My boss is on the American West Coast, 9 hours behind. I travel fairly frequently for work, to his timezone, and others. I have a bit of a watch obsession and the GMT complication is fun and pretty fascinating. Basically, a perfect storm to own at least one such piece. But while I tried a few times, I never ended up keeping the watch.
Precisely because the use case is so relevant to me, I really wanted to make it work. GMT models I’ve owned include a Girard-Perregaux Traveler II GMT Alarm, a Citizen Promaster Eco-Drive GMT, a Glycine Airpilot Dual-Time, a Tissot Titanium GMT and, last but not least, a Rolex GMT Master II, in its Coke flavor. I also got a chance to take for a spin the Formex Stratos UTC. I greatly enjoyed all those watches, which are each excellent in their own right. And yet…
Legibility
The most normal explanation to why I gave up on GMTs is legibility. Stating the obvious. A watch is a small surface to tell time. If you try to double the “times told” on the same surface, well, it’ll be harder to read. Maybe it’s because I’m getting old, but on each of the GMTs I owned, I found that the additional timezone came at the expense of some other information I cared about, in particular the local time or the date. On the GMT Master II especially, I remember being frustrated when the GMT hand was under the cyclope, making the date hard to read.
A corollary to the legibility issue is how it impacts aesthetics. Not only is there a lot going on, but brands usually force the trait on some of the design elements to make all the information on the watch easier to process. Here again the most obvious example is on the Coke. While the duality of red and black on the bezel is part of the charm, I ended up finding the watch a bit clownish at times with the overwhelming bright color. As a side-note, I can imagine the so-called Bruce Wayne alleviating that specific issue.
Jet Lag
Now we’re venturing into a bit more personal – not to say weirder – territory. While the GMT is meant as the ultimate travel companion, I’ve actually found that it makes my jet lag sensation considerably worse. Even if I appreciate the convenience of being able to check time at home to know if it’s a good moment to call – dinner, homework, basketball pickup, etc. – it also constantly reminds me how my body should be feeling: tired despite the bright sun, awake despite the pitch dark.
At one point, I also tried to use the GMT when home, to know what time it was for my many colleagues 9 hours away. I found that pretty useful and less problematic: sufficiently anchored in my daily routine, I didn’t feel dragged into the second timezone the same way I do when I travel. But there was another problem, which brings me to my final point.
Motion Sickness
Yes, you read correctly. Motion sickness. GMTs give me motion sickness. Am I crazy? Maybe. But hear me out. A chronograph displays two different times in the same place – the actual time of day, along with whatever elapsed time is being measured. Same with an alarm watch, showing both the current time and the time at which the alarm is meant to go off. The GMT, on the other hand, shows two different times in two different places.
When my brain registers that, it gets confused. As if it wants to be in both places at the same time. That’s pretty much how regular motion sickness goes. There’s a gap between what your body is feeling and what your brain is able to compute. At least that’s how I’ve always interpreted it. And it’s certainly what the GMT does to my brain. In other words, GMT watches make me nauseous. It’s not the fact of knowing that the time is different elsewhere. It’s seeing it, on a really small surface. If I’m on the go and that small surface becomes wobbly, it makes it even worse.
Final thoughts
The main conclusion of all this is that I’m a really slow learner. How could it take me six GMT watches to realize they’re not for me? That’s pretty astounding. What can I say? I really wanted it to work. It certainly would make sense – as much as anything watch-related makes sense – in my daily life, not just traveling but even at home. But here I am, writing this in California as I prepare to head back to Zurich later today. My watch says it’s 9 am here. That’s all I need to know.
Great article. Thank you. I can relate to many of your points. I travel for a living, and my favorite feature of my Explorer II isn’t the GMT hand, but rather the jump hour hand.