Among the way too many watches I’ve owned over the years, one complication is over-represented. I’ve had it in three Vulcain Crickets, a Girard-Perregaux Traveller II GMT, an Eterna 1948 Réveil and a JLC Memovox Master Compressor, among others. The mechanical alarm.
A little hammer hits a ring at a ridiculously fast speed, resonating through the caseback. To wind it, there’s usually a dedicated crown – on Vulcain, it’s a bit different: you wind the main crown in a different direction. Then, to set the alarm, you either press or pull out the dedicated crown for the alarm to be active, and the other way around to deactivate it.
Beyond the impressive horological feat and the satisfying haptics, I’ve become drawn to mechanical alarm watches from a purely utilitarian perspective. Oh, I can hear you already, as clearly as I heard my Memovox when it pulled me out of bed at 6.30 am today. What about my phone? What about a Casio or a T-Touch electronic alarm? What about a bedside alarm? You’d be surprised. The mechanical wristwatch alarm still has many pragmatic benefits, even in 2025. In fact, it’s the traditional watch complication that is the most useful as an actual tool in my life.
Versus bedside
So why not just use a bedside alarm? Don’t get me started. I love bedside alarms and in fact am surprised at the lack of quality offerings for an object that is both a daily utility and decoration of the most intimate part of the home. Stating the obvious but – as for any clock versus watch discussion – here it’s all about on-the-go access. With you when you want that quick snooze (I’m a near-daily napper – just about anywhere I end up after lunch), with you when you need a reminder, and, most importantly, with you when you didn’t know you were going to need it.
There’s a great quote in an amazing book – I can’t remember the author; oh wait it was me – that I’ll roughly translate here (original is in French). The main character – a watch collector – says having the alarm from his vintage Cricket always available on his wrist, there to wake him up from any sleep, planned or impromptu, “almost felt like having insurance against death”.
Lyndon Johnson notoriously made his Vulcain Crickets – he had a few, and also gave them as state gifts – go off in the middle of meetings, as a pretext to excuse himself. The startling sound apparently drove the Secret Service crazy, regularly triggering their detonation-response protocols.
In my personal experience, the real value was first felt when I had kids in young age. As they’d wake up during the night, I’d occasionally go and lie with them until they’d fall back asleep. But I was always worried about not waking up in time for work. Having the alarm always come with me, rather than stay on my beside, gave me peace of mind (and also a little revenge when it went off in my toddler’s ear – just kidding, I think).
Versus phone
Your phone (or tablet, smartwatch) is a great alarm… For as long as it’s charged, or charging. In other words, when things go according to plan. But what about when they don’t? What if you don’t have access to a socket, or there’s an outage? What if you need to stay an exta few hours on the go, with nowhere to charge, or nothing to charge with? Sure, a mechanical alarm, like any other device, can break down. But from an energy perspective, it’s all sorted. All you need to do is wind it, and it’ll wake you up, or remind you of whatever you could have otherwise let slip.
Versus electronic alarm watches
While battery or solar powered quartz watches don’t last forever unless their power source is renewed, they do last a few years and give you enough warning when they’re running out of juice. In other words, what I said above regarding the phone doesn’t apply here. So why then are mechanical alarm watches superior tools by my book to their electronic counterparts?
It’s all about ergonomics. At one point, I was all-in on electronic alarm watches. That was when I’d discovered an incredibly useful function a small subset of them offer: vibration. Instead of an annoying beep that either wakes up everyone around you or no one at all, the vibration gives the perfect impulse to get you up without disturbing your partner – like on a smartwatch, but without the battery limitation. Even better, if you go for a quick snooze with headphones on – on the train for instance – the alarm will wake you just fine. For that reason, I bought three distinct watches with a vibrating alarm over the years: a Certina DS Multi-8, a Casio W-735H-1AV (such a sexy name) and a Tissot T-Touch Solar Connect.
Once set, those work amazing. So gentle and effective. The issue is setting them. Click click. Beep beep. Click. Beep. Beep. Click. Even when super fast and pretty intuitive, like on the T-Touch Solar, it’s a time consuming and generally just annoying process. Why annoying? Hard to pinpoint exactly but there’s something about having the head and the fingers twisted in all sorts of unnatural positions, combined with generally poor haptics (although the T-Touch is an exception here), that makes it an underwhelming experience at best. Look, there’s a reason why some electronic watches and all smartwatches give you the option to set your alarm directly from the phone.. which kinda defeats the purpose – at least for the various circumstances, as discussed above, when the phone can’t be counted on.
