Beautiful Things: Solar Dial
We are living in difficult days. We’re experiencing the historic impacts of this virus from a distance and up close. As we enter the second month of shelter in place in San Francisco, I’ve noticed myself longing for beauty in a visceral way. I’m going to follow that craving and begin a series, sharing beautiful things that have brought me some small joy.
To kick it off, let’s take a look at the Solar Dial face on the Apple Watch.
Hodinkee published a fascinating deep dive into the intricacies of the Solar Dial watch face for the Apple Watch. I’ll quote at length from it here:
This one is simply called the Solar Dial, and it is a remarkably charming thing. It has been described as a miniature sundial for the wrist, but it is rather more like having a sundial and the Sun itself on your wrist, both at the same time…
…The portion of the dial that's in light blue represents the number of daylight hours, and the portion in dark blue, night; the boundaries between each section mark sunrise and sunset. Opposite the Sun on the 24-hour hand is a smaller dial which shows the hours and minutes, in either an analog or digital format. The four corners of the watch face are taken up with customizable complications…
…The color of the sky also changes depending on the time of day, and during the twilight hours, you get a very pretty transition from blue, to a deeper blue, to a lovely pale pink as the solar disk begins to sink below the horizon. You can rotate the crown to show you what time sunset takes place, as well as the various phases of twilight. You'll also see, in yellow numbers in the sub-dial, how many hours it is from the current time to sunset, or other solar astronomical events.
The Solar Dial has been an option on my watch since last September, but because I didn’t understand its intricacies in the slightest, I didn’t appreciate it. While the world whirs on, I’m beginning to practice dwelling on beautiful things like this.
Timothy Buck
April 18, 2020
San Francisco, California