All Watch Complications Explained in 16 Minutes

Watch Realist

Watch Realist

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Some of these watch complications cost more than a car and do things your phone does for free. This is what every one of them actually does, and why it costs what it costs, so you can read almost any dial on sight.

We go through all 18 in order, from the ones you'd genuinely use to the ones built purely to show off: the chronograph and tachymeter, power reserve, hacking seconds, GMT and world timer, the alarm, big date, annual calendar and perpetual calendar, the moonphase, the tourbillon, then the grail tier with the minute repeater, rattrapante split-seconds, jumping hour and retrograde, and finally the tool-watch hardware, dive and compass bezels and the helium escape valve. Mechanical watches, mostly, because doing all this with metal and springs is the hard part.