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OpenProject @[email protected] · 2025-02-06 · 07:38 UTC

📝 Manually naming work packages can lead to inconsistencies and errors.
With one of our next releases, OpenProject will allow you to #automatically generate work package subjects — ensuring accuracy and saving time. 🤩
Using customizable patterns, subjects will be generated based on key attributes you define as an admin.
Learn how this feature helps keep teams organized and workflows aligned:
👉https://www.openproject.org/blog/automatically-generated-work-package-subjects/
#OpenProject #ProjectManagement #Automation #TimeManagement #OpenSource

#opensource #timemanagement #automation #projectmanagement #openproject #automatically
OpenProject @[email protected] · 2025-02-06 · 07:38 UTC

📝 Manually naming work packages can lead to inconsistencies and errors.
With one of our next releases, OpenProject will allow you to #automatically generate work package subjects — ensuring accuracy and saving time. 🤩
Using customizable patterns, subjects will be generated based on key attributes you define as an admin.
Learn how this feature helps keep teams organized and workflows aligned:
👉https://www.openproject.org/blog/automatically-generated-work-package-subjects/
#OpenProject #ProjectManagement #Automation #TimeManagement #OpenSource

#automatically #openproject #projectmanagement #automation #timemanagement #opensource
BLACKVOID ⚫️ @[email protected] · 2026-03-03 · 07:33 UTC

@tsherrygeo Manually via #HyperBackup, or not at all via any Syno package? Also, "Synology backup" means data on your NAS, or you want to backup "some" data onto the NAS itself?
Default HyperBackup with its GFS versioning should work out of the box with no issues. So the question really is what is your exact current setup that makes the backup not the most stable one?

#hyperbackup
BLACKVOID ⚫️ @[email protected] · 2026-03-03 · 07:33 UTC

@tsherrygeo Manually via #HyperBackup, or not at all via any Syno package? Also, "Synology backup" means data on your NAS, or you want to backup "some" data onto the NAS itself?
Default HyperBackup with its GFS versioning should work out of the box with no issues. So the question really is what is your exact current setup that makes the backup not the most stable one?

#hyperbackup
BLACKVOID ⚫️ @[email protected] · 2026-03-03 · 07:33 UTC

@tsherrygeo Manually via #HyperBackup, or not at all via any Syno package? Also, "Synology backup" means data on your NAS, or you want to backup "some" data onto the NAS itself?
Default HyperBackup with its GFS versioning should work out of the box with no issues. So the question really is what is your exact current setup that makes the backup not the most stable one?

#hyperbackup
BLACKVOID ⚫️ @[email protected] · 2026-03-03 · 07:33 UTC

@tsherrygeo Manually via #HyperBackup, or not at all via any Syno package? Also, "Synology backup" means data on your NAS, or you want to backup "some" data onto the NAS itself?
Default HyperBackup with its GFS versioning should work out of the box with no issues. So the question really is what is your exact current setup that makes the backup not the most stable one?

#hyperbackup
Stephen @[email protected] · 2026-03-20 · 21:20 UTC

The Backward Evolution of the Rotating Bezel

Not everything gets more complicated as it evolves. The bezel, once a simple frame around the glass of a watch, became an integrated mechanism before it evolved into a simple numeric scale. From alarm clocks, navigational computers, and slide rules it became the most-recognized feature of the most iconic watches. Let’s consider the history of the rotating bezel.
The simple rotating bezel was once very complex!
From Complex to Simple
We tend to think that innovation starts with simple ideas and becomes more complex over time. Surprisingly, the opposite is usually true. Lacking a clear use case, inventors tend to start with a complex concept before stripping away less-useful elements. Consider the Apple Newton, a full-featured handheld computer with dozens of innovative ideas that inspired simpler PDAs before morphing into the modern smartphone. My 2017 BMW i3 electric is truly an exotic car, built like a carbon fiber science project and entirely unlike the conventional 2027 i3 sedan.
The same is true in watchmaking, and this brings us to the humble rotating bezel. Nearly every brand has a dive watch styled after the Rolex Submariner with a bold black knurled rotating bezel marked with triangles, sticks, and numerals. Most buyers never give these a second look, let alone turn them to time a drive, let alone a dive. Some brands also make a watch styled after the Breitling Navitimer with a busy two-part bezel marked with confusing aeronautical indications of speed and fuel load. Rolex even created a functional rotating bezel for the 2012 Sky-Dweller, used to select different functions.
A bit of research reveals that the history of the humble rotating bezel runs exactly counter to expectation, beginning with functional complications before proceeding to obscure slide rules before being stripped down to a basic hour indicator. It took 50 years for the rotating bezel to be simplified enough to enter the public consciousness and that long again before Rolex invented the Sky-Dweller’s ring command. Like so many innovations, there’s a lot to learn if you look into the rotating bezel!
The Functional Bezel
This 1913 catalog image shows a modern pocket watch with a knurled screw-on bezel
The bezel itself was an innovation. Most early clocks and watches were “open faced”, but by the 17th century some included a glass to protect the dial and hands. This was mounted in a frame of metal called a bezel, which was often attached to the case with a hinge. Thus, the first bezel was a functional part of the case, if not the watch movement.
Watches in the 19th century adopted setting and winding using a crown and often had a fixed glass over the dial, since the hands no longer needed to be manually manipulated. The glass was set directly into the rounded case without a separate bezel. This gave the watch a smooth curving contour that felt in the hand like a bar of soap (“savonnette” in French). Some watches still featured a bezel around the glass, notably the screw-on bezel and back produced by Keystone and others in America.
Winding and setting functions were not unified in a single crown until the 20th century. Earlier watches often had keys for winding or were set manually by rotating the hands. Pendant winding using a crown became widespread in the 19th century, and inventors were constantly working to enable hand setting by rotating the crown as well. These often involved levers or buttons, but some involved a rotating knurled bezel very similar in concept to the modern Sky-Dweller.
Eterna’s pioneering alarm wristwatch used a rotating bezel to set the alarm time
As alarm watches became popular in the early 20th century, a question arose about how to set this additional function. Attention again turned to the bezel, which could be rotated to set the time of the alarm. This must have been fairly common, as 1907 coverage of a new alarm watch from F. Schweizer & Cie discusses the limitations of bezel-set alarms (reliability and accuracy).
This was notably used by Eterna on their innovative if unsuccessful 1914 Cal. 68, the first alarm wristwatch. This 13 ligne movement was offered in a small pocket watch, a wristwatch, and a convertible watch that could be mounted on the steering wheel of a car. Although the wristwatch didn’t sell well, Eterna used the same movement in a line of successful travel alarm clocks, and these inspired the entire industry to adopt this mechanism.
Soon, most alarm clocks used a rotating bezel to set the time, often with an indicator on the bezel to show the current setting. This complicated mechanism was the first widely-used rotating bezel, pre-dating the dive watch craze by three decades.
The Harwood Perpetual used a rotating bezel to set the time, with an indicator that this function was active above 6 on the dial
A similar system was employed by John Harwood to set the time his Perpetual, the first self-winding wristwatch. The primary driver for his invention was the need to prevent dust and moisture from damaging the movement, a common issue on the battlefields of World War I. Since sealed crowns and stems had not yet been developed, Harwood’s goal was to create a sealed case with no crown, and he was inspired by the alarm clock setting mechanism created by Eterna to use a rotating bezel to set the time.
The Harwood Perpetual was a global sensation, even if it ultimately did not find many buyers. And the knurled or fluted bezel became a common look in the 1930s, adopted by other waterproof watch cases like the Rolex Oyster. Although not a rotating bezel in the strictest sense, many of these could be unscrewed to access the hands, dial, and movement during assembly and servicing.
This 1953 advertisement calls out Perrelet and Harwood as inspirations for Rolex
It is easy to see how the Harwood Perpetual inspired the legendary Rolex Oyster Perpetual, and Rolex agreed: They specifically cited Harwood along with Abraham-Louis Perrelet as inspiration for their Oyster Perpetual in a series of advertisements in the 1950s. And it wasn’t just the Perpetual name or centrally-rotating winding: Rolex popularized the rotating bezel in this same time period, introducing the Turn-o-Graph, Submariner, and GMT-Master, as we will discuss in a moment. All of these feature a bezel that strongly resembles the Harwood Perpetual.
Lindbergh, Longines, and Weems
The idea that a rotating bezel could serve as an indicator of information rather than a mechanism to set the time originates with American aviator Philip Van Horn Weems. He developed a simplified navigational system for aircraft while serving in the American Navy in the 1920s and early 1930s. His system relied on a so-called “second-setting watch” featured a rotating inner dial that could be set to a time signal over the radio. This was based on Longines’ 1918 Touran pocket watch, which was designed to be re-set to zero at sunset to approximate the Alla Turca timekeeping system of the Ottoman Empire.
This 1932 article in Journal Suisse d’Horlogerie outlines the use of the Longines Weems-Lindbergh Hour Angle Watch
A close collaboration between Weems, aviation pioneer Charles Lindburgh, Longines-Wittnauer director John P.V. Heinmuller, and the Longines and Fluckiger factories in Saint-Imier resulted in a revolutionary watch that allowed pilots to determine their location using markings on a rotating bezel. This began with a specially-modified version of the Touran watch with an outer chapter scale showing units of arc, delivered in 1930. In 1931 Longines added a rotating bezel marked with units of arc in red and green. This bezel would be pre-positioned according to the equation of time table to instantly perform the calculation needed to determine the Greenwich Hour Angle of the Sun.
Once Longines developed a stop-seconds flyback movement the inner rotating dial component was no longer needed, allowing all calculations to be performed using the rotating bezel. Later versions even dispensed with the units of arc markings on the bezel, using a simple scale with units marked 10 through 60. These were no longer Hour Angle watches at all, but they were some of the first watches with a rotating bezel. In later decades Longines produced faithful reproductions of the Lindbergh Hour Angle watch, including a lovely limited edition in 2018.
The Evolving Chronograph Bezel
As the world industrialized in the early 20th century, a need for time measurement appeared. Businesses were more interested in tracking efficiency, and aviators needed to record and note time of travel. Watchmakers struggled to develop affordable and reliable chronograph mechanisms in the 1930s and 1940s, and this a fascinating area of study. This was the era when the old monopusher gave way to the Compax, flyback, and chronostop.
Heuer’s 1935 aviation chronograph featured a rotating bezel to mark elapsed time
The alarm time indicators of previous decades gave innovators a new idea: A rotating bezel could set an indicator to measure elapsed time. In 1935 Heuer introduced a new chronograph for aviators that featured a knurled rotating bezel attached to a white triangular indicator “to mark the departure time or any other observation.” It is unclear if this is the first chronograph watch with a rotating bezel, but it is the earliest our research has uncovered.
Breitling produced a similar-looking aviation watch with a rotating bezel in early 1936. Unlike the Heuer chronograph, the Breitling model has no minute totalizer, only chronograph seconds. As noted in Journal Suisse d’Horlogerie, the bezel indicator would “serve as the minute totalizer”, synchronized with the running minutes hand for timing flight operations.
This 1936 Breitling aviation chronograph is very similar to the Heuer model This 1936 Fortis chronostop has a fully-marked bezel
Fortis also produced a chronostop watch with a rotating bezel in 1936. This movement had a stop and reset function for the central chronograph seconds hand using a pusher in the crown. The Fortis chronostop was the first watch we’ve seen with a full set of 60 markers on the rotating bezel, complete with numerals from 5 to 60. The design also departed from the classic rounded screw-on bezel look: It has a flat bezel that aligns with the dial along with a sharp vertical knurled edge.
In 1938, Damas added the now-common triangle at the top, along with a fully-marked bezel
The 1938 Damas Ref. 2452 dispensed with the expensive chronograph movement entirely, relying solely on a rotating bezel and central running seconds hand to record elapsed time. This watch advanced the bezel markings in a significant way: It features a triangle at the top rather than 0 or 60. This is a common design today, combining the Heuer and Breitling bezel indicator with the full minute track and vertical edge seen on the Fortis chronostop.
The 1940 Invicta Secontrol (left) and Time-Log (right) featured a 12-hour bezel with steep grooves
The next major advancement in bezel design came from Invicta, then a respected maker of complicated watches in La Chaux-de-Fonds. They introduced two models for 1940 with a deeply-grooved 12-hour bezel: The Secontrol had a chronostop movement and telemeter and tachymeter scales on the dial, while the Time-Log used a start-stop chronograph movement with three pushers. The new bezel served as an hour counter for these watches, which would be much more useful in association with the minute totalizer subdial on the Time-Log. It is unclear exactly how the 12-hour bezel would be useful on the Secontrol.
Minerva’s 1949 Ref. 1527 introduced the count-down bezel
The next important advance in simple bezel design came in 1949 with the Minerva Ref. 1527, which features numerals that count down rather than up. This is useful as a reminder for future events rather than a recorder of elapsed time. Since this model is marked from 1 to 11 (again with the triangle at 12), it was designed to be used by aviators to mark the next turn using the hour hand. Count-down bezels are uncommon today but they remain an interesting variation on the theme.
The Slide Rule Bezel
The slide rule (“règle à calcul” in French) was invented by English mathematician and clergyman Reverend William Oughtred and others in the 17th century, utilizing the mathematical concept of logarithms discovered by John Napier. Logarithms exploit the relationship between two scales to perform various calculations, especially multiplication and division. Slide rules were the most convenient and accurate mathematical tool until the creation of electronic calculators and computers in the 1960s.
Although Moret called his invention a “montre à calcul”, it was a calculator rather than a watch
The straight slide rule is most familiar but the circular slide rule has existed since the 19th century. In 1905, Emile Alexandre Moret of France received a patent for a mechanical calculator that used geared hands to perform logarithmic calculations using circular disks. Moret recognized that a circular slide rule could be packaged as a clock or watch, calling his invention a “montre à calcul”, but it did not include a timekeeping function.
Fabriques des Montres Zénith patented a pocket calculator resembling a watch in 1918
Zénith, the famous Le Locle watchmaking firm, received a patent for a mechanical slide rule calculator in a pocket watch case in 1918. Once again, although this resembled a watch it was actually a pocket calculator without any timekeeping capability.
Importantly, both of these designs appeared before the Harwood Perpetual watch popularized the concept of a rotating bezel. It was only a matter of time before someone moved the circular slide rule to the bezel of a watch.
Graef & Cie, Fabrique Mimo, was one of the most innovative watchmaking companies in the first half of the 20th century, introducing many firsts between 1930 and 1941: The first wristwatch with a calendar, a double-barrel 8-day movement, a digital jump-hour display, and even a quick-change strap. So it is no surprise that Mimo was also the first company to produce a wristwatch with a slide rule bezel.
The 1941 Mimo-Loga was the first watch with a slide rule bezel
The Mimo-Loga was the first watch to feature a freely-rotating bezel, and it included classic slide rule markings. The July 27, 1940 patent eloquently describes that, “in addition to the chronometric and chronograph devices, includes at least two conjugate logarithmic scales, at least one of which is mounted on a rotating member concentric with the dial that carries the other.”
The Mimo-Loga was introduced in early 1941, just before Mimo founder Otto Graef retired. He left his sons in control of Mimo to his sons, but they were more interested in re-establishing the famous Girard-Perregaux brand, which the family acquired in 1928. Despite its history of innovation, the Mimo brand soon disappeared.
One watch comes to mind when we think of the slide rule bezel today: The Breitling Navitimer. Although Breitling is correctly credited with making the slide rule bezel famous, it was introduced with the Chronomat, not the Navitimer, and just a few months after the Mimo-Loga! Let’s set the record straight.
Breitling advertised the Chronomat with its innovative slide rule bezel in September of 1941
Most contemporary accounts claim that Breitling introduced the Chronomat in 1942, but primary sources include advertisements for “Le Chronomat” in September 1941. Although the watch may not have entered production this early, it was clearly a focus for the company at this time. Like the Mimo-Loga, the Chronomat had slide rule markings on the rotating bezel. But Breitling’s watch used a chronograph movement, and this allowed the wearer to perform many more useful calculations.
Breitling produced a companion booklet to help buyers make the most of the Chronomat’s capabilities. The dial also included red reference markings to assist in measuring seconds, fifths, minutes, and hours as well as a telemeter indicator. The Chronomat was specifically designed as a tachymeter, telemeter, pulsometer, and metronome, and the scale could perform standard mathematical calculations like previous circular slide rules. Breitling even produced a cardboard cutout model, available to retailers to help demonstrate these functions.
The Chronomat name combined these capabilities, “chronograph” and “mathematics”, but this did not last long. An automatic Chronomat without a chronograph function was introduced by 1954 and the famous Chronomatic movement further muddied the waters. Today the Chronomat line includes many chronographs but not one has a slide rule bezel.
Breitling began advertising the Navitimer in 1955
This brings us to the most famous slide rule watch, the Breitling Navitimer. Today, the company claims that this watch was created in 1952 and released in 1954 with AOPA branding, and we have no reason to doubt their internal records. But the earliest public references to the Navitimer appear in 1955, and the trademark for the name was received on January 22 of that year. The Navitimer is a specialized watch, originally exclusively available to pilots, and may not have been publicized or even named until 1955.
While the Chronomat had indicators for various capabilities, the Navitimer was designed specifically to perform specialized calculations related to air travel: Ground speed, distance per minute, fuel consumption, rate and distance of climb or descent, and nautical and statute mile conversion. These scales and indices made for a very busy dial despite the hefty 41 mm case. Breitling’s current lineup includes a variety of beautiful and colorful interpretations of the classic Navitimer.
Incredibly, it is this specialized tool watch design that has become dominant in the public consciousness. Today there are numerous “Navitimer” style watches made by brands like Casio, Citizen, Hamilton, Seiko, and Victorinox. The Sinn 903 also deserves special mention: They bought up the remaining Navitimer stock from Breitling in 1979 and continued to sell these original watches as their Navigation Timer into the 1980s. This has remained in production today, with the Model 903 II released in March of 2024.
Rolex: Turn-o-Graph, Submariner, and GMT-Master
When the Swiss Industries Fair in Basel opened on May 8, 1954, visitors to the Rolex stand were treated to three new product releases: Explorer, Submariner, and Turn-o-Graph. These watches marked a transition for Rolex and ultimately the entire watch industry. All three were tool watches with modern Oyster cases and Perpetual movements, and two were defined by their distinctive rotating bezels.
The Rolex stand at the Basel fair in 1954 Europa Star’s coverage of the 1954 Basel Fair emphasized three new tool watches from Rolex
The Turn-o-Graph name is not well-remembered today, but it was a staple of the Rolex lineup (on and off) until 2011. It was a simple time-only watch with a rotating bezel designed to calculate elapsed time. The Rolex rotating bezel was mostly flat, with a sharp knurled edge. In the Turn-o-Graph it was marked with four dots then a stick or numerals at 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50. A triangle with a luminous dot was placed at the top. This design reflected the dial, which used dots on the hour, sticks at 3, 6, and 9, and a triangle at 12, all with luminous paint. The Turn-o-Graph was thus the most harmonious of the trio.
The Submariner was very similar to the Turn-o-Graph but was rated to 200 meters. Rolex had a long history of producing waterproof watches, but the Submariner was altogether more elegant and refined. The bezel was wide and flat, lacking the dots of the Turn-o-Graph, with stick markers alternating between numerals on the 10s. Although a true icon today, this original Submariner looked like nothing else on the market at the time. The look was soon copied by the entire industry, making the simple flat rotating bezel a sports watch staple. And the Submariner is undoubtedly one of the most in-demand watches globally to this day.
On March 22, 1956, Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf gathered friends and industry figures to the Hôtel des Bergues in Geneva to celebrate his 75th birthday and the success of the company. Along with the “Stick-o-Matic”, presented to him by the factory, the crowd was able to see a brand new Rolex model.
I’ve wanted to highlight the Rolex Stick-o-Matic for years! The original GMT-Master is another Rolex icon
The GMT-Master was developed with the needs of pilots in mind, though Rolex did not go to the same extremes as the Breitling Navitimer. It was the first Rolex to feature a 24 hour hand, though it was not adjustable until the 1983 GMT-Master II. And it also included a date window under a magnifying glass bubble at 3 on the dial. But it is the rotating bezel that we will focus on, since that is the subject of this article.
Mechanically quite similar to the Submariner bezel, the GMT-Master featured alternating dots and numerals from 2 to 22, indicating the hours for the central 24 hour hand. In this way, it could be used to show the time in a second time zone by rotating the bezel ahead or behind the fixed hand. This too would become an iconic design, copied by many other firms in the coming decades. And it remains a favorite Rolex model today.
From Complex to Simple, With Many Variations
There is far more we could say about the rotating bezel, but perhaps this is enough to prove my point: Invention often proceeds from complex to simple. What was once an integrated mechanism to set the alarm or time became a simple alternate time scale. But there is subtlety to the rotating bezel! While most count up, some count down. While most are marked at 60 minute intervals, others are marked at 12. And some function as slide rules or perform complicated calculations specific to navigation. The simple bezel is far from simple, and many different companies and inventors were involved in its evolution!
#Bezel #BreitlingChronomat #Damas #Eterna #Fortis #GMTMaster #HansWilsdorf #Harwood #Heuer #Invicta #Longines #Mimo #MimoLoga #Minerva #Navitimer #Rolex #Submariner #TurnOGraph #Weems #Zenith

