There is something calming about wearing a one-handed watch as you go about your day. One gets used to the slow twelve-hour crawl of one of Meistersinger’s creations. The watches are made in the vein of traditional tower clocks from the Middle Ages, historical creations that not only served as timekeepers for the town center, but also guided people throughout their day-to-day lives by letting them know when meals started, when to wake up, and when to go to sleep. It wasn’t until years later that those clock towers were fitted with more precise minutes and seconds hands.

For those reasons, along with the general pleasing nature of the watch’s design, I was excited to give the Pangaea Day Date a week on my wrist when it arrived in our New York office.

The first thing you notice is that the sunburst blue face of the watch both catches and reflects light. Achieved through brushing the day and date rings in alternating directions, the dial, which would otherwise appear overcrowded with a surplus of information, is instead categorical and distinctive. It’s a design feat that no doubt helped the Pangaea win both a Red Dot Award and a German Design Award upon its release.

The slim nature of the Pangaea also appealed to me. In general I tend to favor a slim, not exactly small, timepiece, due to its ergonomic nature. While I believe there is a time and a place for all wristwatch sizes, any watch that is going to receive daily usage from me is going to have to be able to fit underneath a sleeve. Measuring 40 mm in diameter, with a thickness of 10.5 mm, this piece fits perfectly within the compact-yet-not-diminutive range for my taste.

Now, the main attraction and discussion point of a Meistersinger timepiece is undoubtedly the single hand. The watch tells time by measuring each marker as five minutes, rather than a minute or a second like a traditional two or three hander. This may take getting used to for some, but for myself, after a panicked second or two wondering where the hours went, I was able to settle into the slow routine of its 12-hour dial design with no trouble.

While the Pangaea Day Date won’t be able to get you into your meeting to the exact minute, or second for that matter, if you’re looking for a casual weekender that will help apportion your day off into digestible chunks, then a Meistersinger deserves a long, hard look. The price point, coming in right around $2,000, is a selling point as well.

– Logan R. Baker