retire for life for a
status symbol. That's money that could be invested in the local economy to
build industries and create opportunities for the people in the area, yet
they've chosen instead to buy a shiny toy.

The disconnect between rich and poor must be real, or else there wouldn't be a
market for such things.

~~~
Mikeb85
Couldn't this be argument be taken further? There's starving people, why do we
spend money on Tesla autos? There's starving people, why do we take vacation
instead of sending them money? And so on...

> That's money that could be invested in the local economy to build industries
> and create opportunities for the people in the area, yet they've chosen
> instead to buy a shiny toy.

They're literally supporting the watch industry, which does employ people, and
is part of a local economy. Watchmakers are artisans, and deserve to be paid
for their craft.

~~~
Joeri
Well, obviously the line of disgusting opulence is drawn a bit higher up the
food chain than us, for whatever definition of us you like. ;)

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DontSueMeBro
Are the photos swapped? The face of the watch is shown with a caption
describing the back.

~~~
emag
Think of it as double-sided. The back hosts many of the complications, since
you can't display everything on the single "main" face.

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ranit
Fascinating. The article mentions that they use some kind of software to help
with the design. I wonder who developed it, is it in house, or there are
companies in this niche market?

~~~
IronBacon
I can only make a wild guess, but when I hear of constraints I immediately
think about linear programming, so I suppose they used some general purpose
tool like GLPK (GNU Linear Programming Kit) or a commercial equivalent.

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qrbLPHiKpiux
I read this article, and comments in this thread, in the voice of Archie
Luxury. A previous watch snob on YouTube, his videos are hilarious.

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unexistance
it seems modern smartphone/watch still can't compete with most
complications[0]... Or am I not looking hard enough?

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complication_(horology)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complication_\(horology\))

~~~
microcolonel
Given that a modern smartwatch has on the order of millions of times as many
components, arranged very close to the theoretical physical limits of the
materials, I don't know how any watchmaker could compete with a silicon
lithographer on complexity.

Aside: I don't really care for either smartwatches or complex mechanical
watches. I want my wristwatch to tell time, and all else being equal, to look
good on my skin along with clothing I wear. To me, complexity should drive
function and performance, and on that front, nothing competes with a quartz
watch with a standard battery (or solid electromechanical drive) in a hand-
opening case.

~~~
kwhitefoot
Complexity and complication are not the same thing.

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urza
I want something like this, beautifully designed, as gadget for my Always On
Display.

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SergeAx
Maaan, it's so XX century)

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fairpx
There are a couple of fantastic documentaries that follow some high level
wristwatches craftsmen. It's absolutely amazing to see the dedication,
precision and care they put into the tiniest of details.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
On a larger scale, you have Clickspring on Youtube who does wall clock
machining. He's doing a series now on building the Antikythera mechanism. Even
that's bloody impressive; then you can imagine squeezing the same into a
45x45x10 mm cylindre...

[http://www.clickspringprojects.com](http://www.clickspringprojects.com)

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jmclnx
Awesome, anyone want to buy me a Birthday present :)