#bezel #breitlingchronomat #damas #eterna #fortis #gmtmaster
Stephen @[email protected] · 2026-03-20 · 21:20 UTC

The Backward Evolution of the Rotating Bezel

Not everything gets more complicated as it evolves. The bezel, once a simple frame around the glass of a watch, became an integrated mechanism before it evolved into a simple numeric scale. From alarm clocks, navigational computers, and slide rules it became the most-recognized feature of the most iconic watches. Let’s consider the history of the rotating bezel.
The simple rotating bezel was once very complex!
From Complex to Simple
We tend to think that innovation starts with simple ideas and becomes more complex over time. Surprisingly, the opposite is usually true. Lacking a clear use case, inventors tend to start with a complex concept before stripping away less-useful elements. Consider the Apple Newton, a full-featured handheld computer with dozens of innovative ideas that inspired simpler PDAs before morphing into the modern smartphone. My 2017 BMW i3 electric is truly an exotic car, built like a carbon fiber science project and entirely unlike the conventional 2027 i3 sedan.
The same is true in watchmaking, and this brings us to the humble rotating bezel. Nearly every brand has a dive watch styled after the Rolex Submariner with a bold black knurled rotating bezel marked with triangles, sticks, and numerals. Most buyers never give these a second look, let alone turn them to time a drive, let alone a dive. Some brands also make a watch styled after the Breitling Navitimer with a busy two-part bezel marked with confusing aeronautical indications of speed and fuel load. Rolex even created a functional rotating bezel for the 2012 Sky-Dweller, used to select different functions.
A bit of research reveals that the history of the humble rotating bezel runs exactly counter to expectation, beginning with functional complications before proceeding to obscure slide rules before being stripped down to a basic hour indicator. It took 50 years for the rotating bezel to be simplified enough to enter the public consciousness and that long again before Rolex invented the Sky-Dweller’s ring command. Like so many innovations, there’s a lot to learn if you look into the rotating bezel!
The Functional Bezel
This 1913 catalog image shows a modern pocket watch with a knurled screw-on bezel
The bezel itself was an innovation. Most early clocks and watches were “open faced”, but by the 17th century some included a glass to protect the dial and hands. This was mounted in a frame of metal called a bezel, which was often attached to the case with a hinge. Thus, the first bezel was a functional part of the case, if not the watch movement.
Watches in the 19th century adopted setting and winding using a crown and often had a fixed glass over the dial, since the hands no longer needed to be manually manipulated. The glass was set directly into the rounded case without a separate bezel. This gave the watch a smooth curving contour that felt in the hand like a bar of soap (“savonnette” in French). Some watches still featured a bezel around the glass, notably the screw-on bezel and back produced by Keystone and others in America.
Winding and setting functions were not unified in a single crown until the 20th century. Earlier watches often had keys for winding or were set manually by rotating the hands. Pendant winding using a crown became widespread in the 19th century, and inventors were constantly working to enable hand setting by rotating the crown as well. These often involved levers or buttons, but some involved a rotating knurled bezel very similar in concept to the modern Sky-Dweller.
Eterna’s pioneering alarm wristwatch used a rotating bezel to set the alarm time
As alarm watches became popular in the early 20th century, a question arose about how to set this additional function. Attention again turned to the bezel, which could be rotated to set the time of the alarm. This must have been fairly common, as 1907 coverage of a new alarm watch from F. Schweizer & Cie discusses the limitations of bezel-set alarms (reliability and accuracy).
This was notably used by Eterna on their innovative if unsuccessful 1914 Cal. 68, the first alarm wristwatch. This 13 ligne movement was offered in a small pocket watch, a wristwatch, and a convertible watch that could be mounted on the steering wheel of a car. Although the wristwatch didn’t sell well, Eterna used the same movement in a line of successful travel alarm clocks, and these inspired the entire industry to adopt this mechanism.
Soon, most alarm clocks used a rotating bezel to set the time, often with an indicator on the bezel to show the current setting. This complicated mechanism was the first widely-used rotating bezel, pre-dating the dive watch craze by three decades.
The Harwood Perpetual used a rotating bezel to set the time, with an indicator that this function was active above 6 on the dial
A similar system was employed by John Harwood to set the time his Perpetual, the first self-winding wristwatch. The primary driver for his invention was the need to prevent dust and moisture from damaging the movement, a common issue on the battlefields of World War I. Since sealed crowns and stems had not yet been developed, Harwood’s goal was to create a sealed case with no crown, and he was inspired by the alarm clock setting mechanism created by Eterna to use a rotating bezel to set the time.
The Harwood Perpetual was a global sensation, even if it ultimately did not find many buyers. And the knurled or fluted bezel became a common look in the 1930s, adopted by other waterproof watch cases like the Rolex Oyster. Although not a rotating bezel in the strictest sense, many of these could be unscrewed to access the hands, dial, and movement during assembly and servicing.
This 1953 advertisement calls out Perrelet and Harwood as inspirations for Rolex
It is easy to see how the Harwood Perpetual inspired the legendary Rolex Oyster Perpetual, and Rolex agreed: They specifically cited Harwood along with Abraham-Louis Perrelet as inspiration for their Oyster Perpetual in a series of advertisements in the 1950s. And it wasn’t just the Perpetual name or centrally-rotating winding: Rolex popularized the rotating bezel in this same time period, introducing the Turn-o-Graph, Submariner, and GMT-Master, as we will discuss in a moment. All of these feature a bezel that strongly resembles the Harwood Perpetual.
Lindbergh, Longines, and Weems
The idea that a rotating bezel could serve as an indicator of information rather than a mechanism to set the time originates with American aviator Philip Van Horn Weems. He developed a simplified navigational system for aircraft while serving in the American Navy in the 1920s and early 1930s. His system relied on a so-called “second-setting watch” featured a rotating inner dial that could be set to a time signal over the radio. This was based on Longines’ 1918 Touran pocket watch, which was designed to be re-set to zero at sunset to approximate the Alla Turca timekeeping system of the Ottoman Empire.
This 1932 article in Journal Suisse d’Horlogerie outlines the use of the Longines Weems-Lindbergh Hour Angle Watch
A close collaboration between Weems, aviation pioneer Charles Lindburgh, Longines-Wittnauer director John P.V. Heinmuller, and the Longines and Fluckiger factories in Saint-Imier resulted in a revolutionary watch that allowed pilots to determine their location using markings on a rotating bezel. This began with a specially-modified version of the Touran watch with an outer chapter scale showing units of arc, delivered in 1930. In 1931 Longines added a rotating bezel marked with units of arc in red and green. This bezel would be pre-positioned according to the equation of time table to instantly perform the calculation needed to determine the Greenwich Hour Angle of the Sun.
Once Longines developed a stop-seconds flyback movement the inner rotating dial component was no longer needed, allowing all calculations to be performed using the rotating bezel. Later versions even dispensed with the units of arc markings on the bezel, using a simple scale with units marked 10 through 60. These were no longer Hour Angle watches at all, but they were some of the first watches with a rotating bezel. In later decades Longines produced faithful reproductions of the Lindbergh Hour Angle watch, including a lovely limited edition in 2018.
The Evolving Chronograph Bezel
As the world industrialized in the early 20th century, a need for time measurement appeared. Businesses were more interested in tracking efficiency, and aviators needed to record and note time of travel. Watchmakers struggled to develop affordable and reliable chronograph mechanisms in the 1930s and 1940s, and this a fascinating area of study. This was the era when the old monopusher gave way to the Compax, flyback, and chronostop.
Heuer’s 1935 aviation chronograph featured a rotating bezel to mark elapsed time
The alarm time indicators of previous decades gave innovators a new idea: A rotating bezel could set an indicator to measure elapsed time. In 1935 Heuer introduced a new chronograph for aviators that featured a knurled rotating bezel attached to a white triangular indicator “to mark the departure time or any other observation.” It is unclear if this is the first chronograph watch with a rotating bezel, but it is the earliest our research has uncovered.
Breitling produced a similar-looking aviation watch with a rotating bezel in early 1936. Unlike the Heuer chronograph, the Breitling model has no minute totalizer, only chronograph seconds. As noted in Journal Suisse d’Horlogerie, the bezel indicator would “serve as the minute totalizer”, synchronized with the running minutes hand for timing flight operations.
This 1936 Breitling aviation chronograph is very similar to the Heuer model This 1936 Fortis chronostop has a fully-marked bezel
Fortis also produced a chronostop watch with a rotating bezel in 1936. This movement had a stop and reset function for the central chronograph seconds hand using a pusher in the crown. The Fortis chronostop was the first watch we’ve seen with a full set of 60 markers on the rotating bezel, complete with numerals from 5 to 60. The design also departed from the classic rounded screw-on bezel look: It has a flat bezel that aligns with the dial along with a sharp vertical knurled edge.
In 1938, Damas added the now-common triangle at the top, along with a fully-marked bezel
The 1938 Damas Ref. 2452 dispensed with the expensive chronograph movement entirely, relying solely on a rotating bezel and central running seconds hand to record elapsed time. This watch advanced the bezel markings in a significant way: It features a triangle at the top rather than 0 or 60. This is a common design today, combining the Heuer and Breitling bezel indicator with the full minute track and vertical edge seen on the Fortis chronostop.
The 1940 Invicta Secontrol (left) and Time-Log (right) featured a 12-hour bezel with steep grooves
The next major advancement in bezel design came from Invicta, then a respected maker of complicated watches in La Chaux-de-Fonds. They introduced two models for 1940 with a deeply-grooved 12-hour bezel: The Secontrol had a chronostop movement and telemeter and tachymeter scales on the dial, while the Time-Log used a start-stop chronograph movement with three pushers. The new bezel served as an hour counter for these watches, which would be much more useful in association with the minute totalizer subdial on the Time-Log. It is unclear exactly how the 12-hour bezel would be useful on the Secontrol.
Minerva’s 1949 Ref. 1527 introduced the count-down bezel
The next important advance in simple bezel design came in 1949 with the Minerva Ref. 1527, which features numerals that count down rather than up. This is useful as a reminder for future events rather than a recorder of elapsed time. Since this model is marked from 1 to 11 (again with the triangle at 12), it was designed to be used by aviators to mark the next turn using the hour hand. Count-down bezels are uncommon today but they remain an interesting variation on the theme.
The Slide Rule Bezel
The slide rule (“règle à calcul” in French) was invented by English mathematician and clergyman Reverend William Oughtred and others in the 17th century, utilizing the mathematical concept of logarithms discovered by John Napier. Logarithms exploit the relationship between two scales to perform various calculations, especially multiplication and division. Slide rules were the most convenient and accurate mathematical tool until the creation of electronic calculators and computers in the 1960s.
Although Moret called his invention a “montre à calcul”, it was a calculator rather than a watch
The straight slide rule is most familiar but the circular slide rule has existed since the 19th century. In 1905, Emile Alexandre Moret of France received a patent for a mechanical calculator that used geared hands to perform logarithmic calculations using circular disks. Moret recognized that a circular slide rule could be packaged as a clock or watch, calling his invention a “montre à calcul”, but it did not include a timekeeping function.
Fabriques des Montres Zénith patented a pocket calculator resembling a watch in 1918
Zénith, the famous Le Locle watchmaking firm, received a patent for a mechanical slide rule calculator in a pocket watch case in 1918. Once again, although this resembled a watch it was actually a pocket calculator without any timekeeping capability.
Importantly, both of these designs appeared before the Harwood Perpetual watch popularized the concept of a rotating bezel. It was only a matter of time before someone moved the circular slide rule to the bezel of a watch.
Graef & Cie, Fabrique Mimo, was one of the most innovative watchmaking companies in the first half of the 20th century, introducing many firsts between 1930 and 1941: The first wristwatch with a calendar, a double-barrel 8-day movement, a digital jump-hour display, and even a quick-change strap. So it is no surprise that Mimo was also the first company to produce a wristwatch with a slide rule bezel.
The 1941 Mimo-Loga was the first watch with a slide rule bezel
The Mimo-Loga was the first watch to feature a freely-rotating bezel, and it included classic slide rule markings. The July 27, 1940 patent eloquently describes that, “in addition to the chronometric and chronograph devices, includes at least two conjugate logarithmic scales, at least one of which is mounted on a rotating member concentric with the dial that carries the other.”
The Mimo-Loga was introduced in early 1941, just before Mimo founder Otto Graef retired. He left his sons in control of Mimo to his sons, but they were more interested in re-establishing the famous Girard-Perregaux brand, which the family acquired in 1928. Despite its history of innovation, the Mimo brand soon disappeared.
One watch comes to mind when we think of the slide rule bezel today: The Breitling Navitimer. Although Breitling is correctly credited with making the slide rule bezel famous, it was introduced with the Chronomat, not the Navitimer, and just a few months after the Mimo-Loga! Let’s set the record straight.
Breitling advertised the Chronomat with its innovative slide rule bezel in September of 1941
Most contemporary accounts claim that Breitling introduced the Chronomat in 1942, but primary sources include advertisements for “Le Chronomat” in September 1941. Although the watch may not have entered production this early, it was clearly a focus for the company at this time. Like the Mimo-Loga, the Chronomat had slide rule markings on the rotating bezel. But Breitling’s watch used a chronograph movement, and this allowed the wearer to perform many more useful calculations.
Breitling produced a companion booklet to help buyers make the most of the Chronomat’s capabilities. The dial also included red reference markings to assist in measuring seconds, fifths, minutes, and hours as well as a telemeter indicator. The Chronomat was specifically designed as a tachymeter, telemeter, pulsometer, and metronome, and the scale could perform standard mathematical calculations like previous circular slide rules. Breitling even produced a cardboard cutout model, available to retailers to help demonstrate these functions.
The Chronomat name combined these capabilities, “chronograph” and “mathematics”, but this did not last long. An automatic Chronomat without a chronograph function was introduced by 1954 and the famous Chronomatic movement further muddied the waters. Today the Chronomat line includes many chronographs but not one has a slide rule bezel.
Breitling began advertising the Navitimer in 1955
This brings us to the most famous slide rule watch, the Breitling Navitimer. Today, the company claims that this watch was created in 1952 and released in 1954 with AOPA branding, and we have no reason to doubt their internal records. But the earliest public references to the Navitimer appear in 1955, and the trademark for the name was received on January 22 of that year. The Navitimer is a specialized watch, originally exclusively available to pilots, and may not have been publicized or even named until 1955.
While the Chronomat had indicators for various capabilities, the Navitimer was designed specifically to perform specialized calculations related to air travel: Ground speed, distance per minute, fuel consumption, rate and distance of climb or descent, and nautical and statute mile conversion. These scales and indices made for a very busy dial despite the hefty 41 mm case. Breitling’s current lineup includes a variety of beautiful and colorful interpretations of the classic Navitimer.
Incredibly, it is this specialized tool watch design that has become dominant in the public consciousness. Today there are numerous “Navitimer” style watches made by brands like Casio, Citizen, Hamilton, Seiko, and Victorinox. The Sinn 903 also deserves special mention: They bought up the remaining Navitimer stock from Breitling in 1979 and continued to sell these original watches as their Navigation Timer into the 1980s. This has remained in production today, with the Model 903 II released in March of 2024.
Rolex: Turn-o-Graph, Submariner, and GMT-Master
When the Swiss Industries Fair in Basel opened on May 8, 1954, visitors to the Rolex stand were treated to three new product releases: Explorer, Submariner, and Turn-o-Graph. These watches marked a transition for Rolex and ultimately the entire watch industry. All three were tool watches with modern Oyster cases and Perpetual movements, and two were defined by their distinctive rotating bezels.
The Rolex stand at the Basel fair in 1954 Europa Star’s coverage of the 1954 Basel Fair emphasized three new tool watches from Rolex
The Turn-o-Graph name is not well-remembered today, but it was a staple of the Rolex lineup (on and off) until 2011. It was a simple time-only watch with a rotating bezel designed to calculate elapsed time. The Rolex rotating bezel was mostly flat, with a sharp knurled edge. In the Turn-o-Graph it was marked with four dots then a stick or numerals at 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50. A triangle with a luminous dot was placed at the top. This design reflected the dial, which used dots on the hour, sticks at 3, 6, and 9, and a triangle at 12, all with luminous paint. The Turn-o-Graph was thus the most harmonious of the trio.
The Submariner was very similar to the Turn-o-Graph but was rated to 200 meters. Rolex had a long history of producing waterproof watches, but the Submariner was altogether more elegant and refined. The bezel was wide and flat, lacking the dots of the Turn-o-Graph, with stick markers alternating between numerals on the 10s. Although a true icon today, this original Submariner looked like nothing else on the market at the time. The look was soon copied by the entire industry, making the simple flat rotating bezel a sports watch staple. And the Submariner is undoubtedly one of the most in-demand watches globally to this day.
On March 22, 1956, Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf gathered friends and industry figures to the Hôtel des Bergues in Geneva to celebrate his 75th birthday and the success of the company. Along with the “Stick-o-Matic”, presented to him by the factory, the crowd was able to see a brand new Rolex model.
I’ve wanted to highlight the Rolex Stick-o-Matic for years! The original GMT-Master is another Rolex icon
The GMT-Master was developed with the needs of pilots in mind, though Rolex did not go to the same extremes as the Breitling Navitimer. It was the first Rolex to feature a 24 hour hand, though it was not adjustable until the 1983 GMT-Master II. And it also included a date window under a magnifying glass bubble at 3 on the dial. But it is the rotating bezel that we will focus on, since that is the subject of this article.
Mechanically quite similar to the Submariner bezel, the GMT-Master featured alternating dots and numerals from 2 to 22, indicating the hours for the central 24 hour hand. In this way, it could be used to show the time in a second time zone by rotating the bezel ahead or behind the fixed hand. This too would become an iconic design, copied by many other firms in the coming decades. And it remains a favorite Rolex model today.
From Complex to Simple, With Many Variations
There is far more we could say about the rotating bezel, but perhaps this is enough to prove my point: Invention often proceeds from complex to simple. What was once an integrated mechanism to set the alarm or time became a simple alternate time scale. But there is subtlety to the rotating bezel! While most count up, some count down. While most are marked at 60 minute intervals, others are marked at 12. And some function as slide rules or perform complicated calculations specific to navigation. The simple bezel is far from simple, and many different companies and inventors were involved in its evolution!
#Bezel #BreitlingChronomat #Damas #Eterna #Fortis #GMTMaster #HansWilsdorf #Harwood #Heuer #Invicta #Longines #Mimo #MimoLoga #Minerva #Navitimer #Rolex #Submariner #TurnOGraph #Weems #Zenith

