Timekeeping and sporting activities have gone hand in hand for centuries, but in the modern era sports watches have become essential adjuncts to any number of sports. This evolution from essentially passive elements used by officials for competitive timekeeping purpose to active sporting gear began in the alpine mountaineering days of the early twentieth century.
The traditional analog watch-face, with its familiar arrangement of hands representing hours, minutes, and seconds, can be used without difficulty as a navigational aid. In addition, accurate knowledge of local time was vital to European alpine climbers, as the onset of nightfall brought a dramatic drop in temperature and could lead rapidly to an unpleasant death.
Analog precision watches, despite their venerable history, are ultimately subject to those same detrimental factors which dog all purely mechanical systems: wear, and vibration. A sort of arms race developed among Swiss watch manufacturers, with the finely manufactured gears and springs inside sports watches approaching microscopic tolerances. As a result, these beautiful machines gained a wide acceptance among athletes across the spectrum of sport.
With the advent of inexpensive, feature packed digital watches, the popularity and ubiquity of sports watches exploded into the broader consumer culture. The increased options available in each new generation of watches kept these venerable devices relevant in the world of fashion and sport.
The modern sports watch incorporates features as diverse as GPS receivers, chronometers that parse seconds to the thousandth part, memo and voice recording functions, and satellite updating current time. These incredible devices also feature a bedrock durability that allows them to be used in the most inhospitable of environments, from savage deserts to the depths of the sea.
Amazingly, despite a remarkable evolution that has changed sports watches in every way, the price of watches has fallen consistently from year to year, and from decade to decade.
The traditional analog watch-face, with its familiar arrangement of hands representing hours, minutes, and seconds, can be used without difficulty as a navigational aid. In addition, accurate knowledge of local time was vital to European alpine climbers, as the onset of nightfall brought a dramatic drop in temperature and could lead rapidly to an unpleasant death.
Analog precision watches, despite their venerable history, are ultimately subject to those same detrimental factors which dog all purely mechanical systems: wear, and vibration. A sort of arms race developed among Swiss watch manufacturers, with the finely manufactured gears and springs inside sports watches approaching microscopic tolerances. As a result, these beautiful machines gained a wide acceptance among athletes across the spectrum of sport.
With the advent of inexpensive, feature packed digital watches, the popularity and ubiquity of sports watches exploded into the broader consumer culture. The increased options available in each new generation of watches kept these venerable devices relevant in the world of fashion and sport.
The modern sports watch incorporates features as diverse as GPS receivers, chronometers that parse seconds to the thousandth part, memo and voice recording functions, and satellite updating current time. These incredible devices also feature a bedrock durability that allows them to be used in the most inhospitable of environments, from savage deserts to the depths of the sea.
Amazingly, despite a remarkable evolution that has changed sports watches in every way, the price of watches has fallen consistently from year to year, and from decade to decade.
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