Phases of the moon? Phases of Venus? No—phases of time! It’s all about counting phases. (But don’t worry–you won’t have to take off your shoes and socks!) In fact, everything on the dial is a phase! Let’s get started.
At any given point in time, the dial will display 2 subdials: one centrally placed for hours, the other peripherally placed for minutes. (See diagrams at bottom of page.) There is no seconds indicator.
Let’s take hours first. The sequence of subdials below indicates the hour. It’s fairly self-explanatory. The orientation of the phases changes from the 12 o’clock, to the 3 o’clock, to the 6 o’clock, and to the 9-o’clock position. It is imperative to realize that this orientation is determined by the position of the first displayed segment, which is a “half-moon.”
Minutes, thankfully, are a bit simpler The subdial is not stationary, but moves around the dial every 5 minutes. It’s position indicates the minutes in a conventional way. This, however, begs the question: What if it is 4:36 or 9:58? (There is no AM/PM indicator.) How are minutes determined between the 5-minute segments? Glad you asked. The sequence of subdials below indicates minutes that must be added.
As you can see, I have chosen vibrant colors as phase segments. (Let the wrist “dazzle”!) The watch display is constantly on (to dazzle onlookers as well as your wrist), and the case necessarily large (50-52 mm in diameter) to comfortably accommodate the central (hour) and revolving (minute) subdials.
Below are two image of the watch, with two time setting. Can you guess the time before looking at the times listed below the watch?
whacky whatch 