#bezel #breitlingchronomat #damas #eterna #fortis #gmtmaster
Stephen @[email protected] · 2026-03-20 · 21:20 UTC

The Backward Evolution of the Rotating Bezel

Not everything gets more complicated as it evolves. The bezel, once a simple frame around the glass of a watch, became an integrated mechanism before it evolved into a simple numeric scale. From alarm clocks, navigational computers, and slide rules it became the most-recognized feature of the most iconic watches. Let’s consider the history of the rotating bezel.
The simple rotating bezel was once very complex!
From Complex to Simple
We tend to think that innovation starts with simple ideas and becomes more complex over time. Surprisingly, the opposite is usually true. Lacking a clear use case, inventors tend to start with a complex concept before stripping away less-useful elements. Consider the Apple Newton, a full-featured handheld computer with dozens of innovative ideas that inspired simpler PDAs before morphing into the modern smartphone. My 2017 BMW i3 electric is truly an exotic car, built like a carbon fiber science project and entirely unlike the conventional 2027 i3 sedan.
The same is true in watchmaking, and this brings us to the humble rotating bezel. Nearly every brand has a dive watch styled after the Rolex Submariner with a bold black knurled rotating bezel marked with triangles, sticks, and numerals. Most buyers never give these a second look, let alone turn them to time a drive, let alone a dive. Some brands also make a watch styled after the Breitling Navitimer with a busy two-part bezel marked with confusing aeronautical indications of speed and fuel load. Rolex even created a functional rotating bezel for the 2012 Sky-Dweller, used to select different functions.
A bit of research reveals that the history of the humble rotating bezel runs exactly counter to expectation, beginning with functional complications before proceeding to obscure slide rules before being stripped down to a basic hour indicator. It took 50 years for the rotating bezel to be simplified enough to enter the public consciousness and that long again before Rolex invented the Sky-Dweller’s ring command. Like so many innovations, there’s a lot to learn if you look into the rotating bezel!
The Functional Bezel
This 1913 catalog image shows a modern pocket watch with a knurled screw-on bezel
The bezel itself was an innovation. Most early clocks and watches were “open faced”, but by the 17th century some included a glass to protect the dial and hands. This was mounted in a frame of metal called a bezel, which was often attached to the case with a hinge. Thus, the first bezel was a functional part of the case, if not the watch movement.
Watches in the 19th century adopted setting and winding using a crown and often had a fixed glass over the dial, since the hands no longer needed to be manually manipulated. The glass was set directly into the rounded case without a separate bezel. This gave the watch a smooth curving contour that felt in the hand like a bar of soap (“savonnette” in French). Some watches still featured a bezel around the glass, notably the screw-on bezel and back produced by Keystone and others in America.
Winding and setting functions were not unified in a single crown until the 20th century. Earlier watches often had keys for winding or were set manually by rotating the hands. Pendant winding using a crown became widespread in the 19th century, and inventors were constantly working to enable hand setting by rotating the crown as well. These often involved levers or buttons, but some involved a rotating knurled bezel very similar in concept to the modern Sky-Dweller.
Eterna’s pioneering alarm wristwatch used a rotating bezel to set the alarm time
As alarm watches became popular in the early 20th century, a question arose about how to set this additional function. Attention again turned to the bezel, which could be rotated to set the time of the alarm. This must have been fairly common, as 1907 coverage of a new alarm watch from F. Schweizer & Cie discusses the limitations of bezel-set alarms (reliability and accuracy).
This was notably used by Eterna on their innovative if unsuccessful 1914 Cal. 68, the first alarm wristwatch. This 13 ligne movement was offered in a small pocket watch, a wristwatch, and a convertible watch that could be mounted on the steering wheel of a car. Although the wristwatch didn’t sell well, Eterna used the same movement in a line of successful travel alarm clocks, and these inspired the entire industry to adopt this mechanism.
Soon, most alarm clocks used a rotating bezel to set the time, often with an indicator on the bezel to show the current setting. This complicated mechanism was the first widely-used rotating bezel, pre-dating the dive watch craze by three decades.
The Harwood Perpetual used a rotating bezel to set the time, with an indicator that this function was active above 6 on the dial
A similar system was employed by John Harwood to set the time his Perpetual, the first self-winding wristwatch. The primary driver for his invention was the need to prevent dust and moisture from damaging the movement, a common issue on the battlefields of World War I. Since sealed crowns and stems had not yet been developed, Harwood’s goal was to create a sealed case with no crown, and he was inspired by the alarm clock setting mechanism created by Eterna to use a rotating bezel to set the time.
The Harwood Perpetual was a global sensation, even if it ultimately did not find many buyers. And the knurled or fluted bezel became a common look in the 1930s, adopted by other waterproof watch cases like the Rolex Oyster. Although not a rotating bezel in the strictest sense, many of these could be unscrewed to access the hands, dial, and movement during assembly and servicing.
This 1953 advertisement calls out Perrelet and Harwood as inspirations for Rolex
It is easy to see how the Harwood Perpetual inspired the legendary Rolex Oyster Perpetual, and Rolex agreed: They specifically cited Harwood along with Abraham-Louis Perrelet as inspiration for their Oyster Perpetual in a series of advertisements in the 1950s. And it wasn’t just the Perpetual name or centrally-rotating winding: Rolex popularized the rotating bezel in this same time period, introducing the Turn-o-Graph, Submariner, and GMT-Master, as we will discuss in a moment. All of these feature a bezel that strongly resembles the Harwood Perpetual.
Lindbergh, Longines, and Weems
The idea that a rotating bezel could serve as an indicator of information rather than a mechanism to set the time originates with American aviator Philip Van Horn Weems. He developed a simplified navigational system for aircraft while serving in the American Navy in the 1920s and early 1930s. His system relied on a so-called “second-setting watch” featured a rotating inner dial that could be set to a time signal over the radio. This was based on Longines’ 1918 Touran pocket watch, which was designed to be re-set to zero at sunset to approximate the Alla Turca timekeeping system of the Ottoman Empire.
This 1932 article in Journal Suisse d’Horlogerie outlines the use of the Longines Weems-Lindbergh Hour Angle Watch
A close collaboration between Weems, aviation pioneer Charles Lindburgh, Longines-Wittnauer director John P.V. Heinmuller, and the Longines and Fluckiger factories in Saint-Imier resulted in a revolutionary watch that allowed pilots to determine their location using markings on a rotating bezel. This began with a specially-modified version of the Touran watch with an outer chapter scale showing units of arc, delivered in 1930. In 1931 Longines added a rotating bezel marked with units of arc in red and green. This bezel would be pre-positioned according to the equation of time table to instantly perform the calculation needed to determine the Greenwich Hour Angle of the Sun.
Once Longines developed a stop-seconds flyback movement the inner rotating dial component was no longer needed, allowing all calculations to be performed using the rotating bezel. Later versions even dispensed with the units of arc markings on the bezel, using a simple scale with units marked 10 through 60. These were no longer Hour Angle watches at all, but they were some of the first watches with a rotating bezel. In later decades Longines produced faithful reproductions of the Lindbergh Hour Angle watch, including a lovely limited edition in 2018.
The Evolving Chronograph Bezel
As the world industrialized in the early 20th century, a need for time measurement appeared. Businesses were more interested in tracking efficiency, and aviators needed to record and note time of travel. Watchmakers struggled to develop affordable and reliable chronograph mechanisms in the 1930s and 1940s, and this a fascinating area of study. This was the era when the old monopusher gave way to the Compax, flyback, and chronostop.
Heuer’s 1935 aviation chronograph featured a rotating bezel to mark elapsed time
The alarm time indicators of previous decades gave innovators a new idea: A rotating bezel could set an indicator to measure elapsed time. In 1935 Heuer introduced a new chronograph for aviators that featured a knurled rotating bezel attached to a white triangular indicator “to mark the departure time or any other observation.” It is unclear if this is the first chronograph watch with a rotating bezel, but it is the earliest our research has uncovered.
Breitling produced a similar-looking aviation watch with a rotating bezel in early 1936. Unlike the Heuer chronograph, the Breitling model has no minute totalizer, only chronograph seconds. As noted in Journal Suisse d’Horlogerie, the bezel indicator would “serve as the minute totalizer”, synchronized with the running minutes hand for timing flight operations.
This 1936 Breitling aviation chronograph is very similar to the Heuer model This 1936 Fortis chronostop has a fully-marked bezel
Fortis also produced a chronostop watch with a rotating bezel in 1936. This movement had a stop and reset function for the central chronograph seconds hand using a pusher in the crown. The Fortis chronostop was the first watch we’ve seen with a full set of 60 markers on the rotating bezel, complete with numerals from 5 to 60. The design also departed from the classic rounded screw-on bezel look: It has a flat bezel that aligns with the dial along with a sharp vertical knurled edge.
In 1938, Damas added the now-common triangle at the top, along with a fully-marked bezel
The 1938 Damas Ref. 2452 dispensed with the expensive chronograph movement entirely, relying solely on a rotating bezel and central running seconds hand to record elapsed time. This watch advanced the bezel markings in a significant way: It features a triangle at the top rather than 0 or 60. This is a common design today, combining the Heuer and Breitling bezel indicator with the full minute track and vertical edge seen on the Fortis chronostop.
The 1940 Invicta Secontrol (left) and Time-Log (right) featured a 12-hour bezel with steep grooves
The next major advancement in bezel design came from Invicta, then a respected maker of complicated watches in La Chaux-de-Fonds. They introduced two models for 1940 with a deeply-grooved 12-hour bezel: The Secontrol had a chronostop movement and telemeter and tachymeter scales on the dial, while the Time-Log used a start-stop chronograph movement with three pushers. The new bezel served as an hour counter for these watches, which would be much more useful in association with the minute totalizer subdial on the Time-Log. It is unclear exactly how the 12-hour bezel would be useful on the Secontrol.
Minerva’s 1949 Ref. 1527 introduced the count-down bezel
The next important advance in simple bezel design came in 1949 with the Minerva Ref. 1527, which features numerals that count down rather than up. This is useful as a reminder for future events rather than a recorder of elapsed time. Since this model is marked from 1 to 11 (again with the triangle at 12), it was designed to be used by aviators to mark the next turn using the hour hand. Count-down bezels are uncommon today but they remain an interesting variation on the theme.
The Slide Rule Bezel
The slide rule (“règle à calcul” in French) was invented by English mathematician and clergyman Reverend William Oughtred and others in the 17th century, utilizing the mathematical concept of logarithms discovered by John Napier. Logarithms exploit the relationship between two scales to perform various calculations, especially multiplication and division. Slide rules were the most convenient and accurate mathematical tool until the creation of electronic calculators and computers in the 1960s.
Although Moret called his invention a “montre à calcul”, it was a calculator rather than a watch
The straight slide rule is most familiar but the circular slide rule has existed since the 19th century. In 1905, Emile Alexandre Moret of France received a patent for a mechanical calculator that used geared hands to perform logarithmic calculations using circular disks. Moret recognized that a circular slide rule could be packaged as a clock or watch, calling his invention a “montre à calcul”, but it did not include a timekeeping function.
Fabriques des Montres Zénith patented a pocket calculator resembling a watch in 1918
Zénith, the famous Le Locle watchmaking firm, received a patent for a mechanical slide rule calculator in a pocket watch case in 1918. Once again, although this resembled a watch it was actually a pocket calculator without any timekeeping capability.
Importantly, both of these designs appeared before the Harwood Perpetual watch popularized the concept of a rotating bezel. It was only a matter of time before someone moved the circular slide rule to the bezel of a watch.
Graef & Cie, Fabrique Mimo, was one of the most innovative watchmaking companies in the first half of the 20th century, introducing many firsts between 1930 and 1941: The first wristwatch with a calendar, a double-barrel 8-day movement, a digital jump-hour display, and even a quick-change strap. So it is no surprise that Mimo was also the first company to produce a wristwatch with a slide rule bezel.
The 1941 Mimo-Loga was the first watch with a slide rule bezel
The Mimo-Loga was the first watch to feature a freely-rotating bezel, and it included classic slide rule markings. The July 27, 1940 patent eloquently describes that, “in addition to the chronometric and chronograph devices, includes at least two conjugate logarithmic scales, at least one of which is mounted on a rotating member concentric with the dial that carries the other.”
The Mimo-Loga was introduced in early 1941, just before Mimo founder Otto Graef retired. He left his sons in control of Mimo to his sons, but they were more interested in re-establishing the famous Girard-Perregaux brand, which the family acquired in 1928. Despite its history of innovation, the Mimo brand soon disappeared.
One watch comes to mind when we think of the slide rule bezel today: The Breitling Navitimer. Although Breitling is correctly credited with making the slide rule bezel famous, it was introduced with the Chronomat, not the Navitimer, and just a few months after the Mimo-Loga! Let’s set the record straight.
Breitling advertised the Chronomat with its innovative slide rule bezel in September of 1941
Most contemporary accounts claim that Breitling introduced the Chronomat in 1942, but primary sources include advertisements for “Le Chronomat” in September 1941. Although the watch may not have entered production this early, it was clearly a focus for the company at this time. Like the Mimo-Loga, the Chronomat had slide rule markings on the rotating bezel. But Breitling’s watch used a chronograph movement, and this allowed the wearer to perform many more useful calculations.
Breitling produced a companion booklet to help buyers make the most of the Chronomat’s capabilities. The dial also included red reference markings to assist in measuring seconds, fifths, minutes, and hours as well as a telemeter indicator. The Chronomat was specifically designed as a tachymeter, telemeter, pulsometer, and metronome, and the scale could perform standard mathematical calculations like previous circular slide rules. Breitling even produced a cardboard cutout model, available to retailers to help demonstrate these functions.
The Chronomat name combined these capabilities, “chronograph” and “mathematics”, but this did not last long. An automatic Chronomat without a chronograph function was introduced by 1954 and the famous Chronomatic movement further muddied the waters. Today the Chronomat line includes many chronographs but not one has a slide rule bezel.
Breitling began advertising the Navitimer in 1955
This brings us to the most famous slide rule watch, the Breitling Navitimer. Today, the company claims that this watch was created in 1952 and released in 1954 with AOPA branding, and we have no reason to doubt their internal records. But the earliest public references to the Navitimer appear in 1955, and the trademark for the name was received on January 22 of that year. The Navitimer is a specialized watch, originally exclusively available to pilots, and may not have been publicized or even named until 1955.
While the Chronomat had indicators for various capabilities, the Navitimer was designed specifically to perform specialized calculations related to air travel: Ground speed, distance per minute, fuel consumption, rate and distance of climb or descent, and nautical and statute mile conversion. These scales and indices made for a very busy dial despite the hefty 41 mm case. Breitling’s current lineup includes a variety of beautiful and colorful interpretations of the classic Navitimer.
Incredibly, it is this specialized tool watch design that has become dominant in the public consciousness. Today there are numerous “Navitimer” style watches made by brands like Casio, Citizen, Hamilton, Seiko, and Victorinox. The Sinn 903 also deserves special mention: They bought up the remaining Navitimer stock from Breitling in 1979 and continued to sell these original watches as their Navigation Timer into the 1980s. This has remained in production today, with the Model 903 II released in March of 2024.
Rolex: Turn-o-Graph, Submariner, and GMT-Master
When the Swiss Industries Fair in Basel opened on May 8, 1954, visitors to the Rolex stand were treated to three new product releases: Explorer, Submariner, and Turn-o-Graph. These watches marked a transition for Rolex and ultimately the entire watch industry. All three were tool watches with modern Oyster cases and Perpetual movements, and two were defined by their distinctive rotating bezels.
The Rolex stand at the Basel fair in 1954 Europa Star’s coverage of the 1954 Basel Fair emphasized three new tool watches from Rolex
The Turn-o-Graph name is not well-remembered today, but it was a staple of the Rolex lineup (on and off) until 2011. It was a simple time-only watch with a rotating bezel designed to calculate elapsed time. The Rolex rotating bezel was mostly flat, with a sharp knurled edge. In the Turn-o-Graph it was marked with four dots then a stick or numerals at 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50. A triangle with a luminous dot was placed at the top. This design reflected the dial, which used dots on the hour, sticks at 3, 6, and 9, and a triangle at 12, all with luminous paint. The Turn-o-Graph was thus the most harmonious of the trio.
The Submariner was very similar to the Turn-o-Graph but was rated to 200 meters. Rolex had a long history of producing waterproof watches, but the Submariner was altogether more elegant and refined. The bezel was wide and flat, lacking the dots of the Turn-o-Graph, with stick markers alternating between numerals on the 10s. Although a true icon today, this original Submariner looked like nothing else on the market at the time. The look was soon copied by the entire industry, making the simple flat rotating bezel a sports watch staple. And the Submariner is undoubtedly one of the most in-demand watches globally to this day.
On March 22, 1956, Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf gathered friends and industry figures to the Hôtel des Bergues in Geneva to celebrate his 75th birthday and the success of the company. Along with the “Stick-o-Matic”, presented to him by the factory, the crowd was able to see a brand new Rolex model.
I’ve wanted to highlight the Rolex Stick-o-Matic for years! The original GMT-Master is another Rolex icon
The GMT-Master was developed with the needs of pilots in mind, though Rolex did not go to the same extremes as the Breitling Navitimer. It was the first Rolex to feature a 24 hour hand, though it was not adjustable until the 1983 GMT-Master II. And it also included a date window under a magnifying glass bubble at 3 on the dial. But it is the rotating bezel that we will focus on, since that is the subject of this article.
Mechanically quite similar to the Submariner bezel, the GMT-Master featured alternating dots and numerals from 2 to 22, indicating the hours for the central 24 hour hand. In this way, it could be used to show the time in a second time zone by rotating the bezel ahead or behind the fixed hand. This too would become an iconic design, copied by many other firms in the coming decades. And it remains a favorite Rolex model today.
From Complex to Simple, With Many Variations
There is far more we could say about the rotating bezel, but perhaps this is enough to prove my point: Invention often proceeds from complex to simple. What was once an integrated mechanism to set the alarm or time became a simple alternate time scale. But there is subtlety to the rotating bezel! While most count up, some count down. While most are marked at 60 minute intervals, others are marked at 12. And some function as slide rules or perform complicated calculations specific to navigation. The simple bezel is far from simple, and many different companies and inventors were involved in its evolution!
#Bezel #BreitlingChronomat #Damas #Eterna #Fortis #GMTMaster #HansWilsdorf #Harwood #Heuer #Invicta #Longines #Mimo #MimoLoga #Minerva #Navitimer #Rolex #Submariner #TurnOGraph #Weems #Zenith

