HK1122367B - Watch component for displaying indicia in a window - Google Patents

Description

Watch allowing the display of indications in a window

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of watches, and more particularly to watches or watch components used to display indications in windows.

Background

Watches and watch movements for displaying indications in the form of numerical symbols in windows are known per se. For example, the date, i.e., month date, is often displayed in a numeric form in the window. A watch with windows for displaying, for example, the tens of a date in one window 1 and a unit in another window is also popular because the indication is made readable by using larger numbers.

The indications displayed through the window are most often carried by a movable element in the form of, for example, a disc, ring, cross, star, polygon, etc., with different numerical indications. The movable element is driven by the movement which advances it by means of indexed steps corresponding to the distance between the indications, so that the necessary indications are presented to the dial through the window. The watch movement is also contemplated wherein the movable member is driven independently of the hands and other watch indicators by a stepper motor independent of the motor driving the hands.

WO2005006087 discloses a watch provided with a chronograph including three windows for the mechanical digital display of the minutes and hours measured by the chronograph. Three index disks bearing numbers are rotated behind the window to provide the desired indication. Another table with three windows is disclosed in WO 2002093273. The use of three windows requires a complex and elaborate mechanism. Moreover, the window occupies a considerable space on the dial.

Although the symbol display on the window is highly appreciated and provides good readability, it is not possible to increase the number of windows without placing unacceptable limitations on aesthetics and space. Therefore, the number of indications displayed in the window is limited; the indications, while useful, are not displayed due to the lack of space on the dial.

One object of the present invention is to propose a timepiece without these limitations, in particular a timepiece that makes the window better usable and that can display more messages without hindering the readability of the display.

EP415734 describes a watch in which a window for the date or day of the week allows additional graphical symbols to be displayed to indicate the cause or afternoon. These additional symbols occupy the indexed positions of the movable element. The size of the indication of the date or day of the week is thus reduced.

EP744675 describes a watch comprising a display device allowing the battery level to be displayed close to the date or day of the week indication. This device requires a movement capable of moving the position of the movable element relative to a fixed indexed position. Again, in the case of date display, the sizes of the numbers 1-31 must be reduced in order to flow space for battery level display.

CH190208 describes a watch with a dial allowing to see simultaneously a plurality of movable elements for displaying the date, month, year, day of the week. This configuration requires a plurality of movable elements which are stacked and gives significant compromise in the size of the indication displayed in the window.

GB2017356 describes an apparatus that allows for displaying a day of the week in the morning for a first color and in the afternoon for a second color.

WO2006/018157 describes a watch with movable elements for the continuous display of the date, the chinese calendar or the battery life. These indications are not displayed simultaneously.

Disclosure of Invention

These objects are notably achieved by a timepiece comprising: at least one movable element having a sequence indicator on a surface thereof; at least one actuator connected to the movable assembly to rotate in a scale indication manner to display indications selected from the sequence in a window, and wherein for at least one of the scale indication positions of the movable assembly, a plurality of mutually independent indications are simultaneously displayed in the same window.

This solution has the advantage of better utilizing the display space inside the window by displaying several independent indications simultaneously.

In a preferred embodiment, both indications, independent of each other but both dependent on absolute time, are displayed simultaneously in the same window.

The space available on the active components of the window is limited and not easily of sufficient size to be able to log all the combination possibilities of several sequential indications each with many possible indications. In a preferred embodiment, the sequence indication consists of a number of numeric or alphabetic symbols, whereas other independent sequences have two values, e.g. { morning; afternoon }, { on; off or { operating mode 1; mode of operation 2 }.

In a preferred embodiment, the 1 st indication, e.g. corresponding to a date or date number, is displayed in the form of a numeric symbol, while another separate indication, e.g. representing morning or afternoon, is displayed by selecting the color of the numeric symbol or background, or other non-numeric and/or non-alphanumeric symbol

In a preferred embodiment, only a 2 nd indication is added to the tens of date indication of a large date display. The tens-digit of the date active element usually only has to display the possible values 0 to 3, so that this shorter sequence can be combined with another sequence, for example a binary sequence, without excessively increasing the number of combinations of indications that the active element has to display. Moreover, the tens of the date only changes 4 times per month at most, so some rotation is required to display all possible combinations of indications.

The invention is also implemented by a timepiece having a large date display, in which the tens of the date are displayed in a different way, for example in another colour, in the morning and in the afternoon.

Drawings

Fig. 1 shows a front view of a timepiece according to the invention;

FIG. 2 shows a 1 st movable element in the form of a disc which prominently displays the tens of the date and another independent indication; and

figure 3 shows a 2 nd movable element in the form of a disc, which can notably display the tens of the date.

Detailed Description

In the following description and in the scope of the claims, a "timepiece" refers to a watch, for example a wristwatch, a movement of a wristwatch or another watch component for a watch worn on the body. In particular, the present description refers to a wristwatch.

Timepiece 1, illustrated from the front in fig. 1, has a case 10 housing a movement (not illustrated), preferably an electronic quartz movement, and possibly a mechanical movement. The dial is provided with two windows 230, 231, which are used, in particular, to display the date (28 in the drawings) with two different symbols, as well as other indications as seen. Time is displayed in a known manner by means of an hour hand 20, a minute hand 21 and a second hand 22. The three hands are centrally located and actuated by, for example, a stepper motor, or preferably by an actuator (not shown) of a number of independent stepper and preferably bi-directional motors. Other time display devices including alphanumeric displays or displays allowing the simultaneous display of several time zones may also be used within the scope of the invention. The invention can also be used further with a mechanical movement, in which case the actuator is constituted by a component of a gear train.

