The Most Complicated Rolex Watch

In the world of complicated and sophisticated movements, Rolex usually is not the centre of attention. Rolex watches has the reputation of simple, clean and super reliable high quality watches.

However Rolex has the genius way of delivering complicated movements in a very subtle neat practical manner that people sometimes don’t notice its complexity due to its simple delivery. Like firstly introducing the GMT complication in 1954 Reference 6542, with an extra red hand and a 24 hour rotating bezel you could tell the time in three different time zones. ( You can read our article on what is a GMT watch & how does it work Here ).

But GMT Master isn’t the most complicated Rolex watch, It is the Rolex Sky Dweller. Released quite recently in 2012, the Sky Dweller became a serious world traveller watch and earned its fame quickly by being the most complicated in the Rolex watch collection.

***Rolex Sky Dweller***– image: Rolex.com

The Sky Dweller has a very dressy formal look that suits businessmen that frequently travel. Rolex doesn’t like to show off, they provide practicality and functionality in the most beautiful simple form instead of placing so many buttons and pushers and filling the dial.

The first complication is the GMT functionality, where you can see the second time zone on the rotating sub dial where the highlighted red arrow under the word ROLEX indicates the hour in the second time zone and of course the minutes with the normal main minutes hand. So for example, in the below image the time in the other time zone is 22:11. And it’s a proper GMT complication with jumping hour hand setting to independently move the hour hands found in the Rolex GMT Master II.

The other complication is the annual calendar. This complication simply tells you the date and which month it is, so you don’t have to set the watch every time a month ends in shorter days. The watch will simply jump to the next month on the right day. The only time you need to adjust it, is end of February depending if the month is 28 or 29 days. So only once versus five times in a normal perpetual calendar watch.

The display of the month here is simply genius, 12 months shown on the 12 hours markers. Like on the picture below you can see a red display at the 8 o’clock which means its August.

The mechanism to set all that happens with one crown and a simple mechanism of rotating the fluted bezel to switch between GMT setting, jumping hour, date and month.

For a dressy travel watch this watch is simply stunning, elegant and smart. GMT Annual calendar complications with beautiful hands and hour markers the will glow in blue when it’s night time in the flight.