#bezel #breitlingchronomat #damas #eterna #fortis #gmtmaster
Stephen @[email protected] · 2026-03-20 · 21:20 UTC

The Backward Evolution of the Rotating Bezel

Not everything gets more complicated as it evolves. The bezel, once a simple frame around the glass of a watch, became an integrated mechanism before it evolved into a simple numeric scale. From alarm clocks, navigational computers, and slide rules it became the most-recognized feature of the most iconic watches. Let’s consider the history of the rotating bezel.
The simple rotating bezel was once very complex!
From Complex to Simple
We tend to think that innovation starts with simple ideas and becomes more complex over time. Surprisingly, the opposite is usually true. Lacking a clear use case, inventors tend to start with a complex concept before stripping away less-useful elements. Consider the Apple Newton, a full-featured handheld computer with dozens of innovative ideas that inspired simpler PDAs before morphing into the modern smartphone. My 2017 BMW i3 electric is truly an exotic car, built like a carbon fiber science project and entirely unlike the conventional 2027 i3 sedan.
The same is true in watchmaking, and this brings us to the humble rotating bezel. Nearly every brand has a dive watch styled after the Rolex Submariner with a bold black knurled rotating bezel marked with triangles, sticks, and numerals. Most buyers never give these a second look, let alone turn them to time a drive, let alone a dive. Some brands also make a watch styled after the Breitling Navitimer with a busy two-part bezel marked with confusing aeronautical indications of speed and fuel load. Rolex even created a functional rotating bezel for the 2012 Sky-Dweller, used to select different functions.
A bit of research reveals that the history of the humble rotating bezel runs exactly counter to expectation, beginning with functional complications before proceeding to obscure slide rules before being stripped down to a basic hour indicator. It took 50 years for the rotating bezel to be simplified enough to enter the public consciousness and that long again before Rolex invented the Sky-Dweller’s ring command. Like so many innovations, there’s a lot to learn if you look into the rotating bezel!
The Functional Bezel
This 1913 catalog image shows a modern pocket watch with a knurled screw-on bezel
The bezel itself was an innovation. Most early clocks and watches were “open faced”, but by the 17th century some included a glass to protect the dial and hands. This was mounted in a frame of metal called a bezel, which was often attached to the case with a hinge. Thus, the first bezel was a functional part of the case, if not the watch movement.
Watches in the 19th century adopted setting and winding using a crown and often had a fixed glass over the dial, since the hands no longer needed to be manually manipulated. The glass was set directly into the rounded case without a separate bezel. This gave the watch a smooth curving contour that felt in the hand like a bar of soap (“savonnette” in French). Some watches still featured a bezel around the glass, notably the screw-on bezel and back produced by Keystone and others in America.
Winding and setting functions were not unified in a single crown until the 20th century. Earlier watches often had keys for winding or were set manually by rotating the hands. Pendant winding using a crown became widespread in the 19th century, and inventors were constantly working to enable hand setting by rotating the crown as well. These often involved levers or buttons, but some involved a rotating knurled bezel very similar in concept to the modern Sky-Dweller.
Eterna’s pioneering alarm wristwatch used a rotating bezel to set the alarm time
As alarm watches became popular in the early 20th century, a question arose about how to set this additional function. Attention again turned to the bezel, which could be rotated to set the time of the alarm. This must have been fairly common, as 1907 coverage of a new alarm watch from F. Schweizer & Cie discusses the limitations of bezel-set alarms (reliability and accuracy).
This was notably used by Eterna on their innovative if unsuccessful 1914 Cal. 68, the first alarm wristwatch. This 13 ligne movement was offered in a small pocket watch, a wristwatch, and a convertible watch that could be mounted on the steering wheel of a car. Although the wristwatch didn’t sell well, Eterna used the same movement in a line of successful travel alarm clocks, and these inspired the entire industry to adopt this mechanism.
Soon, most alarm clocks used a rotating bezel to set the time, often with an indicator on the bezel to show the current setting. This complicated mechanism was the first widely-used rotating bezel, pre-dating the dive watch craze by three decades.
The Harwood Perpetual used a rotating bezel to set the time, with an indicator that this function was active above 6 on the dial
A similar system was employed by John Harwood to set the time his Perpetual, the first self-winding wristwatch. The primary driver for his invention was the need to prevent dust and moisture from damaging the movement, a common issue on the battlefields of World War I. Since sealed crowns and stems had not yet been developed, Harwood’s goal was to create a sealed case with no crown, and he was inspired by the alarm clock setting mechanism created by Eterna to use a rotating bezel to set the time.
The Harwood Perpetual was a global sensation, even if it ultimately did not find many buyers. And the knurled or fluted bezel became a common look in the 1930s, adopted by other waterproof watch cases like the Rolex Oyster. Although not a rotating bezel in the strictest sense, many of these could be unscrewed to access the hands, dial, and movement during assembly and servicing.
This 1953 advertisement calls out Perrelet and Harwood as inspirations for Rolex
It is easy to see how the Harwood Perpetual inspired the legendary Rolex Oyster Perpetual, and Rolex agreed: They specifically cited Harwood along with Abraham-Louis Perrelet as inspiration for their Oyster Perpetual in a series of advertisements in the 1950s. And it wasn’t just the Perpetual name or centrally-rotating winding: Rolex popularized the rotating bezel in this same time period, introducing the Turn-o-Graph, Submariner, and GMT-Master, as we will discuss in a moment. All of these feature a bezel that strongly resembles the Harwood Perpetual.
Lindbergh, Longines, and Weems
The idea that a rotating bezel could serve as an indicator of information rather than a mechanism to set the time originates with American aviator Philip Van Horn Weems. He developed a simplified navigational system for aircraft while serving in the American Navy in the 1920s and early 1930s. His system relied on a so-called “second-setting watch” featured a rotating inner dial that could be set to a time signal over the radio. This was based on Longines’ 1918 Touran pocket watch, which was designed to be re-set to zero at sunset to approximate the Alla Turca timekeeping system of the Ottoman Empire.
This 1932 article in Journal Suisse d’Horlogerie outlines the use of the Longines Weems-Lindbergh Hour Angle Watch
A close collaboration between Weems, aviation pioneer Charles Lindburgh, Longines-Wittnauer director John P.V. Heinmuller, and the Longines and Fluckiger factories in Saint-Imier resulted in a revolutionary watch that allowed pilots to determine their location using markings on a rotating bezel. This began with a specially-modified version of the Touran watch with an outer chapter scale showing units of arc, delivered in 1930. In 1931 Longines added a rotating bezel marked with units of arc in red and green. This bezel would be pre-positioned according to the equation of time table to instantly perform the calculation needed to determine the Greenwich Hour Angle of the Sun.
Once Longines developed a stop-seconds flyback movement the inner rotating dial component was no longer needed, allowing all calculations to be performed using the rotating bezel. Later versions even dispensed with the units of arc markings on the bezel, using a simple scale with units marked 10 through 60. These were no longer Hour Angle watches at all, but they were some of the first watches with a rotating bezel. In later decades Longines produced faithful reproductions of the Lindbergh Hour Angle watch, including a lovely limited edition in 2018.
The Evolving Chronograph Bezel
As the world industrialized in the early 20th century, a need for time measurement appeared. Businesses were more interested in tracking efficiency, and aviators needed to record and note time of travel. Watchmakers struggled to develop affordable and reliable chronograph mechanisms in the 1930s and 1940s, and this a fascinating area of study. This was the era when the old monopusher gave way to the Compax, flyback, and chronostop.
Heuer’s 1935 aviation chronograph featured a rotating bezel to mark elapsed time
The alarm time indicators of previous decades gave innovators a new idea: A rotating bezel could set an indicator to measure elapsed time. In 1935 Heuer introduced a new chronograph for aviators that featured a knurled rotating bezel attached to a white triangular indicator “to mark the departure time or any other observation.” It is unclear if this is the first chronograph watch with a rotating bezel, but it is the earliest our research has uncovered.
Breitling produced a similar-looking aviation watch with a rotating bezel in early 1936. Unlike the Heuer chronograph, the Breitling model has no minute totalizer, only chronograph seconds. As noted in Journal Suisse d’Horlogerie, the bezel indicator would “serve as the minute totalizer”, synchronized with the running minutes hand for timing flight operations.
This 1936 Breitling aviation chronograph is very similar to the Heuer model This 1936 Fortis chronostop has a fully-marked bezel
Fortis also produced a chronostop watch with a rotating bezel in 1936. This movement had a stop and reset function for the central chronograph seconds hand using a pusher in the crown. The Fortis chronostop was the first watch we’ve seen with a full set of 60 markers on the rotating bezel, complete with numerals from 5 to 60. The design also departed from the classic rounded screw-on bezel look: It has a flat bezel that aligns with the dial along with a sharp vertical knurled edge.
In 1938, Damas added the now-common triangle at the top, along with a fully-marked bezel
The 1938 Damas Ref. 2452 dispensed with the expensive chronograph movement entirely, relying solely on a rotating bezel and central running seconds hand to record elapsed time. This watch advanced the bezel markings in a significant way: It features a triangle at the top rather than 0 or 60. This is a common design today, combining the Heuer and Breitling bezel indicator with the full minute track and vertical edge seen on the Fortis chronostop.
The 1940 Invicta Secontrol (left) and Time-Log (right) featured a 12-hour bezel with steep grooves
The next major advancement in bezel design came from Invicta, then a respected maker of complicated watches in La Chaux-de-Fonds. They introduced two models for 1940 with a deeply-grooved 12-hour bezel: The Secontrol had a chronostop movement and telemeter and tachymeter scales on the dial, while the Time-Log used a start-stop chronograph movement with three pushers. The new bezel served as an hour counter for these watches, which would be much more useful in association with the minute totalizer subdial on the Time-Log. It is unclear exactly how the 12-hour bezel would be useful on the Secontrol.
Minerva’s 1949 Ref. 1527 introduced the count-down bezel
The next important advance in simple bezel design came in 1949 with the Minerva Ref. 1527, which features numerals that count down rather than up. This is useful as a reminder for future events rather than a recorder of elapsed time. Since this model is marked from 1 to 11 (again with the triangle at 12), it was designed to be used by aviators to mark the next turn using the hour hand. Count-down bezels are uncommon today but they remain an interesting variation on the theme.
The Slide Rule Bezel
The slide rule (“règle à calcul” in French) was invented by English mathematician and clergyman Reverend William Oughtred and others in the 17th century, utilizing the mathematical concept of logarithms discovered by John Napier. Logarithms exploit the relationship between two scales to perform various calculations, especially multiplication and division. Slide rules were the most convenient and accurate mathematical tool until the creation of electronic calculators and computers in the 1960s.
Although Moret called his invention a “montre à calcul”, it was a calculator rather than a watch
The straight slide rule is most familiar but the circular slide rule has existed since the 19th century. In 1905, Emile Alexandre Moret of France received a patent for a mechanical calculator that used geared hands to perform logarithmic calculations using circular disks. Moret recognized that a circular slide rule could be packaged as a clock or watch, calling his invention a “montre à calcul”, but it did not include a timekeeping function.
Fabriques des Montres Zénith patented a pocket calculator resembling a watch in 1918
Zénith, the famous Le Locle watchmaking firm, received a patent for a mechanical slide rule calculator in a pocket watch case in 1918. Once again, although this resembled a watch it was actually a pocket calculator without any timekeeping capability.
Importantly, both of these designs appeared before the Harwood Perpetual watch popularized the concept of a rotating bezel. It was only a matter of time before someone moved the circular slide rule to the bezel of a watch.
Graef & Cie, Fabrique Mimo, was one of the most innovative watchmaking companies in the first half of the 20th century, introducing many firsts between 1930 and 1941: The first wristwatch with a calendar, a double-barrel 8-day movement, a digital jump-hour display, and even a quick-change strap. So it is no surprise that Mimo was also the first company to produce a wristwatch with a slide rule bezel.
The 1941 Mimo-Loga was the first watch with a slide rule bezel
The Mimo-Loga was the first watch to feature a freely-rotating bezel, and it included classic slide rule markings. The July 27, 1940 patent eloquently describes that, “in addition to the chronometric and chronograph devices, includes at least two conjugate logarithmic scales, at least one of which is mounted on a rotating member concentric with the dial that carries the other.”
The Mimo-Loga was introduced in early 1941, just before Mimo founder Otto Graef retired. He left his sons in control of Mimo to his sons, but they were more interested in re-establishing the famous Girard-Perregaux brand, which the family acquired in 1928. Despite its history of innovation, the Mimo brand soon disappeared.
One watch comes to mind when we think of the slide rule bezel today: The Breitling Navitimer. Although Breitling is correctly credited with making the slide rule bezel famous, it was introduced with the Chronomat, not the Navitimer, and just a few months after the Mimo-Loga! Let’s set the record straight.
Breitling advertised the Chronomat with its innovative slide rule bezel in September of 1941
Most contemporary accounts claim that Breitling introduced the Chronomat in 1942, but primary sources include advertisements for “Le Chronomat” in September 1941. Although the watch may not have entered production this early, it was clearly a focus for the company at this time. Like the Mimo-Loga, the Chronomat had slide rule markings on the rotating bezel. But Breitling’s watch used a chronograph movement, and this allowed the wearer to perform many more useful calculations.
Breitling produced a companion booklet to help buyers make the most of the Chronomat’s capabilities. The dial also included red reference markings to assist in measuring seconds, fifths, minutes, and hours as well as a telemeter indicator. The Chronomat was specifically designed as a tachymeter, telemeter, pulsometer, and metronome, and the scale could perform standard mathematical calculations like previous circular slide rules. Breitling even produced a cardboard cutout model, available to retailers to help demonstrate these functions.
The Chronomat name combined these capabilities, “chronograph” and “mathematics”, but this did not last long. An automatic Chronomat without a chronograph function was introduced by 1954 and the famous Chronomatic movement further muddied the waters. Today the Chronomat line includes many chronographs but not one has a slide rule bezel.
Breitling began advertising the Navitimer in 1955
This brings us to the most famous slide rule watch, the Breitling Navitimer. Today, the company claims that this watch was created in 1952 and released in 1954 with AOPA branding, and we have no reason to doubt their internal records. But the earliest public references to the Navitimer appear in 1955, and the trademark for the name was received on January 22 of that year. The Navitimer is a specialized watch, originally exclusively available to pilots, and may not have been publicized or even named until 1955.
While the Chronomat had indicators for various capabilities, the Navitimer was designed specifically to perform specialized calculations related to air travel: Ground speed, distance per minute, fuel consumption, rate and distance of climb or descent, and nautical and statute mile conversion. These scales and indices made for a very busy dial despite the hefty 41 mm case. Breitling’s current lineup includes a variety of beautiful and colorful interpretations of the classic Navitimer.
Incredibly, it is this specialized tool watch design that has become dominant in the public consciousness. Today there are numerous “Navitimer” style watches made by brands like Casio, Citizen, Hamilton, Seiko, and Victorinox. The Sinn 903 also deserves special mention: They bought up the remaining Navitimer stock from Breitling in 1979 and continued to sell these original watches as their Navigation Timer into the 1980s. This has remained in production today, with the Model 903 II released in March of 2024.
Rolex: Turn-o-Graph, Submariner, and GMT-Master
When the Swiss Industries Fair in Basel opened on May 8, 1954, visitors to the Rolex stand were treated to three new product releases: Explorer, Submariner, and Turn-o-Graph. These watches marked a transition for Rolex and ultimately the entire watch industry. All three were tool watches with modern Oyster cases and Perpetual movements, and two were defined by their distinctive rotating bezels.
The Rolex stand at the Basel fair in 1954 Europa Star’s coverage of the 1954 Basel Fair emphasized three new tool watches from Rolex
The Turn-o-Graph name is not well-remembered today, but it was a staple of the Rolex lineup (on and off) until 2011. It was a simple time-only watch with a rotating bezel designed to calculate elapsed time. The Rolex rotating bezel was mostly flat, with a sharp knurled edge. In the Turn-o-Graph it was marked with four dots then a stick or numerals at 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50. A triangle with a luminous dot was placed at the top. This design reflected the dial, which used dots on the hour, sticks at 3, 6, and 9, and a triangle at 12, all with luminous paint. The Turn-o-Graph was thus the most harmonious of the trio.
The Submariner was very similar to the Turn-o-Graph but was rated to 200 meters. Rolex had a long history of producing waterproof watches, but the Submariner was altogether more elegant and refined. The bezel was wide and flat, lacking the dots of the Turn-o-Graph, with stick markers alternating between numerals on the 10s. Although a true icon today, this original Submariner looked like nothing else on the market at the time. The look was soon copied by the entire industry, making the simple flat rotating bezel a sports watch staple. And the Submariner is undoubtedly one of the most in-demand watches globally to this day.
On March 22, 1956, Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf gathered friends and industry figures to the Hôtel des Bergues in Geneva to celebrate his 75th birthday and the success of the company. Along with the “Stick-o-Matic”, presented to him by the factory, the crowd was able to see a brand new Rolex model.
I’ve wanted to highlight the Rolex Stick-o-Matic for years! The original GMT-Master is another Rolex icon
The GMT-Master was developed with the needs of pilots in mind, though Rolex did not go to the same extremes as the Breitling Navitimer. It was the first Rolex to feature a 24 hour hand, though it was not adjustable until the 1983 GMT-Master II. And it also included a date window under a magnifying glass bubble at 3 on the dial. But it is the rotating bezel that we will focus on, since that is the subject of this article.
Mechanically quite similar to the Submariner bezel, the GMT-Master featured alternating dots and numerals from 2 to 22, indicating the hours for the central 24 hour hand. In this way, it could be used to show the time in a second time zone by rotating the bezel ahead or behind the fixed hand. This too would become an iconic design, copied by many other firms in the coming decades. And it remains a favorite Rolex model today.
From Complex to Simple, With Many Variations
There is far more we could say about the rotating bezel, but perhaps this is enough to prove my point: Invention often proceeds from complex to simple. What was once an integrated mechanism to set the alarm or time became a simple alternate time scale. But there is subtlety to the rotating bezel! While most count up, some count down. While most are marked at 60 minute intervals, others are marked at 12. And some function as slide rules or perform complicated calculations specific to navigation. The simple bezel is far from simple, and many different companies and inventors were involved in its evolution!
#Bezel #BreitlingChronomat #Damas #Eterna #Fortis #GMTMaster #HansWilsdorf #Harwood #Heuer #Invicta #Longines #Mimo #MimoLoga #Minerva #Navitimer #Rolex #Submariner #TurnOGraph #Weems #Zenith

