Compare watches and chronographs

Watch lovers know about the unusu­al and use­ful func­tion of the chrono­graph and use it with plea­sure. Most do not real­ly under­stand what is the dif­fer­ence between a watch and a sim­i­lar mech­a­nism. Our experts will talk about the fea­tures of this unusu­al device, the dif­fer­ences in watch­es and chrono­graphs, and give a strict assess­ment of its func­tion­al­i­ty.

Chronograph in watches: occurrence, device

Many unini­ti­at­ed watch­mak­ers some­times con­fuse “chrono­graph” with “chronome­ter” because of the sim­i­lar­i­ty in the name, but in fact they have com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent pur­pos­es. The chrono­graph used in the watch is a mech­a­nism that mea­sures small time inter­vals on the prin­ci­ple of a stop­watch, but, unlike the lat­ter, it does not affect the oper­a­tion of the watch and serves as a use­ful addi­tion to its main func­tion.

The first chrono­graphs, cre­at­ed in the 19th cen­tu­ry, were not func­tion­al watch com­po­nents. These were sep­a­rate devices that not only fixed time inter­vals, but also record­ed the result obtained with an ink nee­dle in the form of dots on the dial.

It was only at the begin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry that the world was pre­sent­ed with the first watch mod­el with a chrono­graph in its cur­rent mean­ing: the prog­en­i­tor of mod­ern watch prod­ucts was intend­ed for pilots of the then young avi­a­tion indus­try. But then the mech­a­nism in ques­tion only remote­ly resem­bled a mod­ern device — it had only one but­ton that per­formed all actions at once (start, stop, reset the result).

What exact­ly is a chrono­graph? There are two main vari­ants of the mech­a­nism used in this device:

1. with a col­umn wheel — the use of such a mech­a­nism is rather a trib­ute to tra­di­tions than func­tion­al expe­di­en­cy. The essence of the work is the use of spe­cial columns that stand at right angles to the gear and cre­ate a ful­crum. The lever that turns on the chrono­graph, when it hits the columns, acti­vates the rota­tion of the wheel;

2. cam — the mech­a­nism uses a cam con­nect­ed by switch­es, and includes cer­tain levers when using a chronome­ter.

As for the design fea­tures of the chrono­graph, it can be rep­re­sent­ed as a con­stituent com­po­nent of a wrist watch, built into its mech­a­nism, or as a mod­u­lar sys­tem, built into the watch mech­a­nism sep­a­rate­ly. The first option is expen­sive and time-con­sum­ing, but at the same time it uses the inter­nal space of the watch more effi­cient­ly. The sec­ond option is gen­er­al­ly more effi­cient and less expen­sive to pro­duce. By the way, the mod­u­lar sys­tem allows you to put a chrono­graph even in a quartz watch, which is quite orig­i­nal.

Functionality and use of the chronograph

At one time, chrono­graphs were quite pop­u­lar in pro­fes­sion­al sports, because they made it pos­si­ble to quick­ly and accu­rate­ly mea­sure the result of train­ing. Not with­out appli­ca­tion in aero­nau­tics: before the advent of chrono­graphs, all nav­i­ga­tion was car­ried out exclu­sive­ly by the clock and com­pass, and this sim­ple and con­ve­nient device became a kind of know-how of its time.

To make fly­ing more con­ve­nient for pilots, a fly-back option has been cre­at­ed in the prod­uct design, which allows time count­ing to begin after zero­ing. This was the best option in the case of a flight in a clear­ly defined direc­tion, then a sharp change in cor­ri­dor and again return­ing to flight for a giv­en time inter­val.

Mod­ern chrono­graph watch mod­els are rather a trib­ute to tra­di­tions and are a styl­ish and, most impor­tant­ly, orig­i­nal acces­so­ry. Although for some, the aes­thet­ic option does not in the least exceed the func­tion­al com­po­nent in impor­tance. Ana­log chrono­graph indi­ca­tors in the watch give it orig­i­nal­i­ty and some “com­plex­i­ty”.

ON A NOTE. Chronome­ters are mechan­i­cal and quartz type. When choos­ing the right option, it is worth remem­ber­ing that the quartz crys­tal wears out and “ages” over time, its accu­ra­cy grad­u­al­ly decreas­es.

Speak­ing of real chronome­ters in wrist­watch­es, one can­not fail to note the fact that a qual­i­ty prod­uct under­goes manda­to­ry test­ing at the COSC Chronom­e­try Insti­tute (Switzer­land). Upon pass­ing the test, the sam­ple receives the appro­pri­ate cer­tifi­cate. Such prod­ucts are much more expen­sive than non-cer­ti­fied “broth­ers”.

Of course, com­pared to any mod­el of stan­dard watch­es, the chrono­graph has more func­tion­al­i­ty. He is able to solve sev­er­al prob­lems at once:

1. Deter­min­ing the speed of trans­port — the pres­ence of a tachy­met­ric scale allows you to cal­cu­late the speed of a mov­ing train, car, etc.;

2. Pulse mea­sure­ment is a par­tic­u­lar­ly pop­u­lar option among ath­letes — the pres­ence of a spe­cial scale allows you to mea­sure heart rate;

3. Cal­cu­la­tion of the dis­tance to the select­ed object — if you have a teleme­ter, you can deter­mine the dis­tance even to light­ning;

4. Tide con­trol — the device allows, being on the ground, to cal­cu­late the date of high / low tide;

5. Imple­men­ta­tion of math­e­mat­i­cal oper­a­tions — in the pres­ence of a log­a­rith­mic scale;

6. Fix­ing the dura­tion of a cer­tain event — for exam­ple, any match, tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion, etc.

Comparative characteristics

In order to clear­ly demon­strate the dif­fer­ence between a watch and a chrono­graph, our experts have com­piled a detailed com­par­i­son table that includes the fea­tures of both devices.