What is an analogue watch and how does it differ from a digital one?
Wristwatches have long been an important part of fashion. Just as clothing fashions have changed over the centuries, so have watch fashions. Watches have kept up with the times, but their main function remains the same: telling the time.
Humanity has made a huge leap forward over the past century, creating countless digital solutions. Digital watches are therefore often a natural part of everyday life. Yet the analogue watch remains the most classic form of wristwatch. In this article, we take a closer look at exactly what an analogue watch is.
How do you recognise an analogue watch?
It is very simple! The main difference from a digital watch is that two or three rotating hands show the time instead of a digital display: an hour hand, a minute hand and often a seconds hand. An analogue watch is often simply called a traditional watch. Although digital watches have taken the world by storm, analogue versions remain widely used today.
Analogue watch hands move either in steps, with the seconds hand ticking once a second on most quartz watches, or smoothly on mechanical and automatic watches. The hour hand is usually shorter and wider than the minute hand. Analogue display describes only how time is shown, not the movement: a watch with hands can have a quartz or mechanical movement, including an automatic one. A digital watch shows the time in digits. Accuracy, power source and battery life depend on the specific model.
More about quartz movements
Most modern watches with hands are quartz watches. A battery supplies a quartz watch with electrical energy. The electronics use the regular vibrations of a quartz crystal to determine time intervals. In an analogue quartz watch, this controls a motor that moves the hands. A light-powered quartz watch uses a photovoltaic cell to collect energy and stores it in a rechargeable battery.
A quartz watch typically gains or loses only a few seconds per week, and its battery usually lasts a couple of years, depending on the model and functions. Read more about the differences between quartz, automatic and solar-powered watches in the article automatic, quartz or solar power – what is the difference?
Different analogue watch designs
Analogue watch designs also vary in their dial markings. You can choose watches with Arabic or Roman numerals. Watches also vary in how many numbers appear on the dial. Some watches mark all 12 hours with numbers. It is also common for analogue watches to show only 3, 6, 9 and 12 as numbers, with the others replaced by marks. Watches with only the 6 and 12 shown as numerals are just as common.
Smaller divisions between the hour markers help you read the minutes. On watches where all or some hour numbers are replaced by marks, the hour markers are always larger, while minute markers are finer and shorter.
Analogue or digital watch?
The most obvious difference between analogue and digital watches is how they display the time. On an analogue watch, you read the time from the hands’ position; a digital watch shows digits on a display, usually an LCD.
An analogue dial usually follows a 12-hour format, while digital watches generally let you choose between 12- and 24-hour formats. Accuracy and battery life do not depend on whether time is shown by hands or digits: a digital quartz watch is as accurate as an analogue quartz watch, while a mechanical watch is less accurate than either. Many watches, such as those in the Casio G-Shock GA-2100 series, have analogue and digital displays together.
Additional analogue watch features
Although a classic analogue watch may seem behind the times, this is not the case. An analogue watch can have many additional functions. For example, a GMT function lets you track two time zones at once. Moon-phase and date displays and a chronograph are other examples of analogue watch functions.