#zenith #weems #turnograph #submariner #rolex #navitimer
Stephen @[email protected] · 2026-03-20 · 21:20 UTC

The Backward Evolution of the Rotating Bezel

Not everything gets more complicated as it evolves. The bezel, once a simple frame around the glass of a watch, became an integrated mechanism before it evolved into a simple numeric scale. From alarm clocks, navigational computers, and slide rules it became the most-recognized feature of the most iconic watches. Let’s consider the history of the rotating bezel.
The simple rotating bezel was once very complex!
From Complex to Simple
We tend to think that innovation starts with simple ideas and becomes more complex over time. Surprisingly, the opposite is usually true. Lacking a clear use case, inventors tend to start with a complex concept before stripping away less-useful elements. Consider the Apple Newton, a full-featured handheld computer with dozens of innovative ideas that inspired simpler PDAs before morphing into the modern smartphone. My 2017 BMW i3 electric is truly an exotic car, built like a carbon fiber science project and entirely unlike the conventional 2027 i3 sedan.
The same is true in watchmaking, and this brings us to the humble rotating bezel. Nearly every brand has a dive watch styled after the Rolex Submariner with a bold black knurled rotating bezel marked with triangles, sticks, and numerals. Most buyers never give these a second look, let alone turn them to time a drive, let alone a dive. Some brands also make a watch styled after the Breitling Navitimer with a busy two-part bezel marked with confusing aeronautical indications of speed and fuel load. Rolex even created a functional rotating bezel for the 2012 Sky-Dweller, used to select different functions.
A bit of research reveals that the history of the humble rotating bezel runs exactly counter to expectation, beginning with functional complications before proceeding to obscure slide rules before being stripped down to a basic hour indicator. It took 50 years for the rotating bezel to be simplified enough to enter the public consciousness and that long again before Rolex invented the Sky-Dweller’s ring command. Like so many innovations, there’s a lot to learn if you look into the rotating bezel!
The Functional Bezel
This 1913 catalog image shows a modern pocket watch with a knurled screw-on bezel
The bezel itself was an innovation. Most early clocks and watches were “open faced”, but by the 17th century some included a glass to protect the dial and hands. This was mounted in a frame of metal called a bezel, which was often attached to the case with a hinge. Thus, the first bezel was a functional part of the case, if not the watch movement.
Watches in the 19th century adopted setting and winding using a crown and often had a fixed glass over the dial, since the hands no longer needed to be manually manipulated. The glass was set directly into the rounded case without a separate bezel. This gave the watch a smooth curving contour that felt in the hand like a bar of soap (“savonnette” in French). Some watches still featured a bezel around the glass, notably the screw-on bezel and back produced by Keystone and others in America.
Winding and setting functions were not unified in a single crown until the 20th century. Earlier watches often had keys for winding or were set manually by rotating the hands. Pendant winding using a crown became widespread in the 19th century, and inventors were constantly working to enable hand setting by rotating the crown as well. These often involved levers or buttons, but some involved a rotating knurled bezel very similar in concept to the modern Sky-Dweller.
Eterna’s pioneering alarm wristwatch used a rotating bezel to set the alarm time
As alarm watches became popular in the early 20th century, a question arose about how to set this additional function. Attention again turned to the bezel, which could be rotated to set the time of the alarm. This must have been fairly common, as 1907 coverage of a new alarm watch from F. Schweizer & Cie discusses the limitations of bezel-set alarms (reliability and accuracy).
This was notably used by Eterna on their innovative if unsuccessful 1914 Cal. 68, the first alarm wristwatch. This 13 ligne movement was offered in a small pocket watch, a wristwatch, and a convertible watch that could be mounted on the steering wheel of a car. Although the wristwatch didn’t sell well, Eterna used the same movement in a line of successful travel alarm clocks, and these inspired the entire industry to adopt this mechanism.
Soon, most alarm clocks used a rotating bezel to set the time, often with an indicator on the bezel to show the current setting. This complicated mechanism was the first widely-used rotating bezel, pre-dating the dive watch craze by three decades.
The Harwood Perpetual used a rotating bezel to set the time, with an indicator that this function was active above 6 on the dial
A similar system was employed by John Harwood to set the time his Perpetual, the first self-winding wristwatch. The primary driver for his invention was the need to prevent dust and moisture from damaging the movement, a common issue on the battlefields of World War I. Since sealed crowns and stems had not yet been developed, Harwood’s goal was to create a sealed case with no crown, and he was inspired by the alarm clock setting mechanism created by Eterna to use a rotating bezel to set the time.
The Harwood Perpetual was a global sensation, even if it ultimately did not find many buyers. And the knurled or fluted bezel became a common look in the 1930s, adopted by other waterproof watch cases like the Rolex Oyster. Although not a rotating bezel in the strictest sense, many of these could be unscrewed to access the hands, dial, and movement during assembly and servicing.
This 1953 advertisement calls out Perrelet and Harwood as inspirations for Rolex
It is easy to see how the Harwood Perpetual inspired the legendary Rolex Oyster Perpetual, and Rolex agreed: They specifically cited Harwood along with Abraham-Louis Perrelet as inspiration for their Oyster Perpetual in a series of advertisements in the 1950s. And it wasn’t just the Perpetual name or centrally-rotating winding: Rolex popularized the rotating bezel in this same time period, introducing the Turn-o-Graph, Submariner, and GMT-Master, as we will discuss in a moment. All of these feature a bezel that strongly resembles the Harwood Perpetual.
Lindbergh, Longines, and Weems
The idea that a rotating bezel could serve as an indicator of information rather than a mechanism to set the time originates with American aviator Philip Van Horn Weems. He developed a simplified navigational system for aircraft while serving in the American Navy in the 1920s and early 1930s. His system relied on a so-called “second-setting watch” featured a rotating inner dial that could be set to a time signal over the radio. This was based on Longines’ 1918 Touran pocket watch, which was designed to be re-set to zero at sunset to approximate the Alla Turca timekeeping system of the Ottoman Empire.
This 1932 article in Journal Suisse d’Horlogerie outlines the use of the Longines Weems-Lindbergh Hour Angle Watch
A close collaboration between Weems, aviation pioneer Charles Lindburgh, Longines-Wittnauer director John P.V. Heinmuller, and the Longines and Fluckiger factories in Saint-Imier resulted in a revolutionary watch that allowed pilots to determine their location using markings on a rotating bezel. This began with a specially-modified version of the Touran watch with an outer chapter scale showing units of arc, delivered in 1930. In 1931 Longines added a rotating bezel marked with units of arc in red and green. This bezel would be pre-positioned according to the equation of time table to instantly perform the calculation needed to determine the Greenwich Hour Angle of the Sun.
Once Longines developed a stop-seconds flyback movement the inner rotating dial component was no longer needed, allowing all calculations to be performed using the rotating bezel. Later versions even dispensed with the units of arc markings on the bezel, using a simple scale with units marked 10 through 60. These were no longer Hour Angle watches at all, but they were some of the first watches with a rotating bezel. In later decades Longines produced faithful reproductions of the Lindbergh Hour Angle watch, including a lovely limited edition in 2018.
The Evolving Chronograph Bezel
As the world industrialized in the early 20th century, a need for time measurement appeared. Businesses were more interested in tracking efficiency, and aviators needed to record and note time of travel. Watchmakers struggled to develop affordable and reliable chronograph mechanisms in the 1930s and 1940s, and this a fascinating area of study. This was the era when the old monopusher gave way to the Compax, flyback, and chronostop.
Heuer’s 1935 aviation chronograph featured a rotating bezel to mark elapsed time
The alarm time indicators of previous decades gave innovators a new idea: A rotating bezel could set an indicator to measure elapsed time. In 1935 Heuer introduced a new chronograph for aviators that featured a knurled rotating bezel attached to a white triangular indicator “to mark the departure time or any other observation.” It is unclear if this is the first chronograph watch with a rotating bezel, but it is the earliest our research has uncovered.
Breitling produced a similar-looking aviation watch with a rotating bezel in early 1936. Unlike the Heuer chronograph, the Breitling model has no minute totalizer, only chronograph seconds. As noted in Journal Suisse d’Horlogerie, the bezel indicator would “serve as the minute totalizer”, synchronized with the running minutes hand for timing flight operations.
This 1936 Breitling aviation chronograph is very similar to the Heuer model This 1936 Fortis chronostop has a fully-marked bezel
Fortis also produced a chronostop watch with a rotating bezel in 1936. This movement had a stop and reset function for the central chronograph seconds hand using a pusher in the crown. The Fortis chronostop was the first watch we’ve seen with a full set of 60 markers on the rotating bezel, complete with numerals from 5 to 60. The design also departed from the classic rounded screw-on bezel look: It has a flat bezel that aligns with the dial along with a sharp vertical knurled edge.
In 1938, Damas added the now-common triangle at the top, along with a fully-marked bezel
The 1938 Damas Ref. 2452 dispensed with the expensive chronograph movement entirely, relying solely on a rotating bezel and central running seconds hand to record elapsed time. This watch advanced the bezel markings in a significant way: It features a triangle at the top rather than 0 or 60. This is a common design today, combining the Heuer and Breitling bezel indicator with the full minute track and vertical edge seen on the Fortis chronostop.
The 1940 Invicta Secontrol (left) and Time-Log (right) featured a 12-hour bezel with steep grooves
The next major advancement in bezel design came from Invicta, then a respected maker of complicated watches in La Chaux-de-Fonds. They introduced two models for 1940 with a deeply-grooved 12-hour bezel: The Secontrol had a chronostop movement and telemeter and tachymeter scales on the dial, while the Time-Log used a start-stop chronograph movement with three pushers. The new bezel served as an hour counter for these watches, which would be much more useful in association with the minute totalizer subdial on the Time-Log. It is unclear exactly how the 12-hour bezel would be useful on the Secontrol.
Minerva’s 1949 Ref. 1527 introduced the count-down bezel
The next important advance in simple bezel design came in 1949 with the Minerva Ref. 1527, which features numerals that count down rather than up. This is useful as a reminder for future events rather than a recorder of elapsed time. Since this model is marked from 1 to 11 (again with the triangle at 12), it was designed to be used by aviators to mark the next turn using the hour hand. Count-down bezels are uncommon today but they remain an interesting variation on the theme.
The Slide Rule Bezel
The slide rule (“règle à calcul” in French) was invented by English mathematician and clergyman Reverend William Oughtred and others in the 17th century, utilizing the mathematical concept of logarithms discovered by John Napier. Logarithms exploit the relationship between two scales to perform various calculations, especially multiplication and division. Slide rules were the most convenient and accurate mathematical tool until the creation of electronic calculators and computers in the 1960s.
Although Moret called his invention a “montre à calcul”, it was a calculator rather than a watch
The straight slide rule is most familiar but the circular slide rule has existed since the 19th century. In 1905, Emile Alexandre Moret of France received a patent for a mechanical calculator that used geared hands to perform logarithmic calculations using circular disks. Moret recognized that a circular slide rule could be packaged as a clock or watch, calling his invention a “montre à calcul”, but it did not include a timekeeping function.
Fabriques des Montres Zénith patented a pocket calculator resembling a watch in 1918
Zénith, the famous Le Locle watchmaking firm, received a patent for a mechanical slide rule calculator in a pocket watch case in 1918. Once again, although this resembled a watch it was actually a pocket calculator without any timekeeping capability.
Importantly, both of these designs appeared before the Harwood Perpetual watch popularized the concept of a rotating bezel. It was only a matter of time before someone moved the circular slide rule to the bezel of a watch.
Graef & Cie, Fabrique Mimo, was one of the most innovative watchmaking companies in the first half of the 20th century, introducing many firsts between 1930 and 1941: The first wristwatch with a calendar, a double-barrel 8-day movement, a digital jump-hour display, and even a quick-change strap. So it is no surprise that Mimo was also the first company to produce a wristwatch with a slide rule bezel.
The 1941 Mimo-Loga was the first watch with a slide rule bezel
The Mimo-Loga was the first watch to feature a freely-rotating bezel, and it included classic slide rule markings. The July 27, 1940 patent eloquently describes that, “in addition to the chronometric and chronograph devices, includes at least two conjugate logarithmic scales, at least one of which is mounted on a rotating member concentric with the dial that carries the other.”
The Mimo-Loga was introduced in early 1941, just before Mimo founder Otto Graef retired. He left his sons in control of Mimo to his sons, but they were more interested in re-establishing the famous Girard-Perregaux brand, which the family acquired in 1928. Despite its history of innovation, the Mimo brand soon disappeared.
One watch comes to mind when we think of the slide rule bezel today: The Breitling Navitimer. Although Breitling is correctly credited with making the slide rule bezel famous, it was introduced with the Chronomat, not the Navitimer, and just a few months after the Mimo-Loga! Let’s set the record straight.
Breitling advertised the Chronomat with its innovative slide rule bezel in September of 1941
Most contemporary accounts claim that Breitling introduced the Chronomat in 1942, but primary sources include advertisements for “Le Chronomat” in September 1941. Although the watch may not have entered production this early, it was clearly a focus for the company at this time. Like the Mimo-Loga, the Chronomat had slide rule markings on the rotating bezel. But Breitling’s watch used a chronograph movement, and this allowed the wearer to perform many more useful calculations.
Breitling produced a companion booklet to help buyers make the most of the Chronomat’s capabilities. The dial also included red reference markings to assist in measuring seconds, fifths, minutes, and hours as well as a telemeter indicator. The Chronomat was specifically designed as a tachymeter, telemeter, pulsometer, and metronome, and the scale could perform standard mathematical calculations like previous circular slide rules. Breitling even produced a cardboard cutout model, available to retailers to help demonstrate these functions.
The Chronomat name combined these capabilities, “chronograph” and “mathematics”, but this did not last long. An automatic Chronomat without a chronograph function was introduced by 1954 and the famous Chronomatic movement further muddied the waters. Today the Chronomat line includes many chronographs but not one has a slide rule bezel.
Breitling began advertising the Navitimer in 1955
This brings us to the most famous slide rule watch, the Breitling Navitimer. Today, the company claims that this watch was created in 1952 and released in 1954 with AOPA branding, and we have no reason to doubt their internal records. But the earliest public references to the Navitimer appear in 1955, and the trademark for the name was received on January 22 of that year. The Navitimer is a specialized watch, originally exclusively available to pilots, and may not have been publicized or even named until 1955.
While the Chronomat had indicators for various capabilities, the Navitimer was designed specifically to perform specialized calculations related to air travel: Ground speed, distance per minute, fuel consumption, rate and distance of climb or descent, and nautical and statute mile conversion. These scales and indices made for a very busy dial despite the hefty 41 mm case. Breitling’s current lineup includes a variety of beautiful and colorful interpretations of the classic Navitimer.
Incredibly, it is this specialized tool watch design that has become dominant in the public consciousness. Today there are numerous “Navitimer” style watches made by brands like Casio, Citizen, Hamilton, Seiko, and Victorinox. The Sinn 903 also deserves special mention: They bought up the remaining Navitimer stock from Breitling in 1979 and continued to sell these original watches as their Navigation Timer into the 1980s. This has remained in production today, with the Model 903 II released in March of 2024.
Rolex: Turn-o-Graph, Submariner, and GMT-Master
When the Swiss Industries Fair in Basel opened on May 8, 1954, visitors to the Rolex stand were treated to three new product releases: Explorer, Submariner, and Turn-o-Graph. These watches marked a transition for Rolex and ultimately the entire watch industry. All three were tool watches with modern Oyster cases and Perpetual movements, and two were defined by their distinctive rotating bezels.
The Rolex stand at the Basel fair in 1954 Europa Star’s coverage of the 1954 Basel Fair emphasized three new tool watches from Rolex
The Turn-o-Graph name is not well-remembered today, but it was a staple of the Rolex lineup (on and off) until 2011. It was a simple time-only watch with a rotating bezel designed to calculate elapsed time. The Rolex rotating bezel was mostly flat, with a sharp knurled edge. In the Turn-o-Graph it was marked with four dots then a stick or numerals at 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50. A triangle with a luminous dot was placed at the top. This design reflected the dial, which used dots on the hour, sticks at 3, 6, and 9, and a triangle at 12, all with luminous paint. The Turn-o-Graph was thus the most harmonious of the trio.
The Submariner was very similar to the Turn-o-Graph but was rated to 200 meters. Rolex had a long history of producing waterproof watches, but the Submariner was altogether more elegant and refined. The bezel was wide and flat, lacking the dots of the Turn-o-Graph, with stick markers alternating between numerals on the 10s. Although a true icon today, this original Submariner looked like nothing else on the market at the time. The look was soon copied by the entire industry, making the simple flat rotating bezel a sports watch staple. And the Submariner is undoubtedly one of the most in-demand watches globally to this day.
On March 22, 1956, Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf gathered friends and industry figures to the Hôtel des Bergues in Geneva to celebrate his 75th birthday and the success of the company. Along with the “Stick-o-Matic”, presented to him by the factory, the crowd was able to see a brand new Rolex model.
I’ve wanted to highlight the Rolex Stick-o-Matic for years! The original GMT-Master is another Rolex icon
The GMT-Master was developed with the needs of pilots in mind, though Rolex did not go to the same extremes as the Breitling Navitimer. It was the first Rolex to feature a 24 hour hand, though it was not adjustable until the 1983 GMT-Master II. And it also included a date window under a magnifying glass bubble at 3 on the dial. But it is the rotating bezel that we will focus on, since that is the subject of this article.
Mechanically quite similar to the Submariner bezel, the GMT-Master featured alternating dots and numerals from 2 to 22, indicating the hours for the central 24 hour hand. In this way, it could be used to show the time in a second time zone by rotating the bezel ahead or behind the fixed hand. This too would become an iconic design, copied by many other firms in the coming decades. And it remains a favorite Rolex model today.
From Complex to Simple, With Many Variations
There is far more we could say about the rotating bezel, but perhaps this is enough to prove my point: Invention often proceeds from complex to simple. What was once an integrated mechanism to set the alarm or time became a simple alternate time scale. But there is subtlety to the rotating bezel! While most count up, some count down. While most are marked at 60 minute intervals, others are marked at 12. And some function as slide rules or perform complicated calculations specific to navigation. The simple bezel is far from simple, and many different companies and inventors were involved in its evolution!
#Bezel #BreitlingChronomat #Damas #Eterna #Fortis #GMTMaster #HansWilsdorf #Harwood #Heuer #Invicta #Longines #Mimo #MimoLoga #Minerva #Navitimer #Rolex #Submariner #TurnOGraph #Weems #Zenith

