Watches - Are These the Best of Times or Worst of Times?

[rdenney]

That is ... entirely incomprehensible. I have no idea what this maniac is gibbering about. None. How is that entertaining?

As a watch collector, I made it about two minutes into the video before his (mere) opinions no longer mattered to me. It was a triumph of Standard Southern British over content, in my view.

Rick "Americans will believe anything said with an English accent" Denney

 

[Multicore]

As a watch collector, I made it about two minutes into the video before his (mere) opinions no longer mattered to me. It was a triumph of Standard Southern British over content, in my view.

Rick "Americans will believe anything said with an English accent" Denney

Um... To me he sounded like having a thick Belfast accent, which is far from Standard Southern, and to many educated, cultured Standard Southern speakers, almost as risible as Glaswegian.

 

[rdenney]

Agreed.
It made no sense to me it was fuelled by makers, particularly Rolex, manipulating the availability to make even mass produced base metal watches hard to get which was OK for when demand was growing but not as soon it stagnates.
A bit like a Ponzi scheme.

I have thought for a long time that Rolex collectors have simply lost their minds, making space for mere speculators.

My own collection comprises mostly unique buying opportunities, and Rolex watches never seem to fall into that category. So, while I'm wearing a watch at this moment that retails for more than a typical Rolex three-hand watch, I bought it second-hand from a reputable company for about half of what the most mundane Rolex Datejust two-tone with a worn fluted bezel sells for used.

Back to the thread topic: My iphone tells time just fine, but it's in my pocket. Pulling it out in a corner-office-with-flags-behind-the-desk office would not be advisable. A surreptitious glance at one's wristwatch (which would be made unsurreptitious by having to flick the wrist to get it to light up) would, on the other hand, not go unnoticed.

My first "good" watch was a Hamilton QED quartz LED watch. That watch was hard on batteries, and the display was only on when one pushed a button. That watch became impractical to wear because of that little button-pushing requirement--too often and for whatever reason the other hand was not available.

Wristwatches started replacing pocket watches in 1904 when Louis Cartier made a dedicated wristwatch for his friend Alberto Santos-Dumont to use while piloting his experimental flying machines, when he could not remove his hand from the controls to fetch a pocket watch. And yet people now say they don't need a watch because they have a smart phone.

I own dozens upon dozens of watches. Several of them are battery-powered. Invariably, when I have the urge to wear one, the battery is dead and it has to go in the fixit pile. That has never happened with mechanical watches. Even if they need servicing, they can be worn a day or two a year without significant further damage.

But it's a fair cop that the watch industry has seriously hindered independent watch repair, which makes keeping one's mechanical watches in a state of good service unnecessarily more difficult. The watch industry is going to have to face this issue. Rolex is actually better than most about that, though their authorized service providers are no fans of Rolex corporate policy towards them.

Rick "admires Rolex's business acumen but has no interest in owning one" Denney

 

[rdenney]

Posted by mistake.

 

[BurntFinger]

My (mostly) automatic mechanical watches are EMP proof and cannot be hacked or can collect data.
And yes I have a vinyl collection!

 

[pablolie]

I will never ever wear a watch without a mechanical movement. Don't have any judgment towards those that do, don't get me wrong.

 

[Joe Smith]

I'm really enjoying my new quartz watches these days, the automatics are kind of making me nuts. Much harder to rotate. These new VH31 quartz watches I bought are so very accurate - I think to better than +/-1 second a day!

 

[MRC01]

I'm really enjoying my new quartz watches these days, the automatics are kind of making me nuts. Much harder to rotate. These new VH31 quartz watches I bought are so very accurate - I think to better than +/-1 second a day!

IME that (quartz watch accuracy) mainly depends on temperature.

 

[rdenney]

IME that (quartz watch accuracy) mainly depends on temperature.

Or on connection to a radio-based time source.

High-accuracy quartz watches use temperature compensation to correct for variations, which takes away about an order of magnitude of potential error. Standard quartz accuracy is an error of up to about 15 seconds per month. High-accuracy quartz watches limit errors to more like 10 or 15 seconds per year.

The typical way that bench equipment with quartz timing achieve high accuracy is to put the quartz crystal in a tiny oven to sustain a regulated temperature. That’s a bit more consistently accurate than temperature compensation but it eats batteries.

My Ulysse Nardin Marine Chronometer has a hairspring and balance laser-cut from silicon, and it’s as accurate as a standard quartz watch. But it achieves that at (deliberately) high cost.

But very few people need that level of accuracy, even if they brag about it on forums (as I just did). If the watch I’m wearing is on the right minute when I look at it, I won’t be late for appointments. If it’s five minutes slow, I will. That’s real-world accuracy for me. The phone is handy for knowing the right minute when setting the watch.

My Christmas present to myself last week was a recently serviced Breguet Type XX flyback chronograph, which has been on my list for a long time awaiting the unique buying opportunity. I set it a week ago, and this morning, it is reading the correct minute. More accurate than that fulfills no requirement important to me.

