It is a flat surface piece inside the housing and carries various indications. Often made of metal, but it can also be made of other materials, the dial is round or rectangular (it adapts to the shape of the case), and on it, you will find the different indications that a watch or clock displays, i.e.: hours, minutes, seconds, date or chronograph functions.
There is therefore a very wide variety of dials, in terms of their shapes, decorations, materials, or the indications they offer. Here are the most common dials in watchmaking:
- Aperture dial: in this type of dial, the time is displayed in apertures.
- Time zone dial: at a glance, it is possible to see the time that is on the whole planet.
- Dive dial: Allows you to have a dive time indicator or even a decompression stop time indicator
- 13-piece dial: composed of 12 enamelled cartridges for the hour and a central cartridge
- Calendar dial: provides indications such as day, date, week, month, year or moon phase
The different types of dials
Analogue display
On this type of model, the time is generally indicated by 3 hands: the hour hand, the minute hand, and the second hand (called the "second hand"). There are also watch models with only 2 hands, the hour hand and the minute hand.
The alphanumeric display
It indicates the time and date in the form of numbers and letters on the watch face. This display can be done by means of light-emitting diodes (LEDs), liquid crystals or small mobile mechanical panels.
The digital display
Without hands, the digital watch displays the time using numerals. This can be done in different ways: liquid crystals, light-emitting diodes, or miniature panels. In addition to the time, this type of dial can also display the date and even the day of the week.
The binary display
This style of dial is particularly futuristic and original. Indeed, watches with binary displays have neither hands nor numerals. The time is displayed in the form of a binary code with LEDs (light-emitting diodes) on or off. As each line corresponds to a value, the upper digits are added together to obtain the hour and the lower digits to obtain the minutes.