#bezel #breitlingchronomat #damas #eterna #fortis #gmtmaster
Kathy Murdoch :pastille_lemon: @[email protected] · 2026-05-14 · 10:54 UTC

I'm really really glad I listened to my own experience with such things and didn't upgrade #krita until I'd finished reformatting Brace for Impact. The new features are all lovely but the UX on the new text dialogue desperately needs some love and I'm tripping over it so much doing a few minor bits of text formatting this morning.
(Specifically, the issues lie in places like the font selection dialogue, such as being able to mousewheel through fonts to see them applied on the actual selected text like we could before, and being able to reliably select a font by typing the first part of its name. Wild that so many settings are hidden behind needing to add them to the dialogue manually too, and there's a lot of wasted space in a panel I'm already struggling to find space for on my screen. My suggestion to the designers would be to take a look at how CSP lays out its text options panel. It's ugly and dense but everything's at your fingertips.)
The KDE bug tracker is a big sticking point here too. I had to sign up for an account before I could even browse open bugs, and I don't see any obvious way to see what issues have been accepted, taken up, or fixed in the dev branch.

#krita
Kathy Murdoch :pastille_lemon: @[email protected] · 2026-05-14 · 10:54 UTC

I'm really really glad I listened to my own experience with such things and didn't upgrade #krita until I'd finished reformatting Brace for Impact. The new features are all lovely but the UX on the new text dialogue desperately needs some love and I'm tripping over it so much doing a few minor bits of text formatting this morning.
(Specifically, the issues lie in places like the font selection dialogue, such as being able to mousewheel through fonts to see them applied on the actual selected text like we could before, and being able to reliably select a font by typing the first part of its name. Wild that so many settings are hidden behind needing to add them to the dialogue manually too, and there's a lot of wasted space in a panel I'm already struggling to find space for on my screen. My suggestion to the designers would be to take a look at how CSP lays out its text options panel. It's ugly and dense but everything's at your fingertips.)
The KDE bug tracker is a big sticking point here too. I had to sign up for an account before I could even browse open bugs, and I don't see any obvious way to see what issues have been accepted, taken up, or fixed in the dev branch.

#krita
Kathy Murdoch :pastille_lemon: @[email protected] · 2026-05-14 · 10:54 UTC

I'm really really glad I listened to my own experience with such things and didn't upgrade #krita until I'd finished reformatting Brace for Impact. The new features are all lovely but the UX on the new text dialogue desperately needs some love and I'm tripping over it so much doing a few minor bits of text formatting this morning.
(Specifically, the issues lie in places like the font selection dialogue, such as being able to mousewheel through fonts to see them applied on the actual selected text like we could before, and being able to reliably select a font by typing the first part of its name. Wild that so many settings are hidden behind needing to add them to the dialogue manually too, and there's a lot of wasted space in a panel I'm already struggling to find space for on my screen. My suggestion to the designers would be to take a look at how CSP lays out its text options panel. It's ugly and dense but everything's at your fingertips.)
The KDE bug tracker is a big sticking point here too. I had to sign up for an account before I could even browse open bugs, and I don't see any obvious way to see what issues have been accepted, taken up, or fixed in the dev branch.

#krita
Noam writes @[email protected] · 2025-08-27 · 10:57 UTC

I couldn't be bothered with today's #MastoPrompt.
So, I wondered if I could #automate the process. Write a short code into which I'd input the daily prompt, add a few words about the type of #microfiction to be written, and feed it into my favourite LLM. Let #AI do the work. It has access to my original writing, so it already knows my style.
As it was the first time, I entered the prompt manually with a few key workds, and eagerly waited for the output. I began to read the result:
I couldn't be bothered with today's #MastoPrompt…

#ai #microfiction #automate #mastoprompt
Brian Harper @[email protected] · 2026-04-28 · 01:25 UTC

We dodged the worst of it this round of storms. A couple security cameras got water inside it appears. The wind was pushing the rain at 70+ mph so I'm not surprised, the IP67 rating can only do so much. If they don't dry themselves like usual I'll pull and dry them manually. The baseball size hail to the south would have smashed them. 😳
I hope all of you weathered the storms in one piece. Getting tired of the storm stress.
#StLouis #Missouri #today

#stlouis #missouri #today
Charles A-M @[email protected] · 2026-05-06 · 12:47 UTC

So Quickbooks Online decided unilaterally to "upgrade" our Shopify integration—without telling us, much less asking for our permission—with something that requires our bookkeeper to manually assign the destination account and create a sales receipt entry for every single transaction, adding an hour or more of manual work per day. The previous integration did this all automatically.
Shopify gets worse and worse with every passing month.
#Intuit #Shopify #QuickBooks

#intuit #shopify #quickbooks
Charles A-M @[email protected] · 2026-05-06 · 12:47 UTC

So Quickbooks Online decided unilaterally to "upgrade" our Shopify integration—without telling us, much less asking for our permission—with something that requires our bookkeeper to manually assign the destination account and create a sales receipt entry for every single transaction, adding an hour or more of manual work per day. The previous integration did this all automatically.
Shopify gets worse and worse with every passing month.
#Intuit #Shopify #QuickBooks

#intuit #shopify #quickbooks
Charles A-M @[email protected] · 2026-05-06 · 12:47 UTC

So Quickbooks Online decided unilaterally to "upgrade" our Shopify integration—without telling us, much less asking for our permission—with something that requires our bookkeeper to manually assign the destination account and create a sales receipt entry for every single transaction, adding an hour or more of manual work per day. The previous integration did this all automatically.
Shopify gets worse and worse with every passing month.
#Intuit #Shopify #QuickBooks

#intuit #shopify #quickbooks
Charles A-M @[email protected] · 2026-05-06 · 12:47 UTC

So Quickbooks Online decided unilaterally to "upgrade" our Shopify integration—without telling us, much less asking for our permission—with something that requires our bookkeeper to manually assign the destination account and create a sales receipt entry for every single transaction, adding an hour or more of manual work per day. The previous integration did this all automatically.
Shopify gets worse and worse with every passing month.
#Intuit #Shopify #QuickBooks

#quickbooks #shopify #intuit
Charles A-M @[email protected] · 2026-05-06 · 12:47 UTC

So Quickbooks Online decided unilaterally to "upgrade" our Shopify integration—without telling us, much less asking for our permission—with something that requires our bookkeeper to manually assign the destination account and create a sales receipt entry for every single transaction, adding an hour or more of manual work per day. The previous integration did this all automatically.
Shopify gets worse and worse with every passing month.
#Intuit #Shopify #QuickBooks

#intuit #shopify #quickbooks
Curiosity Drive @[email protected] · 2026-02-14 · 09:08 UTC
A road warrior in Oz

Australia is a land of remote places; most of the country has little to no mobile network coverage. Likewise, many of these remote regions are served by little to no road network. Where there is no paved road, the driving surface may be gravel, dirt or sand. Dystopian Mad Max visions aside, it really is a country for road warriors. Naturally, we decided to hire one for a short road trip with caravanning friends, camping in southern Queensland and northern New South Wales.
Coordinates
A Gold Coast excursion
We took breakfast with a view from Elephant Rock, looking up Currumbin Beach and beyond to Burleigh Heads and the skyscrapers of Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast (📷1). Living on the rock and sunning themselves upon the steps to the lookout over Tugun Beach were Intellagama lesueurii, the Australian water dragon (📷2). Continuing south into NSW we visited the Tweed Regional Gallery and Margaret Olley Art Centre, set in the Tweed Valley in Bundjalung Country, which formed from the eroded caldera of an ancient shield volcano. Wollumbin | Mount Warning stands as the remnant volcanic plug (📷3) in the centre of what is one of the largest erosion calderas in the Southern Hemisphere. Also seen from the art gallery, Springbrook Plateau, viewed some ~23M years later, is one of the best-preserved sections of the original crater rim (📷4). Both geological features are included within the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area. To follow, we took a wander around the museum, township and sampled a milkshake in a 50s-style diner in Murwillumbah.
A 4WD ute hire
We rented a Britz Warrior 4WD ute, based on a Ford Ranger double cab with automatic transmission and a 3,650kg GVM upgrade (📷1). Specs include high and low-range four-wheel drive; bullbar; snorkel; all-terrain tyres; long-range fuel tank; two spare tyres; personal locator beacon (PLB); Outback safety kit; two roof-top tents (📷2); 3m tall canopy with kitchenette (📷3); and a 270 degree “bat wing” awning with camping table and chairs (📷4). Ours also came with an infestation of baby Huntsman spiders and ants!

Monitoring and insurance
A window sticker advised us that parent company thl monitor the location, speed and safe driving of their hire vehicles. There are rules by state that stipulate where you can and cannot go e.g. no beaches whatsoever; no ferries without prior approval. Furthermore, an insurance upgrade is mandatory to avoid an 8,000 AUD bond being charged to your credit card. You can also opt for independent gap cover to reduce liability e.g. Zero Excess Rental Cover from RentalCover.
✳️ Tips and tricks
Appreciating our Britz Warrior 4WD hire
It was an interesting exercise to research and reflect on the likely rationale the rental company had for the specification of their 4WD rentals:
- Ford Ranger double cab with automatic transmission: For two travellers the back seat offers extra storage space (which we used in preference to the canopy) and a compact indoor living area in wet weather; for four it offers the requisite number of belted seats.
- High and low-range 4-wheel drive (4WD, or 4×4 if you prefer): Gear ratios affect a vehicle’s torque and speed; gears are set for normal driving speeds in high-range mode, proving extra traction without massive torque, suitable for e.g. gravel roads; in low-range mode the gearing is much lower, dramatically increasing the torque at the wheels to allow the vehicle to crawl over obstacles with maximum control, albeit slowly e.g. on steep inclines or descents.
- Bullbar: Offers structural protection from wildlife e.g. kangaroo strikes and deflect obstacles such as rocks or trees when off roading; may also serve as attachment points for accessories e.g. a winch or extra driving lights; although some people favour the “off-road aesthetic” bullbars can be dangerous for pedestrians or cyclists in an accident.
- Snorkel: By elevating the air intake a vehicle snorkel avoids engine damage that could otherwise occur if crossing deep water; it also helps keep the air filter from being overwhelmed by dust/ debris when driving off-road.
- All-terrain tyres: All-terrain tyres are suited to both on-road and off-road driving as they provide good grip in wet, muddy and uneven terrain while still providing decent traction on paved roads.
- Long-range fuel tank: 140 L provides increased range and peace of mind in unpredictable terrain, allowing for more flexibility in route choices and timings.
- Two spare tyres: With an increased risk of tyre damage in rough terrain, long distances between service centres and potential difficulty finding the right replacement tyres in the Outback, a second spare offers the flexibility to handle various scenarios/ multiple incidents.
Two spare wheels = double redundancy
- Personal locator beacon: PLBs are small devices for personal use in remote land-based locations (cf. Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons or EPIRBs, typically for maritime use); they are manually activated to transmit a distress signal that can be picked up by search and rescue teams or satellites, and feature long-lasting batteries.
- Outback safety kit: An air compressor, shovel and recovery boards are considered essential tools for a 4WD adventure in the Australian Outback as they help with tyre pressure management, recovery and getting your vehicle unstuck from soft surfaces (for more extreme adventures consider extras such as a tyre repair kit, recovery straps, first aid kit and additional communication devices e.g. radio or sat phone).
- Two roof-top tents: 1x Ironman and 1x Akuma, fitted with foam mattresses, LED lights and USB charge points, accessed via a ladder; their elevated position offers protection from wildlife, insects and weather, improved views/ ventilation, extra shade and they’re comparatively quick/ easy to set up and pack down—once you know how.
- Canopy: Turns the rear tray of a ute/ utility vehicle into a lockable, dust-resistant, weatherproof and flexible storage area, integrating a kitchen with slide-out bench/ cold water sink, fridge, pantry and two-burner portable gas stove; can be removable, as many Australians like to use their 4WD as both a camper and a work vehicle.
- 270 degree awning: Wraps around the side and rear of the vehicle, providing an expansive area of covered space; cooking, dining, relaxing or storing gear out of the hot sun or rain is advantageous.
- Camping table and chairs: Essential gear for cooking, eating and relaxing outside of the vehicle.
🤔 Curiosity

