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A watch bezel is the ring that surrounds the face of the watch and holds the crystal in place. The bezel can be used for decorative or functional purposes. When it comes to ladies watches, it is fairly common to see diamonds, rubies, sapphires, or emeralds on the bezels of these watches. There are even a lot of watch manufacturers that produce mens watches with bezels that have diamonds on them. Girard-Perregaux and DeWitt are such manufacturers that do so. The Girard-Perregaux Opera One and The DeWitt Tourbillon Mysterieux are good examples of jeweled mens watch bezels. Most of the time bezels are more functional then fashion. Here are a few ways that bezels are functional on some watches:
Time Measurement
Watches such as the Omega Seamaster 300 M Chrono Diver have a either a uni-direction or bi-directional rotation bezel. The bezel itself is numbered 0-60 minutes with an arrow marker at 0, some count down and some count up. If it is a count down bezel and you are going scuba diving and you have a total of 25 minutes of air in your tank, it’s pretty important that you know when you should start swimming to the surface. Lets say that it is 10:15am. To measure time with your bezel, simply turn the bezel so the 25 minute marker lines up with the minute hand on the watch dial. When the minute hand reaches zero on the bezel, your time is up. Or you may turn the bezel so that the zero marker is pointing to 10:40 (25 minutes later). Either way this is the same setting. If it is a count up bezel, rotate the bezel so the zero marker lines up with the minute hand and count off the minutes as time passes. When the minute hand reached 25 minutes on the bezel, your time is up.
Speed Measurement
On other watches such as Omega Speedmaster Professional you can use the bezel to help you compute speed based on travel time. To do so, start the chronograph function of the watch at a mile indicator. At the next mile indicator, the point on the scale that is adjacent to the second hand is your MPH speed. It is not limited to just MPH. If the distance traveled is 1 Kilometer, then it determines Kilometers per hour. The tachymeter simply projects units traveled per hour. May it be miles, kilometers, or even football fields. I hope this quick explanation has given you a better understanding of functional bezels. Once you get used to using these functions, they become second nature, so if you have a functional bezel, go play with it. I am sure once you get used to using it, you will use much more often.
