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Caterpillar are a world famous brand. Their products are instantly recognisable they are the tough, practical, yellow machines that play a major part in building the infrastructure of our world. Following on from the great success of their licensed footwear range Caterpillar launched Cat watches. This range is defined by high quality workmanship and features that are designed to perform in inhospitable situations. Ultimately these watches are made for men that want a high level of performance from their watch.

The Cat watches range has a mixture of functions, some are specifically designed for ocean exploits whereas others are more practical as every day work tools. Reliability is the key factor of Caterpillar’s philosophy, without their assurance of safety Caterpillar tools would definately not be such a major part of the construction, mining and marine industries.

The Active Range

Cat Active watches are designed for men who seek adventure. The range is characterised by rugged durability. The watches have water resistance levels of at least 100m, ensuring that they can deal with high levels of water pressure, the Caterpillar Active Ocean watch and the Caterpillar Shockmaster watch exceed this. This watch is capable of withstanding 20 atmospheres of pressure. Designed for diving it has a reinforced glass and case and large numbers to improve visibility underwater. All of the watches are designed to facilitate an active lifestyle.

The Rugged Ranges

All  Cat watches are made to be of the highest standard, ultra reliable and practical. But this is not to say that they have compromised on the design of the watches, for example this Caterpillar Yellow Steel Square Watch. The large metallic blue dial is surrounded by a case made from highly polished and matte links for a contemporary look. But as you would expect it is still a fully functioning tool capable of enduring most situations you could get into. The rugged range are every day watches that are ideal for men with a physical job but some of the range would not look out of place in an office thanks to smart styling. One of the most popular ranges is the Navigo range which combines all of the features you need with a stylish finish. 

Synonymous with masculinity, Caterpillar watches make great gifts for active men. Considering their quality and the amount of features that many of these watches have they come at a really good price. The range of Caterpillar watches on Find Watches starts at under £60 and peaks at just above £160 and that includes delivery. You can check out our collection of Cat Watches here.

Sports watches come in all shapes and sizes. Watches have loads of different functions all designed to enhance sporting excellence and to facilitate greater enjoyment of sport. Watches have the ability to record lap times and split times, they come with countdown timers and stopwatches, there are also high-tech watches that include barometers, altimeters and pedometers. Sports watches can be both analogue, digital or a combination of the two. The ones with digital displays will often have memory so they can record your progress over a number of weeks.

There are a number of things to consider before you buy a sports watch, firstly you need to consider your sport and the things that you need your watch to do. Take into account the weight of the watch, its water resistance rating, its functions and its style (a big watch would not be appropriate for cycling for example.)

Chronograph watches

A chronograph watch is a watch with a number, normally two or three, of sub dials. The functions of the sub dials vary, but commonly include a stopwatch and a breakdown of the second, minute and hour functions into their own dials. These watches are designed predominately for use in sports, although there are many models that use the chronograph function as a stylistic feature. Chronograph watches come in a wide range of styles and have different levels of practical use. The most advanced come with the ability to record multiple split and lap times, with stop watches that are  accurate to 1/100^th of a second.

 Water Resistant Watches

Having a watch that has a suitable water resistance rating for the activity you are undertaking is essential. A watch with a 3 or 5 atm rating is not suitable for jumping into water. Although it can be worn whilst swimming. 100m watches are the ideal standard for most water sports. The rating determines how much pressure can be placed upon the watch rather than the depth to which it can go down. Specialised divers watches are essential kit for divers and there are a number of watches that are specifically designed to be able to resist the pressure of great depths. Other sports may not appear to need such high levels of water resistance, but if a watch is being used as a tool for sports it is probably worth having one that has at least 3 or 5m water resistance.

Materials

Functions are not the only attributes that you should think about if you are buying a sports watch. The material that the watch is made from will determine how practical it is. Titanium watches are always light weight so they are often a favourite for sports enthusiasts. Rubber straps are also popular as they are easy to clean and are likely to last a long time even if they are used in the water. For much the same reason stainless steel bracelets are also popular. It is worth remembering that they are heavier than rubber straps but that they are also more durable.

Best Selling Sports Watches

Casio have a lot of watches that are designed for sports.  Most of the Casio watches are digital so they can have memory in which data can be stored, the digital set up also allows for switching between different functions with ease.  The Casio G-Shock range is designed for adrenalin fueled sports.  This global best selling range is designed to be shock proof so they are perfect for extreme sports.  

Citizen and Seiko both make high end sports watches, designed with the sporting professional in mind.  They look great and are packed full of functions to enable maximum benefit from sports. Citizen’s Promaster and Skyhawk rangesand Seiko’s Sportura Collection  demonstrate the immense capabilities of sports watches. 

Water Resistance

The issue of water resistance is a particularly important one when considering which watch to buy. Watches always have their water resistance rating on the case, on Find Watches we always put this information in the product specifications.

Some watches have only minimal water resistance, for example the Seksy range by Sekonda. These watches are designed with fashion in mind. They should be fine if accidentally splashed but they are not intended to be more than beautiful accessories. So no washing up or showering whilst wearing them!

The next common rating of water resistance is 50m or 5 atmosphere. This is where it gets a little more complicated because the depth ‘50m’ does not refer to the depth that the watch can go down to but is representative of how much pressure the watch can withstand. Therefore 50m watches are suitable for swimming, but not for diving as the pressure at the moment of impact with the water would exceed 5 atmosphere. Many of the watches in the Kahuna range are of this rating; perfect for the beach but not designed for water sports.

If you want to do more than just swim you need a 100m or 10 atmosphere rating. These watches, such as the majority of the Caterpillar range stocked on Find Watches, are perfect for water sports including snorkeling.

Divers watches vary in their capabilities. Some watches marked as having 200m water resistance are not suitable for diving, such as the Casio Blue G-Shock. This is a durable watch, but is not specifically designed for diving. Unlike the Citizen Gents divers watch, which is made for divers and as such complies with international standards for divers watches. It is imperative to always check the specific details before using a watch for diving.

Watches with higher ratings than 200m are generally suitable for diving and generally their durability increases as the pressure rating goes up, such as the Citizen Aqualand Titanium Professional Divers Watch which has a 300m water resistance rating.

As always there are exceptions to the rules; Rotary have created a range of ‘Dolphin Standard’ watches. Due to a unique way of screwing in the button these dress watches can be used for swimming, water sports and even in saunas.