Our Aussie friends had very kindly organised a largely coastal itinerary in order to mitigate the tyranny of distance and avoid higher inland temperatures—as there had been in a recent protracted heatwave. We didn’t want to go too far into the wilderness as inexperienced 4WD drivers, but would welcome any opportunities to drive off the “black top” (paved road).
Queensland in the 4WD
Driving in convoy with experienced caravaners, for our first night we went inland from the Gold Coast to a pitch in the vicinity of Mount Barney. Our aim with this short hire was to gain familiarity with the 4WD’s camping form factor (such as negotiating access to/ from a rooftop tent in the small hours), rather than its off-roading abilities. Arriving later than planned, and with eyes peeled for kangaroos, we caught the evening light on Mount Lindesay as we neared our destination (📷1). Mount Barney Creek looked serene in the golden hour (📷2) and part of Mount Barney itself was visible from pitch (📷3). In the remaining daylight we figured out how to raise one of the rooftop tents and our friends lit a fire as dinner was prepared (📷4).
Were we actually camping?
We were not inside the vehicle; we were lying in a tent on top of one. A 4WD pick-up truck/ ute is not a motorhome, conventional RV nor camper van. It’s not self-contained, so living, cooking, toileting and other activities of daily life must be performed outdoors. So yes—this was “camping“. In fact, the experience was very much akin to the non-self contained car camping popular with young tourists in NZ—expect we slept atop cf. inside the vehicle. It presents similar challenges with space and environmental management.
🤔 Curiosity

Images capturing dawn in the vicinity of Mount Barney. Mount Maroon was tinged red by the first rays of sun (📷1). The shadows smartly departed from Mount Barney’s flank soon after (📷2). A heavy dew was accompanied by morning mist in the valley between us and Mount Argyle, serving to outline eucalyptus trees against the rising orb (📷3); mist also shrouded the trees lining the access road (📷4).
We enjoyed spotting wildlife on a morning walk from pitch. Cracticus nigrogularis | the pied butcherbird is a native songbird (📷1); the hooked bill tells of a carnivorous habit. Danaus petilia | the lesser wanderer butterfly is a frequent sight in Australia (📷2), as is Melanitis leda | the common evening brown—so named because it’s typically seen flying at dusk (📷3). Rhinella marina | the cane toad can grow up to 15cm, but this juvenile was hidden in grass (📷4); the invasive species was introduced to Australia in 1935 to control beetles, but they spread rapidly, poisoning native predators with their toxins and causing major ecological damage.
Here’s a sound clip from that morning walk:
Leaving camp mid-morning we again enjoyed views of prominent Mount Lindesay (📷1) before taking the Colins Gap on the B91 into NSW, then back into Queensland, arriving at Queen Mary Falls in Main Range National Park. The park is also part of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area (remnants of rainforest that once covered all of Australia). Queen Mary Falls are a 40m drop on Spring Creek, which forms the Condamine River’s upper reaches (📷2). This river in turn constitutes part of the headwaters of the Murray-Darling—one of Australia’s longest river systems—seen here from Carr’s Lookout, with The Head between Mount Superbus on the left and the foothills of Wilson’s Peak centre-frame (📷3). Riding in the Landcruiser (with permanent 4WD) we took Condamine River Road, making 14 river crossings to Killarney (📷4); the gravel 4WD-only road follows an old bullock wagon track once used to service riverside farms and for transporting logs to local mills.
Wildlife spotted around camp at Queen Mary Falls Caravan Park included Trichoglossus moluccanus | the rainbow lorikeet (📷1); Varanus varius | the lace goanna (📷2); Dacelo novaeguineae | the laughing kookaburra (📷3); and Notamacropus rufogriseus | the red-necked wallaby (📷4).
Also seen were Alisterus scapularis | the Australian king parrot (📷1); Eolophus roseicapilla | the galah, a.k.a. rose-breasted cockatoo (📷2); and Platycercus elegans | the crimson rosella (📷3). On the falls circuit walk we had several close encounters with Intellagama lesueurii | Australian water dragons (📷4).
New South Wales in the 4WD
Broom Head NSW, looking northward to Main Beach and Red Cliff (📷1); a view south from the same lookout (📷2). Beach access from pitch at Lake Arragan Beachside campground in Yuraygir National Park (📷3). Just around the corner, looking south towards Red Cliff (📷4).
Lake Arragan Beachside campground was inundated with resident Macropus giganteus | eastern grey kangaroo.
We next pitched in Richmond River Nature Reserve, South Ballina NSW. Vehicle access to the adjacent long surf beach is now disallowed, so we didn’t get the chance to experience driving in the Landcruiser on sand (we’re also conflicted about beach driving). But we did access the beach on foot (📷1&2), observing Thalasseus bergii | the great crested tern at the waters edge (📷3) and dolphin jumping for joy just offshore (📷4).
Light rain in the evening made a pleasant sound as it hit the shell of the rooftop tent:

What’s the deal with Anderson plugs?
Our Britz hire featured Anderson plugs. These are genderless heavy-duty DC electrical connectors, built to survive dirt, vibration and weather—making them ideal for use in vehicles and in other off-grid setups.
SB50 (Source: Anderson Power)
They’re very common in Australia, having become the de facto 12V connector standard. Although we’ve never personally seen them in NZ, UK or European campers, they can be found—albeit with less frequency. The SB50 variant is typical, conveying a current of ~50A; they’re much safer than cigarette sockets for high current. Applications include supply of vehicle power to a trailer or to a house battery (DC-DC charging); joining solar panels to a charge controller; powering winches and recovery gear; and providing external power outlets (e.g. to a fridge or air compressor).
🤔 Curiosity

More birds were seen at Richmond River Nature Reserve, South Ballina NSW. Ocyphaps lophotes | the crested pigeon is an endemic native with an erect crest (📷1). Entomyzon cyanotis | the blue-faced honeyeater is also known as the bananabird (📷2). Another look at the gorgeous Trichoglossus moluccanus | rainbow lorikeet, a common and rather vocal parrot (📷3). Not nearly as pretty, Threskiornis molucca | the Australian white ibis is colloquially known as the “bin chook” (📷4).
General insights from our short 4WD hire
In conversation with our caravanning friends before and during this trip we picked up a number of tips/ insights that we can put to use on future Australian away missions.
Planning:
- WikiCamps Australia is a popular app for finding overnight pitches
- Do your research (e.g. fuel stops) ahead of time and with reliable connectivity.
The rig/ equipment:
- You don’t want anything too heavy, or too top-heavy for 4WD tracks
- Consider carrying a portable jump starter, either for your own use, or to help others without having to mess around with your own vehicle
- If the desire is for self-sufficiency and you want a gas-free setup, it’s now possible to find 12V water heaters
- A 48V electrical system has advantages (see here and here).
Driving:
- Drive to the conditions and to your personal abilities
- Take a break at least every two hours (“Stop, Revive, Survive”)
- When travelling in convey a UHF CB (ultra-high frequency citizen band) radio enables (public) commentary/ direction sharing; channel 18 is used by vanners/ campers
- Beware that the risk to your paintwork from bush scratches is high
- If your vehicle has non-tinted glass you’ll need sunscreen on for driving or else risk sunburn
- Fooling heavy rain “If it’s flooded forget it”
- Stay with your vehicle in the event of a breakdown, as it will be more visible from the air than you are
- Take extra care at marked Yowie crossings.
On pitch:
- Aim to arrive on pitch before shadows get long and kangaroos may leap into your path
- Don’t leave your shoes on the ground; stomp on the toes or check carefully before putting them on (the Warrior’s roof tents have shoe bags)
- Don’t park under trees; gum trees have a habit of dropping branches without provocation (and beware of drop bears).
Next time we hire a 4WD our practical learning could encompass:
- Driving on sand tracks (noting that beach driving isn’t allowed in Britz hires) and adjusting tyre pressures
- Selecting appropriate gears
- Driving on dirt roads and managing bulldust
- Tackling inclines and declines
- Making water crossings
- Towing?
✳️ Tips and tricks

While not everything went to plan (B was ill on the morning of picking up the vehicle and thus wasn’t a named driver) we had a great time with our friends and are looking forward to further adventures on our next trip to Australia.
#2026 #4WD #4x4 #australia #camping #nationalPark #nature #newSouthWales #queensland #roadTrip #travel #unesco
#unesco #travel #roadtrip #queensland #newsouthwales #nature
Mika @[email protected] · 2026-05-07 · 08:46 UTC

One of my fears of homelabbing is the reliance on (3rd party) #Docker/#container images that could just be gone someday. I've already had it happen once, with #Bitnami images (fuck #Broadcom).

One way I previously thought to combat this is to manually pull the image bundle and host it in your own container registry. This works, but obviously not a reasonable effort to do and reproduce for more than ~1-2 images.

Then, the moment I discovered #Amazon/#AWS has such a thing that addresses this - pull through cache for their #ECR, I looked up on how I can have the same kind of setup on my #homelab, and sure enough, there are already several options. I went with #Zot, and it's working pretty freaking well. Now, anytime I pull any images from registries I've configured Zot to sync like #GitHub's ghcr.io, docker.io, public.ecr.aws, they'll all be pulled/cached first on my own Zot instance and stored for good there.

Man, I wish I looked into this much earlier - but better late than never.

🔗 https://github.com/project-zot/zot

🔗 https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonECR/latest/userguide/pull-through-cache-creating-rule.html

#docker #container #bitnami #broadcom #amazon #aws
Hans van Zijst @[email protected] · 2026-05-13 · 13:19 UTC
CW: As an administrator of several Matrix servers, every now and then I have to decommission one. You can't just power the server down, throw it away and be done with it, so let me show you how it's done.
As an administrator of several Matrix servers, every now and then I have to decommission one.

You can't just power the server down, throw it away and be done with it (really, you can't!). You'll have to remove all users first, and give those removals some time to propagate over the Matrix universe. After that, you can power the server down and junk it.

A handful of users can be removed manually with, for example, Synapse-Admin. But today I have a server with several thousands of users... I've had problems with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome before, so there's no way I'm going to spend several hours moving my mouse the same directions over and over again for hours.

Prepare

I use the Matrix API and curl (thanks for that, @daniel:// stenberg://) to do this the easy way. Well, some of you may scratch your heads when I call this the easy way... 😏

All the commands I show here, are run on the Matrix server itself. You can run them anywhere, but then you'll have to replace "localhost" for the URL of your server, of course.

First of all, you'll need an access token for an account with admin rights. If you happen to have a session open, you can simply copy it from there. If you don't, here's how to get one.

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:8008/_matrix/client/r0/login \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{ \ "type": "m.login.password", \ "user": "@administrator:EXAMPLE.COM" , \ "password": "SECRET ADMIN PASSWORD" \ }' | \ jq '.access_token'

This will give you a string like "syt_YWRtaW5pc3RyYXRvcg_dQCZlHWPsGluyHLYyhnH_2aI2ln", provided you used the right username, password and URL. I'll use "xxxx" for better visibility.

Check the number of users

Let's verify our access by checking how many users we're talking about.

curl -s -X GET http://localhost:8008/_synapse/admin/v2/users?limit=1000000&deactivated=true \ -H "Authorization: Bearer xxxx" | \ jq '.users[] | .name' | \ wc -l

The limit of 1 million is sort of necessary: you can't say "every user", but if you don't provide a limit, you'll only get the first 100.

Now that you know how many users there are in your database, let's remove them all.

Remove all users

You may be thinking, "if I remove all users, I also remove my admin account, which could complicate things". Good thinking, I ran into that exact problem, because I did my previous user removals with Synapse-Admin (you know, selecting a handful users, clicking "remove", waiting... rince and repeat) and that wouldn't remove my admin account.

But when you use the API directly, you abandon the guard rails and you can actually hurt yourself. I was lucky enough to find that there was still one other admin account after I had removed mine, so I hijacked that one to finished the job. If yours is (was!) the only active admin account, you have a problem...

With this code we list all users MINUS OUR ADMIN ACCOUNT and pass them to the next command, that actually deletes them:
curl -s -X GET http://localhost:8008/_synapse/admin/v2/limit=1000000 \ -H "Authorization: Bearer xxxx" | \ jq '.users[] | .name' | \ sed '/@administrator:EXAMPLE.COM/d' | \ xargs -I % \ curl -s -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer xxxx" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{ "erase": true }' \ http://localhost:8008/_synapse/admin/v1/deactivate/% | \ tee removal.log | \ wc -l

This will take a looong time, and that's why I have the command write its output to "removal.log", so you can check what's happening.

Every successful removal prints this result:
{"id_server_unbind_result":"success"}
So once no new entries like that are being added to the log file, you're done and should be left with only your admin account(s).

Give it a few days for the rest of the Matrix universe to pick these removals up, say a week, and then you can junk your server.

#Matrix #curl #API
#matrix #curl #api
Hans van Zijst @[email protected] · 2026-05-13 · 13:19 UTC
CW: As an administrator of several Matrix servers, every now and then I have to decommission one. You can't just power the server down, throw it away and be done with it, so let me show you how it's done.
As an administrator of several Matrix servers, every now and then I have to decommission one.

You can't just power the server down, throw it away and be done with it (really, you can't!). You'll have to remove all users first, and give those removals some time to propagate over the Matrix universe. After that, you can power the server down and junk it.

A handful of users can be removed manually with, for example, Synapse-Admin. But today I have a server with several thousands of users... I've had problems with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome before, so there's no way I'm going to spend several hours moving my mouse the same directions over and over again for hours.

Prepare

I use the Matrix API and curl (thanks for that, @daniel:// stenberg://) to do this the easy way. Well, some of you may scratch your heads when I call this the easy way... 😏

All the commands I show here, are run on the Matrix server itself. You can run them anywhere, but then you'll have to replace "localhost" for the URL of your server, of course.

First of all, you'll need an access token for an account with admin rights. If you happen to have a session open, you can simply copy it from there. If you don't, here's how to get one.

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:8008/_matrix/client/r0/login \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{ \ "type": "m.login.password", \ "user": "@administrator:EXAMPLE.COM" , \ "password": "SECRET ADMIN PASSWORD" \ }' | \ jq '.access_token'

This will give you a string like "syt_YWRtaW5pc3RyYXRvcg_dQCZlHWPsGluyHLYyhnH_2aI2ln", provided you used the right username, password and URL. I'll use "xxxx" for better visibility.

Check the number of users

Let's verify our access by checking how many users we're talking about.

curl -s -X GET http://localhost:8008/_synapse/admin/v2/users?limit=1000000&deactivated=true \ -H "Authorization: Bearer xxxx" | \ jq '.users[] | .name' | \ wc -l

The limit of 1 million is sort of necessary: you can't say "every user", but if you don't provide a limit, you'll only get the first 100.

Now that you know how many users there are in your database, let's remove them all.

Remove all users

You may be thinking, "if I remove all users, I also remove my admin account, which could complicate things". Good thinking, I ran into that exact problem, because I did my previous user removals with Synapse-Admin (you know, selecting a handful users, clicking "remove", waiting... rince and repeat) and that wouldn't remove my admin account.

But when you use the API directly, you abandon the guard rails and you can actually hurt yourself. I was lucky enough to find that there was still one other admin account after I had removed mine, so I hijacked that one to finished the job. If yours is (was!) the only active admin account, you have a problem...

With this code we list all users MINUS OUR ADMIN ACCOUNT and pass them to the next command, that actually deletes them:
curl -s -X GET http://localhost:8008/_synapse/admin/v2/limit=1000000 \ -H "Authorization: Bearer xxxx" | \ jq '.users[] | .name' | \ sed '/@administrator:EXAMPLE.COM/d' | \ xargs -I % \ curl -s -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer xxxx" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{ "erase": true }' \ http://localhost:8008/_synapse/admin/v1/deactivate/% | \ tee removal.log | \ wc -l

This will take a looong time, and that's why I have the command write its output to "removal.log", so you can check what's happening.

Every successful removal prints this result:
{"id_server_unbind_result":"success"}
So once no new entries like that are being added to the log file, you're done and should be left with only your admin account(s).

Give it a few days for the rest of the Matrix universe to pick these removals up, say a week, and then you can junk your server.

#Matrix #curl #API
#matrix #curl #api
Hans van Zijst @[email protected] · 2026-05-13 · 13:19 UTC
CW: As an administrator of several Matrix servers, every now and then I have to decommission one. You can't just power the server down, throw it away and be done with it, so let me show you how it's done.
As an administrator of several Matrix servers, every now and then I have to decommission one.

You can't just power the server down, throw it away and be done with it (really, you can't!). You'll have to remove all users first, and give those removals some time to propagate over the Matrix universe. After that, you can power the server down and junk it.

A handful of users can be removed manually with, for example, Synapse-Admin. But today I have a server with several thousands of users... I've had problems with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome before, so there's no way I'm going to spend several hours moving my mouse the same directions over and over again for hours.

Prepare

I use the Matrix API and curl (thanks for that, @daniel:// stenberg://) to do this the easy way. Well, some of you may scratch your heads when I call this the easy way... 😏

All the commands I show here, are run on the Matrix server itself. You can run them anywhere, but then you'll have to replace "localhost" for the URL of your server, of course.

First of all, you'll need an access token for an account with admin rights. If you happen to have a session open, you can simply copy it from there. If you don't, here's how to get one.

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:8008/_matrix/client/r0/login \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{ \ "type": "m.login.password", \ "user": "@administrator:EXAMPLE.COM" , \ "password": "SECRET ADMIN PASSWORD" \ }' | \ jq '.access_token'

This will give you a string like "syt_YWRtaW5pc3RyYXRvcg_dQCZlHWPsGluyHLYyhnH_2aI2ln", provided you used the right username, password and URL. I'll use "xxxx" for better visibility.

Check the number of users

Let's verify our access by checking how many users we're talking about.

curl -s -X GET http://localhost:8008/_synapse/admin/v2/users?limit=1000000&deactivated=true \ -H "Authorization: Bearer xxxx" | \ jq '.users[] | .name' | \ wc -l

The limit of 1 million is sort of necessary: you can't say "every user", but if you don't provide a limit, you'll only get the first 100.

Now that you know how many users there are in your database, let's remove them all.

Remove all users

You may be thinking, "if I remove all users, I also remove my admin account, which could complicate things". Good thinking, I ran into that exact problem, because I did my previous user removals with Synapse-Admin (you know, selecting a handful users, clicking "remove", waiting... rince and repeat) and that wouldn't remove my admin account.

