Ulysse Nardin GMT Perpetual Experience Report
Using GMT Perpetual - Ergonomics:
a) Setting and use of perpetual calendar:
The nice thing about a perpetual calendar is that it usually doesn't need to be touched. All calendar indications are pre-programmed and require no human intervention - at least in theory.replica Ulysse Nardin GMT Perpetual
First, of course the watch has to go through the initial setup the first time it is worn. Then, whenever it stops for more than a day, it has to be reset, which might be the case, for example, when it's in safe storage for the holidays. Finally, there's the infamous February 2100, when the wheel's mechanical program failed before the Gregorian calendar.
So it's a good thing that a perpetual calendar watch makes these adjustments easier for the wearer. Similar to IWC's famous "Da Vinci", the GMT Perpetual can quickly set the calendar indication only through the crown, which is very convenient and simple:
The crown has two settings: the first winds the movement only. The second is used to quickly set the calendar indication, whether forward or backward, you can do whatever you want. If a forward setting is indicated, the mainspring is also wound, which makes turning the crown stiffer than turning it backwards without the mainspring being affected. Finally, the third position sets the hands (including the 24-hour hand) and the independent weekday, which comes into play in the 2100.
To set the watch after a period of inactivity, the wearer must follow these steps:
A little twist so there is some energy in the mainspring Use the third crown position to set the weekday to the day before you want. The hour hand should be on the lower half of the dial because, like most calendar watches, it shouldn't be set while the wheels are actually busy changing the date.Shopping replica watches
In the second crown position, all other calendar indications are set to the date before the actual date. Again in the third crown position, the hour hand turns forward until the correct day and time are displayed.
This may sound complicated, but after the first time, the process is very fast to manage.
However, whenever the calendar has to be adjusted backwards, the best moment for UN-32 comes. As mentioned above, all leverage-based perpetual contracts only work in one direction. If the owner makes the mistake of turning the calendar forward too much (which seems unlikely: the traditional calendar display via small hands and sub-dial can look a bit confusing, especially if combined with a chronograph), he only has Two options: either let the watch stop until the wrongly set date arrives, or let the watchmaker or even the manufacturer open it up and make a mechanical adjustment. In the dire circumstances of 2100, the first option won't even work at all; hope. A better option is offered by those watches that have individual correctors for all single indications, which allow each desired date to be written individually. However, having up to five extra holes in the case is not a good basis for making a sports watch with such a perpetual calendar movement.
A small downside not related to the perpetual calendar is the lack of a seconds hand. This appears to be a remnant of its origins as a chronograph movement. Many contemporary chronograph movements do not have a second hand, such as Zenith's El Primero or Piguet 118x. A trick well-known to users of these movements also applies to the GMT Perpetual: the movement can be stopped by applying slight pressure on the crown in a counterclockwise direction in the third position (time setting). If the watch has been synchronized with the time reference, release the crown, or give a soft clockwise pulse, to restart the movement immediately. With a little practice, this process can work well.replica Graham watches
However, I can't believe it should be difficult to integrate a simple hack second mechanism. This would be a welcome upgrade.
b) Using the GMT function:
All GMT watches on the market today can be divided into two categories. I named them "At Home" and "Foreign" watches. The first category obviously considers users, who stay at home but have communication partners who live in different time zones. Like other watches, the main hour hand can only be set by turning the minute hand around the dial. Only an additional 24-hour hand (or a similar rotating bezel) can set the hour beat independently. Therefore, the watch is best used at home, and the second time zone indicator can quickly show it's time anywhere else, not here.
Ulysse Nardin decided to create a truly "foreign" watch: the 24-hour hand was set together with the hour hand to keep track of the time at home. Whenever the wearer travels to another time zone, the quick setting changes the main hour hand, jumping forward or backward, so the time zone of the new position is quickly reflected on the dial without changing the minute hand and therefore losing accurate time. The 24-hour hand still shows the home time. Other brands have developed similar systems, but the hour hand is adjusted only by the crown. While this facilitates the use of a truly waterproof case, it is also less convenient, and the hour hand is often used in place of the quick-set date, further reducing comfort. The UN uses two pushers, one to advance the hour hand and the other to move it backwards. Of course, the date is fully coupled, so if the hour hand moves forward or backward at midnight, the calendar display changes accordingly. The whole mechanism is absolutely flawless, and it is a joy to have the hour hand spin on the dial. Just don't forget to remember the original location!
Originally, I was a little concerned about the unexpected change in time due to the protruding putter. However, these all require a well-defined pressure, and unintentional changes over time never occur. high quality replica watches
c) legibility:
The design of perpetual calendars seems to have changed considerably over the past two decades. In the beginning, the wearers of this watch liked to see its complications on the dial, with many slender hands and small sub-dials, sometimes even combined with chronograph indications. Up to three different indications, combined in a single sub-dial, are an ergonomic nightmare, similar to the triple-assign buttons on modern electronics. The other subdials simultaneously display all 48 months of a full four-year cycle.
