The rotating bezel is a feature of analogue divers watches. It allows the wearer to easily calculate elapsed time from a specific point.

It has since been adopted for use in many fashion time pieces and sometimes doesn’t even move, it is merely decorative.

This truly is peculiar because most watches that have an unidirectional bezel (i.e. a bezel that only moves in one direction) move in a counter clockwise direction this is used for diving as an auxillary timer. Your watch uses the bezel in much the same way but is designed for land usage. The major reason for this is that underwater if for any reason the watch is struck and the bezel moves it will report to the diver that he has more time than he thought he had. This can be fatal. With a counter clockwise bezel the opposite will hold true and the diver will think he has less time than he actually has, which by the way, is a good thing. On the matter of your watch being either mechanical or battery Fossil very rarely makes a mechanical watch but the easiest way to tell is by looking at the seconds hand. If the seconds hand ticks it is battery powered but if it has a smooth sweeping action it is mechanical. Hopes this helps you.

The previous answers are correct, to calculate elapsed time. The main use of this function was diving watches. They provided a way for divers to gage how long their air supply would last. Decades ago, one would only see this feature on very expensive diving watches, which made it a kind of status symbol which caused it to be copied onto pretty much even cheap non-waterproof watches.

Anyway, that is the original story about it. Today it is most likely on your watch because it looks cool.

.

.

It’s called a rotating crown, and it is used to measure elapsed time.

It only moves in one direction.

Generally, it’s on a diving watch and you turn the crown to align the zero with the minute hand. When you’re diving, the crown gives you an estimate of how long you’ve been underwater.

It can be used to determine how long your tank will last, or how long you have to wait at different depths in your ascent or descent.

In more basic terms, the ring allows you to make any place on your watch zero, to calculate elapsed time. When you start doing something, put the pointer on that minute. When you are done you can see how many minutes it took to do the task very quickly by looking at where the minute hand lines up on the bezel.

In addition to the first answer which is correct, the bevel is used on some aviation watches to show the time in another time zone.