ChronoAcademy0/10 lessons

Learn watches,
hands on.

An interactive beginner's course on mechanical watches. Wind a mainspring, run a chronograph, and turn a dive bezel — right in your browser — across 10 short lessons.

Start the course
01

Anatomy

Learn the name of every part you can see — and the machine hiding inside.

  1. 1The Outside of a WatchCase, crystal, dial, bezel, crown, lugs — learn every part of a watch you can point to.
  2. 2Inside: How a Movement WorksFollow the power from the mainspring through the gear train to the escapement — the beating heart of every mechanical watch.
02

Movements

Manual, automatic, quartz: what actually makes a watch tick.

  1. 3Manual-Wind MovementsThe original: a watch you wind by hand every day, and why many collectors love the ritual.
  2. 4Automatic MovementsA spinning rotor turns the motion of your wrist into power. Here's how self-winding works.
  3. 5Quartz — and Telling Them ApartBattery-powered accuracy, and the field guide to spotting quartz vs mechanical at a glance.
03

Complications

Everything a watch does beyond telling the time, and how to use it.

  1. 6Date & Day-DateThe most common complication — plus the 'danger zone' every owner needs to know about.
  2. 7The Dive BezelWhy a dive bezel only turns one way, and how to time anything with it.
  3. 8The ChronographA stopwatch built into your watch: pushers, totalizers, and how to read them.
  4. 9GMT & Second Time ZonesOne extra hand, a 24-hour scale, and suddenly your watch tracks two time zones.
  5. 10The MoonphaseThe most romantic complication: a tiny moon on your wrist tracking the real one in the sky.