The illustrated timepiece of this example further has a flange 11 provided with 24 indications 110 of the time zones, each indicated by a city name. The user can switch the time zone displayed by the hands 20, 21 and used to calculate the date and the indication of morning/afternoon by moving the seconds hand in an appropriate manner towards the time zone selected by appropriate action on the button A, B and on the time setting and mode switching lever 102.

The stem 102 can assume three different axial positions, for example a stable middle position C-0 (parking position), an unstable pressed-in position C-1 for entering an alarm clock mode or a time zone mode, and a pulled-out position C +1 for setting the date and time. The stem itself preferably returns from the depressed position-1 to the intermediate position 0 upon its release. Two single stabilization buttons a and B are further provided.

Fig. 2 shows a portion of the movable element 232 visible through the window 230 of fig. 1. The active element 233 of fig. 3 is itself designed to be displayed through the 2 nd window 231. In this example, the two movable elements 232, 233 are constituted by swivels, which are driven in rotation about their centers by means of a transmission chain (not shown). Other movable assembly forms such as a puck may be used.

The two movable elements 232, 233 can be driven directly or indirectly by a stepping motor that actuates the hour hand. In a preferred embodiment, the movable element is driven in a manner independent of the hour hand and preferably independent of each other, by an actuator constituted by a stepping motor, preferably bidirectional, independent of the motor that actuates the hands.

The 1 st active component 232 is provided with sequence indications 2320, 2321, 2322 on its surface. In this example, indications 2320 and 2321 correspond to a tens of days (days of the month) and may therefore take the value 0 (which may also be represented by a space), 1, 2 or 3. In accordance with the present invention, each possible value of the tens digit of the date is entered twice into the active element 232 in two different ways. In this example, sequence 1 indication 2320 is used for the morning and sequence 2 indication is used for the afternoon. The two indications 2320, 2321 are distinguished from each other in the illustrated example by a background color. For example, a coffee color may be used to represent morning and a bright yellow color may be used to represent afternoon. Of course other background color combinations may be used. The morning and afternoon can also be distinguished by numerical symbols or fonts for morning and afternoon, or numerical symbols adjacent to the date or graphic symbols or letter indications above them (e.g. a.m./p.m.). Thus, in most scale indicating positions of the active component, the date tens indication is displayed simultaneously within the same window as the morning or afternoon indication. Thus, a ten digit disc of the date is marked twice a day; unless the date tens change, noon in one direction and midnight in the other direction. The bi-directional stepping motor is used to drive the movable member, so that the rotation angle required at noon and midnight can be reduced, and thus the display of the window 230 can be changed more quickly while reducing power consumption.

The movable element 232 is also provided with an image of one operating mode of the icon watch at some scale indicating positions. In the illustrated example, the usage indicates an "alarm on" or "alarm off" mode. Said image may be displayed, for example, through window 230, when the timepiece is in the alarm time setting mode; then, the alarm clock is activated or deactivated by the buttons A, B or the rotary handle and immediately displayed by the corresponding rotation of the movable element 232.

The activity element 2 233 shown in FIG. 3 has a single indication sequence 2330 corresponding to a date unit. It is of course also possible to combine the indication with a separate indication, for example in terms of absolute time, which may be represented by non-numeric symbols.

The morning or afternoon provided with the event component 232 may relate to the current time displayed by the hands 20-22, but may also relate to another time, for example to an alarm clock set time or to the time of another time zone temporarily displayed by the hands 20-22 or other hands or indicators (not shown).

[ description of main reference symbols ]

1 clock and watch

10 watch case

11 Flange

110 flange mark

A button 1

B button 2

102 rotating handle

20 hour hand

21 minute hand

22 second hand

23 big date display

230 st window

231 nd window 2

232-date ten-digit movable assembly

2320 indication of tens of the morning date

2321 indication of tens of days in the afternoon

2322 icon

233 date unit movable assembly

2330 display of units of date

Claims (10)

1. A timepiece, having:

a first window for displaying an indication of a tens digit from a date of a first indication sequence carried by the first movable member on a surface thereof,

a second window for displaying an indication of a unit from the date of a second indication sequence carried on its surface by the second movable member,

at least one actuator connected to the first and second movable members to rotate in a scale indicating manner to display an indication selected from the first or second indication sequence; it is characterized in that the preparation method is characterized in that,

for at least one of the graduated positions of the first movable member, an additional indication of the tens digit independent of the date is simultaneously displayed in the same window.

2. The timepiece according to claim 1, wherein the indication of the tens of the date consists of a numeric symbol, the additional indication being simultaneously indicated by the color of the symbol, the background color, a written version of the symbol, or a graphic symbol.

3. The timepiece according to claim 1, wherein one of the indication of the tens of digits of the date, the indication of the units of the date or the additional indication is displayed to indicate the morning, or the afternoon.

4. The timepiece according to claim 3, wherein the color 1 in the morning and the color 2 in the afternoon are indicated.

5. A timepiece according to claim 3, wherein the morning or afternoon indication relates to the current time indicated by the hands of the timepiece.

6. A timepiece according to claim 3, wherein the morning or afternoon indication relates to an alarm clock setting time.

7. A timepiece according to claim 3, wherein the morning or afternoon indication relates to the time of another time zone displayed by the timepiece.

8. The timepiece according to any one of claims 1-7, wherein at least one graduated position indication of the first and second movable members displays an indication relating to an alarm setting mode of the timepiece.

9. Timepiece (1) according to claim 1, wherein the first and second mobile members are each connected to a separate actuator.

10. Timepiece (1) according to claim 1, wherein the at least one actuator can rotate the first or second moving part or the first and second moving parts bidirectionally.