While there is certainly a case to be made for having a travel watch that is rugged enough to stand up to the hectic environments of airport security checkpoints and with enough water resistance to go for a quick swim, a GMT watch with a simple smooth bezel and a 24-hour scale printed upon its dial arguably lends itself to significantly greater aesthetic versatility. Even as someone who sometimes travels to do sporty outdoor things, I also frequently go on trips where I will need to put on a shirt with a collar and look relatively presentable at some point, and I always thought that it was slightly surprising that so many GMT watches embraced firmly sporty aesthetics, when the most active thing their owners will likely be doing while traveling is going on a day hike, lounging at the beach, or going for a quick swim in the hotel pool. While there is nothing wrong with this design and it is ultimately quite functional, having an external rotating bezel does commit the watch to having an inherently rather sporty or tool-oriented overall aesthetic. While Nodus has produced dual-time watches before that used traditional three-handed movements paired with rotating 12-hour bezels, the Nodus Sector GMT is the brand’s first proper four-handed GMT watch, and it offers versatile aesthetics, highly respectable specifications, and surprisingly good finishing - all at a very compelling price point that even comes in below what Seiko charges for its own budget-friendly GMT watch.Ī lot of brands follow Rolex’s core blueprint for their GMT watch designs, which consists of a highly sporty package that uses an external rotating bezel to contain the obligatory 24-hour scale. Based in Los Angeles, California, Nodus is one of my favorite small-scale independent brands currently operating at a price point below a thousand dollars. While the Seiko 5 GMT that first showcased this new caliber was certainly a noteworthy release, the bigger news was the actual movement itself, as it meant that many of the industry’s favorite small-scale independent brands would soon be able to create affordable GMT watches of their own, without having to opt for a costly Swiss caliber and forcing a higher price point. One of the bigger game-changers of 2022 was Seiko creating a proper GMT movement with independently adjustable hands for the masses.
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