The mechanical alarm, on the other hand, is all intuition and ergonomics. The general principle is: set the alarm by pulling out a crown and moving a hand on the designated time – or, like on the Memovox above, by having an arrow point at it. Not only is that easily done – in a day of dark geekiness I’d actually measured versus a digital watch and it was something like 3x faster – but it also means that in case of doubt, the set time is easily available at a glance throughout the day. No click, no beep.
Potential drawbacks
For completeness, honesty and transparency – basically my middle names right? 😇- I must admit to a few downsides using a mechanical watch as an alarm. Not deal breakers, but occasional annoyances worth mentioning. I’ll also mention here some specificities or misconceptions that might be an issue for some, but have not been for me.
Half-day
Perhaps the most frustrating limitation is that your typical mechanical alarm watch can only be set over a period of twelve hours. That means that if it’s 6 pm and you want to set the watch for 7 am, well, you can’t. If you do, it will ring an hour later. What you can do is pre-set the alarm for that time but leave the pusher in, or out – depending on the model – until you’re within the twelve hour zone. Sub-optimal.
In the dark
Another disadvantage of the mechanical alarm versus electronic watches is setting the time in the dark. Some models may have sufficient lume on the alarm hand, but it’ll never be a straightforward process. You’re probably wondering: do you really need to set the alarm in the dark? Isn’t the whole point that you set your alarm while still awake, before switching the lights off? Personally, there have been a few times when, already in bed, I wanted to change the time of my alarm. Typically, after a rough night, to grant myself an extra half hour or so. With a mechanical alarm, that meant switching the light on, making it a little bit harder to fall back asleep.
What about precision?
A regular forum topic when it comes to mechanical alarms is precision. In my experience, it’s pretty easy to get what you need within a range of five minutes. So while it doesn’t work for timing eggs, that’s absolutely fine for a wake-up or a reminder throughout the day.
Under the covers
Don’t get too excited, nothing sexual here. A mechanical alarm will work great on the bedside, especially if it’s made of wood, amplifying the sound. But if, like me, you like to keep it strapped to the wrist, it may not always wake you up for a simple, physical reason: while just a sheet is usual fine, a thicker quilt or blanket is likely to muffle the sound.
In my experience, this issue has come in different levels and flavors. Some watches – most notably, in my case, the Eterna Réveil – are strongly felt vibrating on the wrist, and will always wake me. The different Memovox I’ve had usually make a much nicer sound, but it’s more easily muffled. Ultimately, I’ve also found this to depend a lot on how tired or deep into my sleep cycle I am: on most days, the Memovox under the covers will do just fine. But not always.
A quick word about that Eterna, while I’m at it, because it’s story is super cool. In 2016, the brand released a one-shot production of 70 alarm watches. Why 70? Because that’s the number of A. Schild alarm movements they – allegedly – randomly found in their archives, from the 1950s back when AS – the main supplier of alarm movements to the industry at that time – was part of Eterna. As you may know, Eterna used to be a major movement maker, including, under its umbrella, what later became ETA.
Manual winding
Let’s make this one easy: if you don’t see manually winding a watch as a moment of meditative, mechanical, almost intimate haptic pleasure, well: a) you’re probably a lot more mentally sane than I am and b) the mechanical alarm watch likely isn’t for you. Even on automatic mechanical alarm watches, the alarm itself must be manually wound – only the timekeeping function will self-charge. For many, that’s a drawback. For me, it’s part of the fun. That brings me to my last point.
The ultimate reason
I tried above to provide a fairly rational, factual overview of the benefits of a mechanical wristwatch in today’s day and age. And I insist on that because too often we’re quick to say “who needs a watch when you have a phone?” I strongly disagree with that. Watches are a lot more convenient to tell the time, for a bunch of reasons. What we don’t need are fancy mechanical watches. Although, as I tried to explain, in the case of the alarm, there actually are good reasons to want one, and a certain level of quality and reliability – meaning getting one from a reputable maker – are needed for it to work as intended.
Ultimately though, no matter how much I’d like to deny it sometimes, the pleasure element is key. Whether it’s narcissistic pleasure – watch collecting at its worse? – or admiration for the intricate work and skills behind the piece – watch collecting at its best? – it’s always going to be about more than function. I remember a close friend, in New York, with deep pockets. He likes watches but not in a rabbit-hole geeky way like many of us. So, to keep it safe and simple, he only collects Rolex and Patek. But when I showed him one day a Vulcain 50s President Cricket, he developed a sudden urge for one. It’s just super neat and satisfying.
What about you? Am I the only one here to actually use a mechanical alarm on a regular basis? If not, please share your personal experience in the comments section below, I’d love to read it about it and am sure others would too.