More recently, permanent tables with clearer indications have been introduced with immediate success. Without a doubt, the most famous of these purely window-based perpetual calendars is the "Perpetual Ludwig", followed by the GMT Perpetual. The size of the windows makes it easy to read the display, however, except for weekdays and months, they suffer from the super-thin font used for the letters. Giving more weight to the strokes will immediately improve legibility without the need for a larger window.
Some reviewers have complained that the different date windows seem to be on the dial unexpectedly, making it difficult to read. Well, that does make some sense. However, the position of the windows is of course determined by a mechanism, so it is almost impossible to make any changes. Also, one has to pay attention to cultural differences between different countries: in Europe, the date is always read before the month, while in the US it is the other way around. For the European, once he trained his eyes to follow a strict but logical path on the dial, it was easy to read the GMT Perpetual's calendar display:
The blue hands provide very good contrast on the silver dial, so they can be clearly detected even in poor ambient light. A small problem is that the length difference in the slender hands isn't that great, so it might confuse them in poor lighting. However, it is not an instrument watch and I would never want to be without elegantly shaped hands.replica De Bethune watches
Unlike many other complicated watches, Ulysse Nardin developed this watch immediately with everyday practicality in mind. Good legibility at night is an important part of this ability. As I already pointed out in my review of the Marine Diver experience, Ulysse Nardin uses Super Luminova, a very fine-grained luminous substance, which ensures very good brightness throughout the night. Even the tips of the 24-hour hands are illuminated.
d) Wearing comfort:
The watch itself is neither very heavy nor too large, with a diameter of 38.5mm. There are no sharp edges on the lugs and it is very comfortable to wear on the wrist.
The thickened strap is a little stiff at first, but after a few days, it follows the contours of the wrist. However, the original problem was that I had on deployment buckles. It's quite long and has a very distinctive curve at the hinge end.
This will allow the clasp to fit the wrist. Due to my wider wrists, the clasp didn't wrap around my wrist, causing the curve to dig painfully into my skin. After a few days of discomfort, I visited my dealer and asked him to replace the buckle with a standard buckle. Instead, he solved the problem entirely with a trick: he just swapped the two strap sections from their lug holders. Typically, the strap is installed so that the closure direction of the clasp starts at the 6 o'clock position of the watch. For wider wrists it is usually best to close the clasp from the 12 o'clock position. After a quick procedure, the clasp is very comfortable to wear.
7. Accuracy:
As anyone familiar with my comments knows, I'm not too concerned about accuracy. Long ago, the days of me filling out pages with accuracy protocols for each location and temperature were over, and I got a very practical approach: I don't measure accuracy in seconds per day, but in seconds per day Weeks in minutes. The reasoning behind this is that a one-minute deviation is my personal tolerance in everyday use. If I miss my bus because of that minute, it's time to reset the watch again. So all I do is check my watch against the radio-controlled clock every now and then, and simply count how many weeks it takes to turn them off for a minute. Two weeks of accuracy per minute, roughly equivalent to an error of four seconds per day, is perfectly tolerable for me. The GMT Perpetual doesn't give any reason for trouble, as it takes about four weeks to hit the one-minute limit. So it requires 12 corrective interventions per year, which is a very good value. online replica watches
Why is there no moon phase?
A distinctive component of almost all perpetual calendars is the display of the current moon phase. So many people miss this indication on the Perpetual. Besides the simpler reason that the mechanism might not provide enough free space to accommodate an additional moon phase display, there is a more philosophical reason behind the lack of astronomical indications: it doesn't fit into a digital system.
Let's not forget the personality of Dr. Ludwig Oechslin, the man behind the GMT Perpetual: an academic, professor of the history of technology. He has studied philosophy, physics, astronomy, archaeology, history, art history, classical languages. The three astronomical watches in the "Trilogy of Time" series he invented for Ulysse Nardin, as well as the magnificent Teller Clock in Zurich, embody his personal philosophical concepts about the universe and man's place in it. In the context of cosmic motion, humans try to measure and classify. However, the calendar system that these efforts evolved into was not based on a continuous flow of time, but rather binary.
To explain this, allow me to make some simple comparisons: in our language we only have "today" or "tomorrow", but not "today's halfway through" or "almost tomorrow". In our calendar, at 23:59:59 we still have "today, the 13th" - eg. Just a second later, we have the 14th. Until the last second of this year, it was still "this year". One second later, it's "next year" and will last 365 days. The real world in the universe is different: Earth's path around the sun is a steady motion. The human calendar is like an effort to digitize an analog signal: true duplication is impossible, decomposition into 0s and 1s doesn't show all the quarts, halves, which are actually part of "time" as a cosmological concept.
Ludwig Oechslin's "Trilogy of Time" has no date display. These dates will be odd elements in a display based on continuous astronomical movements. From this point of view, the GMT Perpetual is the perfect match: the "trilogy" shows the cosmic calendar, while the perpetual calendar depicts the human calendar; strict, rigid, binary. A moon phase display would ruin the whole concept, like a date window on a planetarium.
Personally, I hope that someday Ulysse Nardin will offer a "calendar" set consisting of a planetarium and a GMT Perpetual, so both aspects of time, whether physically manufactured or artificial, are included in one exclusive set .replica Zenith Pilot watches