As time obsessives, we were fascinated by the fact that Tuesday, February 17, marked a rare convergence of three cultural events: Chinese New Year, Shrove Tuesday (or Mardi Gras), and the start of Ramadan. There was also a lunar eclipse!

Signs and wonders.

All this time keeping needs some watch sophistication. So let’s get to it!

What is Iota? A UK-based, Swiss-built maker of GMTs. Brothers Will and Ed Allen left their digital design careers to launch their own watch brand, looking to create something, in their words, elegant, modern and uncomplicated. As designers, they follow our old friend Dieter Rams’ principle of ‘less, but better’. That principle lives on in an Iota watch.

What is the vibe? Travel, Bauhaus design and Greenwich Mean Time. Each Iota model features a place name: New York, London, Sydney and Hong Kong. The Allen brothers were inspired by their time working in London’s tech epicentre, Shoreditch, with a stint in Greenwich, the place where all time began. The lads had careers involving waking up in lots of different places, making one wonder…what time is it back home?

So what does $500 get you? The lot. The New York, London and Sydney start at £195 $263 (£195); the Hong Kong, coated in DLC, or ‘diamond-like carbon’, is priced at $303 (£225). They run on Swiss-made Ronda movements, making them accurate, tough and ready for travel.

And that is what we love about Iota: it’s their love of travel. Look at the description of the Hong Kong GMT, and you’ll see typical watch stuff: the Ronda movement, the case size (40mm). But you also get Hong Kong travel facts. For example, according to Iota, there are 81,000 hotel rooms in Hong Kong. There are 98 metro stations. Their online journal is more Lonely Planet than Teddy or Hodinkee.

That is right up our street.

If you’re like us, your first mechanical watch wasn’t the Patek Philippe you inherited from your dad (he didn’t actually own it, neither do you). Yours, most likely, has a movement made from one of two Japanese giants: Seiko and Citizen.

And giants they are. Seiko and Citizen have perfected the art of making reliable watch movements, with Miyota in particular making one hundred million units each year. Here we break the brands down, because there’s nothing more fun than watchsplaining the subtle differences between an NH34 and a Miyota 9035 to your friends and family. Believe us….they’re gonna love it.

Seiko/TMI. Your first mechanical watch might well have been a Seiko; they’re one of the world’s biggest watchmakers by sales. Kintarō Hattori founded what would become Seiko in 1881; he called his factory Seikosha, meaning, roughly, the House of Exquisite Workmanship. Compared to Hublot (‘porthole’) Blancpain (‘white bread’) or Rolex (just a made up word really), Seiko is a name with gravitas.

In 1987, Seiko created TMI, or Time Module Limited. Seiko was riding the wave of the Quartz Crisis (which leads to this question: what was the “Quartz Crisis” called in Japan?) and TMI was created to mass produce movements for the world. And so it does today.

The workhorses: NH35A, the ubiquitous, hackable, eminently serviceable movement seen in loads of micros. The NH36A is its day-date cousin, and the NH34A gives you caller GMT functionality.

And what of quartz? The PC33 is an industry standard, showing up in, among others, Timex Q reissues. Also the VK63/64, Seiko’s venerable meca-quartz movement.

Fun fact: Seiko also makes movements through its Seiko Epson affiliate too. Epson is the same Epson that makes the printer you can’t get to work or the projector for which you don’t have an adapter.

Citizen/Miyota. Miyota is Citizen Watches movement maker, launched in 1959 as Miyota Precision Company Ltd. They’re based in the Nagano village of Miyota, if you’re wondering where the name came from. And if you’re wondering what the name means...it’s ‘beautiful field.’

Miyota is the closest thing that Japan has to a Swiss ebauche movement maker. Ebauche makers, more or less (more less than more, to be honest) specialise in selling ‘blanks’, or partially made movements, for watch companies to modify and assemble to their own design specs. Miyota doesn’t quite do that, but they do produce modifiable movements for other brands, like Bulova in the 60s. Citizen would ultimately acquire Bulova in 2008.

Miyota makes tons of watch movements. Fashion brands - think Fossil, Michael Kors, Boss and the like - use Miyota. And then there is the Miyota 2035, the world’s most popular quartz movement, ever. By 2024, an estimated 5 billion 2035 movements have been made.

The workhorses. For the watches that are Watch500’s jam, we’d go with the 9015, a thin, go-to automatic movement for dressier watches; the 9039, which more or less the 9015 without a date window, and the 9075, a true GMT.

Fun fact: In 1975, Citizen/Miyota introduced the Crystron Mega Quartz, which at the time, was the most accurate watch movement in the world, losing just 3 seconds a year. THAT name, a portmanteau of ‘crystal’ and ‘electronic’, was Citizen’s not-even-remotely-subtle attempt to compete with the Seiko Astron.

So who’s the boss? Citizen/Miyota, generally (and probably unfairly) speaking, is seen as higher quality: Miyota movements have higher beat rates, making them slightly more accurate, with a smoother second-hand sweep. They also make slimmer movements. Seiko/TMI, on the other hand, are tough, have bi-directional winding and are, among some enthusiasts, the quieter of the two movements. TMI movements are the king of the modders, too.

For us, it’s a draw. Or more accurately, it’s not a fight in which we have a dog. Some of our favourite watches run on Seiko/TMI movements, others on Citizen/Miyota. We’re not accuracy nuts, and the Miyota noise, such as it is, doesn’t bother us either. Give us both, we say.

Next issue: The Swiss makers, including the biggest movement-maker in the world.

Why not?

Watch500 publishes two newsletters: the News from the GMT, covering watch news and industry insights, while The Five brings you themed watch picks. Watches, wit - new releases, brand discoveries, industry insights, and the stories behind timepieces that are eminently affordable, framed around poor cultural references.

And feel free to pass this along to someone else who doesn’t need another watch, but will probably buy one anyway.

Prices are approximate, converted to GBP or USD where needed, and may wander off thanks to exchange rates, local tariffs, or whatever mood your customs office happens to be in.