I recently fell down the mechanical watch rabbit hole, and in doing so inadvertently discovered that maps and watches have a long history with each other. It’s a relationship that started long before smart watches brought detailed maps and turn-by-turn directions to our wrists. In this post I’ll explore some of the ways that mechanical, quartz and digital watches have incorporated maps into their interfaces, or turned themselves into mapping and navigation tools, without ever connecting to a GPS satellite or loading Google Maps. It’s old school, but the way a paper map is old school, which is to say: objectively capable of doing fewer things, but still not nothing, and in some cases quite impressive given the tech involved.
What follows is a roundup of the kinds of watches that have something to do something with maps. I’ll proceed very, very roughly from least to most expensive—the cheapest watches running somewhere around $30, the most expensive rather eye-wateringly more than that—with a couple of representative examples from each category. This won’t be comprehensive or exhaustive; obsessive watch nerds will no doubt be able to come up with a lot more examples.
Continue reading “Maps and Watches”