But when you use the API directly, you abandon the guard rails and you can actually hurt yourself. I was lucky enough to find that there was still one other admin account after I had removed mine, so I hijacked that one to finished the job. If yours is (was!) the only active admin account, you have a problem...

With this code we list all users MINUS OUR ADMIN ACCOUNT and pass them to the next command, that actually deletes them:
curl -s -X GET http://localhost:8008/_synapse/admin/v2/limit=1000000 \ -H "Authorization: Bearer xxxx" | \ jq '.users[] | .name' | \ sed '/@administrator:EXAMPLE.COM/d' | \ xargs -I % \ curl -s -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer xxxx" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{ "erase": true }' \ http://localhost:8008/_synapse/admin/v1/deactivate/% | \ tee removal.log | \ wc -l

This will take a looong time, and that's why I have the command write its output to "removal.log", so you can check what's happening.

Every successful removal prints this result:
{"id_server_unbind_result":"success"}
So once no new entries like that are being added to the log file, you're done and should be left with only your admin account(s).

Give it a few days for the rest of the Matrix universe to pick these removals up, say a week, and then you can junk your server.

#Matrix #curl #API
#matrix #curl #api
Hans van Zijst @[email protected] · 2026-05-13 · 13:19 UTC
CW: As an administrator of several Matrix servers, every now and then I have to decommission one. You can't just power the server down, throw it away and be done with it, so let me show you how it's done.
As an administrator of several Matrix servers, every now and then I have to decommission one.

You can't just power the server down, throw it away and be done with it (really, you can't!). You'll have to remove all users first, and give those removals some time to propagate over the Matrix universe. After that, you can power the server down and junk it.

A handful of users can be removed manually with, for example, Synapse-Admin. But today I have a server with several thousands of users... I've had problems with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome before, so there's no way I'm going to spend several hours moving my mouse the same directions over and over again for hours.

Prepare

I use the Matrix API and curl (thanks for that, @daniel:// stenberg://) to do this the easy way. Well, some of you may scratch your heads when I call this the easy way... 😏

All the commands I show here, are run on the Matrix server itself. You can run them anywhere, but then you'll have to replace "localhost" for the URL of your server, of course.

First of all, you'll need an access token for an account with admin rights. If you happen to have a session open, you can simply copy it from there. If you don't, here's how to get one.

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:8008/_matrix/client/r0/login \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{ \ "type": "m.login.password", \ "user": "@administrator:EXAMPLE.COM" , \ "password": "SECRET ADMIN PASSWORD" \ }' | \ jq '.access_token'

This will give you a string like "syt_YWRtaW5pc3RyYXRvcg_dQCZlHWPsGluyHLYyhnH_2aI2ln", provided you used the right username, password and URL. I'll use "xxxx" for better visibility.

Check the number of users

Let's verify our access by checking how many users we're talking about.

curl -s -X GET http://localhost:8008/_synapse/admin/v2/users?limit=1000000&deactivated=true \ -H "Authorization: Bearer xxxx" | \ jq '.users[] | .name' | \ wc -l

The limit of 1 million is sort of necessary: you can't say "every user", but if you don't provide a limit, you'll only get the first 100.

Now that you know how many users there are in your database, let's remove them all.

Remove all users

You may be thinking, "if I remove all users, I also remove my admin account, which could complicate things". Good thinking, I ran into that exact problem, because I did my previous user removals with Synapse-Admin (you know, selecting a handful users, clicking "remove", waiting... rince and repeat) and that wouldn't remove my admin account.

But when you use the API directly, you abandon the guard rails and you can actually hurt yourself. I was lucky enough to find that there was still one other admin account after I had removed mine, so I hijacked that one to finished the job. If yours is (was!) the only active admin account, you have a problem...

With this code we list all users MINUS OUR ADMIN ACCOUNT and pass them to the next command, that actually deletes them:
curl -s -X GET http://localhost:8008/_synapse/admin/v2/limit=1000000 \ -H "Authorization: Bearer xxxx" | \ jq '.users[] | .name' | \ sed '/@administrator:EXAMPLE.COM/d' | \ xargs -I % \ curl -s -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer xxxx" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{ "erase": true }' \ http://localhost:8008/_synapse/admin/v1/deactivate/% | \ tee removal.log | \ wc -l

This will take a looong time, and that's why I have the command write its output to "removal.log", so you can check what's happening.

Every successful removal prints this result:
{"id_server_unbind_result":"success"}
So once no new entries like that are being added to the log file, you're done and should be left with only your admin account(s).

Give it a few days for the rest of the Matrix universe to pick these removals up, say a week, and then you can junk your server.

#Matrix #curl #API
#api #curl #matrix
Hans van Zijst @[email protected] · 2026-05-13 · 13:19 UTC
CW: As an administrator of several Matrix servers, every now and then I have to decommission one. You can't just power the server down, throw it away and be done with it, so let me show you how it's done.
As an administrator of several Matrix servers, every now and then I have to decommission one.

You can't just power the server down, throw it away and be done with it (really, you can't!). You'll have to remove all users first, and give those removals some time to propagate over the Matrix universe. After that, you can power the server down and junk it.

A handful of users can be removed manually with, for example, Synapse-Admin. But today I have a server with several thousands of users... I've had problems with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome before, so there's no way I'm going to spend several hours moving my mouse the same directions over and over again for hours.

Prepare

I use the Matrix API and curl (thanks for that, @daniel:// stenberg://) to do this the easy way. Well, some of you may scratch your heads when I call this the easy way... 😏

All the commands I show here, are run on the Matrix server itself. You can run them anywhere, but then you'll have to replace "localhost" for the URL of your server, of course.

First of all, you'll need an access token for an account with admin rights. If you happen to have a session open, you can simply copy it from there. If you don't, here's how to get one.

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:8008/_matrix/client/r0/login \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{ \ "type": "m.login.password", \ "user": "@administrator:EXAMPLE.COM" , \ "password": "SECRET ADMIN PASSWORD" \ }' \ | jq '.access_token'

This will give you a string like "syt_YWRtaW5pc3RyYXRvcg_dQCZlHWPsGluyHLYyhnH_2aI2ln", provided you used the right username, password and URL. I'll use "xxxx" for better visibility.

Check the number of users

Let's verify our access by checking how many users we're talking about.

curl -s -X GET http://localhost:8008/_synapse/admin/v2/users?limit=1000000&deactivated=true \ -H "Authorization: Bearer xxxx" \ | jq '.users[] | .name' \ | wc -l

The limit of 1 million is sort of necessary: you can't say "every user", but if you don't provide a limit, you'll only get the first 100.

Now that you know how many users there are in your database, let's remove them all.

Remove all users

You may be thinking, "if I remove all users, I also remove my admin account, which could complicate things". Good thinking, but no: Matrix won't remove your admin account. This means you'll have to manually leave all rooms you've joined with that account. The same goes for all other admin accounts. THIS IS IMPORTANT!

We'll now remove all users, by first listing them all and passing the output of that command to the next, which does the actual removing.

curl -s -X GET http://localhost:8008/_synapse/admin/v2/limit=1000000 \ -H "Authorization: Bearer xxxx" \ | jq '.users[] | .name' \ | xargs -I % \ curl -s -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer xxxx" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{ "erase": true }' \ http://localhost:8008/_synapse/admin/v1/deactivate/% \ | tee removal.log \ | wc -l

This will take a looong time, and that's why I have the command write its output to "removal.log", so you can check what's happening.

Every successful removal prints this result:
{"id_server_unbind_result":"success"}
So once no new entries like that are being added to the log file, you're done and should be left with only your admin account(s).

Give it a few days for the rest of the Matrix universe to pick these removals up, say a week, and then you can junk your server.

#Matrix #curl #API
#matrix #curl #api
Dendrobatus Azureus @[email protected] · 2026-04-28 · 02:59 UTC

IMHO the BSD familie is not in the category dinosaur
The BSD boxes which I had installed at different clients have worked literally till they fell apart. All of them were running freeBSD
The human clients never knew how to even spell the operating system. I quietly replaced hard drives when they were broken and threw the systems away when the hardware was done the operating system was always good.
None of my BSD based boxes ever lost any data because I followed the rules which were in the man pages. Back then I came from a Linux World compiling kernels manually and all other GNU programs, no distribución then.
BSD FELT LIKE THE FOUNDATION OF WHERE LINUX SHOULD HAVE BEEN
My clients were running Mission critical operations and I couldn't trust them to Linux so I went to BSD I was never ever disappointed.
What drew me to BSD was the centralized system of everything together. Not just a fantastic kernel with the rest glued to it, glued with water based Glue
The BSD programmers and user manuals are very well written
I was amazed how easy it was to search for the information with my Linux background see that in BSD it was much better documented and that everything I needed was already there I didn't need to go on dial-up internet to find out something
@stefano
@h3artbl33d
#BSD #Praise #Operating #System #Stability #programming #coherent #Integration
@h3artbl33d

#bsd #praise #operating #system #stability #programming
Mark Prince @[email protected] · 2025-04-24 · 11:00 UTC

Baratza Introduces the Encore ESP Pro Grinder
Baratza has just introduced their latest consumer grinder, the Encore ESP Pro, marking a big shift in their lineup. With this release, Baratza is sunsetting the Virtuoso series, streamlining their offerings into four main families: Encore, Vario, Sette, and Forte. More importantly, the Encore ESP Pro brings a wave of high-end features that reflect where consumer expectations for grinders are heading in 2025. When released, the Encore ESP Pro will have a retail price of $300USD ($299.95).
In many ways, the Encore ESP Pro replaces the Virtuoso and Virtuoso+ models by blending their legacy into the Encore line, becoming an upgrade choice compared to the Encore ESP grinder. But it goes further than that. This isn’t just an upgrade; it’s a leap forward. The ESP Pro includes a suite of pro-level features like auto-stop grinding, a built-in ionizer to reduce static, an impressively fine 2.2-micron adjustment system for espresso, a digital timer accurate to one-tenth of a second, and a lit grinds chamber. It also offers a straightforward way to switch between single dosing and full hopper use.
Originally, we were scheduled to receive an early production model at the start of April, but shipping delays pushed that back. Normally, I prefer to write about gear after hands-on use. Still, given Baratza’s impact on the home grinder market and the innovation packed into this release, it’s worth highlighting now. We will be getting one of the first units in North America in early May and I will have a quick hands on followup article at that time.
If you happen to be at the SCA Expo in Houston April 25-27 2025, you can see this grinder in person at Baratza’s booth, #615, where they will have several units in demonstration, as well as the folks behind the grinder available to answer questions.
Set up for espresso use, with the single dose hopper and grinds cup that will fit 54mm and 58mm portafilters.
What’s Notable about the Baratza Encore ESP Pro
It’s tough to pick just one standout feature from Baratza’s new Encore ESP Pro, because this grinder packs in several impressive upgrades. Some folks will immediately zero in on the ultra-fine 2.2 micron adjustment steps, which offer a new level of control for dialing in espresso. Others might appreciate the auto-off feature that’s perfect for single dosing. For me, the edge might go to Baratza’s first-ever use of an ionizer for static reduction.
Ionizer for Static Reduction
Baratza has spent decades refining how their grinders handle static. They’ve used special plastics, coatings, and material pairings and even polish treatments to minimize clumping and static cling from coffee. Over time, these efforts helped Baratza develop some of the lowest static-producing grinders on the home market, at least when compared to others without an ionizer.
With the Encore ESP Pro, they’ve taken that additional step by adding a built-in ionizer, using a plasma generator design of their own. This system builds on everything they’ve learned and adds an active layer of static control. According to the engineers I spoke with, the results have been impressive, with minimal static in most conditions. I’ll be putting that claim to the test as soon as our review unit arrives.
The grinds coming out of the Encore ESP Pro are static-free thanks to the built in ionizer.
Timer and Auto-Off Features
The Encore ESP Pro offers two distinct modes for grinding: a digital timer-based mode and an auto-off mode specifically geared toward single dosing. Timed grinding uses a digital 1/10th second grind timer, and a pretty cool looking display unlike anything seen on a Baratza grinder before. It gives you solid control and repeatability for your grind times. The auto-off mode is particularly interesting. When single dosing, the grinder senses resistance in the burr chamber, and once that resistance disappears – meaning the beans are fully ground – it shuts off automatically.
Auto-off isn’t a new concept in consumer grinders. The Wilfa Uniform includes a similar feature, as does the Option-O Lagom Mini 2. In my experience, the Wilfa’s execution feels a little inconsistent, and I haven’t had a chance to try the Mini 2’s version yet. We’re curious to see how well Baratza’s system performs in comparison.
Though not confirmed, I believe the auto-off feature is enabled automatically when you switch out the bean hopper for the single dose hopper.
The timer / grind size display and the control and barista lights on the Encore ESP Pro.
Ultra-Precise Espresso Adjustments
Baratza has also upgraded the grind adjustment system in the ESP Pro. While it is based on the Encore ESP’s two-stage grind adjustment design, the Pro version steps it up with beefier metal components and even finer granularity. With 2.2 microns per click in the espresso range, this grinder is shaping up to be one of the most precise options for home espresso enthusiasts.
The system splits into two grind zones: the fine end for espresso, and the coarser range for brewing methods like Aeropress, manual pour over, drip, siphon, and French press. One detail we’re eager to clarify is whether the micron jump per click remains consistent across the non-espresso range, or increases as you move coarser. That’s something we’ll test thoroughly once we get hands-on.
And how could I forget this: this is no longer just a “mechanical” grind adjustment for the grind settings: it is digitally represented on the front display. Rotate the hopper to adjust your grind (like all Encore and Virtuoso grinders before), but this time, the display changes from it’s timed display to showing you the grind setting. That is seriously cool.
The mini hopper in place, it is still manually rotated to pick your grind setting, but the digital display shows the actual grind setting number.
Other Sought After Features and Additional Thoughts
The Baratza Encore ESP Pro doesn’t just build on the foundation of the original Encore ESP. It takes many of the most loved features from across Baratza’s grinder lineup and rolls them into one well-thought-out machine. The result is a grinder that feels far more refined and complete, especially for home espresso enthusiasts who want flexibility without giving up quality.
Like the Encore ESP, the Pro version includes both a dosing cup and a grinds bin. That alone makes it versatile, whether you’re grinding for espresso or something more coarse. But Baratza goes a step further by including both a standard hopper (likely around 12 ounces in capacity) and a dedicated single dose hopper with a matching lid, right in the box. That’s a welcome change for users who want to switch between workflow styles without needing to buy extra accessories.
Similar to the Virtuoso+, the ESP Pro has an integrated “barista light” that illuminates the grinds bin or dosing cup when the grinder is active. It’s a small touch, but one that improves usability, especially in lower light or early morning coffee routines. My only concern is if the colour of that light is excessively “cold” or not. I prefer these kinds of barista lights to be more natural colour, in the 3500-5000k range. This is something else we’ll test and note in our hands on.
Display and Controls
The display on the ESP Pro is pretty cool. It’s simple and clean, with a white LED screen embedded flush into a black fascia plate. Functionally, the display does more than just show a timer. It tracks grind settings from 0 to 60 in 0.5 increments, giving users 120 possible settings. It also visually indicates when you’re in the espresso range, clearly marking the transition between espresso grinding and other brew methods.
All controls are managed through a single front-mounted dial that both rotates and clicks, maintaining a clean aesthetic and minimizing clutter. Very “apple” like.
The display is simple and intuitive, and has indicators for different modes and grinding ranges.
Build Quality and Materials
One of the bigger physical upgrades over the Encore ESP is the outer body. While the original is mostly plastic, the ESP Pro uses anodized metal for large portions of its outer housing. This should add a noticeable bump in durability and give the grinder a more premium feel. For users looking for a machine that looks at home in a more upscale kitchen setup, this change matters.
The outer body of the Encore ESP Pro is a combination of anodized black metal and plastics.
Burr Set and Performance
The Encore ESP Pro uses Baratza’s M2 burr set, developed by Etzinger. These 40mm conical burrs are highly regarded for espresso, to which I can personally attest. While they perform admirably in the espresso range, they do show some limitations once you move into the coarser end of the grind spectrum. In my experience, brews like Chemex or French press benefit from burrs designed with more clarity and uniformity in mind.
Compared to high-end burrs like the Moonshine conicals from Option-O, the M2s hold their own in espresso output but fall behind for filter brews. Still, for the price and the target audience, they are a solid choice. I would like to see Baratza work with Etzinger to improve the burrs further outside their already excellent espresso and Aeropress performance.
Design and Longevity
At launch, the grinder is only available in black. Baratza may expand the color options in the future. The white Encore ESP looks fantastic, so it would be great to see that styling carried over to the Pro model.
Baratza’s long-standing commitment to repairability is another big plus. Their “don’t dump it, fix it” ethos carries over to the ESP Pro. Users can expect access to affordable replacement parts and support materials, like repair videos and walkthroughs. This approach ensures the grinder can remain in service for many years, even decades, with basic upkeep.
Industry Perspective and Availability

In the official launch announcement, Phil McKnight, Breville’s President of Global Specialty Coffee, had this to say:
“I’m so excited about the launch of the game changing Baratza Encore ESP Pro grinder that offers precision, versatility and performance never seen at this price point. A stepless grind adjustment with an amazing resolution of 2.2 microns per degree of mechanism rotation in the espresso range makes dialing in any recipe foolproof. Thoughtful features of the ESP Pro like Anti-Static, Auto-Off when single dosing, a hopper with bean shut-off and flow control disk coupled with the included accessories like a dosing cup for espresso and a single dose hopper are what our consumers are looking for and Baratza’s here to provide,”
I don’t know what the flow control disk is yet, but I am looking forward to finding out. We’re expecting to get a test unit soon, and once we do, we’ll follow up with more hands-on insights and direct feedback from Baratza’s team.
The Baratza Encore ESP Pro is expected to be available in early summer at a retail price of $300 USD ($299.95). North America will be the first region to receive stock, with global availability to follow.
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