Most inexpensive and medium-priced watches used mainly for timekeeping are electronic watches with quartz movements.^[1] Expensive collectible watches, valued more for their workmanship and aesthetic appeal than for simple timekeeping, often have purely mechanical movements and are powered by springs, even though mechanical movements are less accurate than more affordable quartz movements. In addition to the time, modern watches often display the day, date, month and year, and electronic watches may have many other functions. Watches that provide additional time-related features such as timers,chronographs and alarm functions are also common. Some modern designs even go as far as using GPS^[4] technology or heart-rate monitoring^[5] capabilities.

The study of timekeeping is known as horology.