Rick “the recently serviced part was critical” Denney

 

[MRC01]

Or on connection to a radio-based time source.

Cheating! There's a purity and elegance of design in timepieces that don't rely on external references.

... High-accuracy quartz watches use temperature compensation to correct for variations, which takes away about an order of magnitude of potential error. Standard quartz accuracy is an error of up to about 15 seconds per month. High-accuracy quartz watches limit errors to more like 10 or 15 seconds per year.

Sounds like a TCXO, temperature compensated crystal oscillators, which drive the clocks in most of the DACs that we listen to every day.

... The typical way that bench equipment with quartz timing achieve high accuracy is to put the quartz crystal in a tiny oven to sustain a regulated temperature. That’s a bit more consistently accurate than temperature compensation but it eats batteries.

Otherwise known as OCXOs, oven controlled crystal oscillators. I don't know of any audio DACs that use them, but maybe? Sounds like over-the-top engineering for an audio DAC. Or a wristwatch.

 

[MRC01]

I'm really enjoying my new quartz watches these days, the automatics are kind of making me nuts. Much harder to rotate. These new VH31 quartz watches I bought are so very accurate - I think to better than +/-1 second a day!

Most of the quartz watches I've owned over the years run 0.5 secs fast per day at room temperature.

The mechanicals I've owned, I adjust them to "neutral" which means they run slightly fast or slow depending on their physical orientation with respect to Earth's gravitational field. For example, slightly slow when resting crown-up versus slightly fast face-up. At the end of each day I check the watch against exact time. If it's ahead, set it in the slow position overnight. If it's behind, set it in the fast position. This way, the watch stays within a few seconds of exact time indefinitely without ever having to set it.

With this approach, even though quartz watches are more accurate, you could end up having to set them more often than mechanicals. That is, 4 months down the road the mechanical watch is within a few seconds of exact time and you've never had to set it, but the quartz has drifted a minute ahead and needs to be reset.

The way temperature affects quartz oscillators is they speed up when cold and vice versa. So I wonder if one could apply the above method for quartz watches by putting them into a warm or cool place overnight to slow them down or speed them up respectively? Eg. put it near the heater vent to slow it down a bit so it doesn't gain 0.5 sec per day. Or wear it all night so it's on your warm wrist.

 

[Petrushka]

I have a couple of Citizen eco drive watches that are within a minute per six months, which is when I have to reset them anyway.

 

[Multicore]

Or on connection to a radio-based time source.

Cheating! There's a purity and elegance of design in timepieces that don't rely on external references.

At the end of each day I check the watch against exact time. If it's ahead, set it in the slow position overnight. If it's behind, set it in the fast position.

Cheating!

 

[antcollinet]

I might consider upgrading, but the main point is that I’ll have no interest in owning more watches

The problem I have here - Your ultra is above the price I would have considered for a lifetime watch a few years ago.

Yet itself has a built in obsolesce, due to battery wear out and terminated updates. It will probably be land fill in 5 years - certainly no longer than 10.


I think they are amazing bits of tech but at that price to buy it, I'd have to believe it would be usable for the rest of my life. There is no chance of that.

 

[Joe Smith]

Well, some of y'all are a bit more...uh, focused on this...than I am, and playing in different price levels. As for me, a guy who's always liked watches but don't believe they need to cost a lot for enjoyment, a nice, aesthetically pleasing quartz that's only varying +/- 1 sec a day without special care or treatment is good enough!

 

[TimF]

I bought an Addiesdive watch and within two weeks the crown fell off and it could not be reattached. There seems to be no recourse to getting a replacement or repair. There has been no response when I tried to inquire about repair or replacement. No one is out there once you buy it, it seems. I bought it on AliExpress.

 

[Doodski]

I bought an Addiesdive watch and within two weeks the crown fell off and it could not be reattached. There seems to be no recourse to getting a replacement or repair. There has been no response when I tried to inquire about repair or replacement. No one is out there once you buy it, it seems. I bought it on AliExpress.

Lets people know so they don't suffer the same as they have imparted upon you.

 

[Multicore]

Well, some of y'all are a bit more...uh, focused on this...than I am, and playing in different price levels. As for me, a guy who's always liked watches but don't believe they need to cost a lot for enjoyment, a nice, aesthetically pleasing quartz that's only varying +/- 1 sec a day without special care or treatment is good enough!

In 1990ish I got an Oris Big Crown with a red moon date pointer and display back. That was pretty early the fashion for retro mech mens watches and nobody I knew even knew what an automatic was so I was very proud of my sophisticated distinction. It was also very small relative to today's standards.

When it stopped I had it cleaned at a local shop. When it stopped the next time I got a new watch, a Hamilton quartz. By this time everyone was bragging about their mech and I was no longer interested. I've got seven watches in rotation now, only one of them is mech and it's a pita having to adjust it all the time. I'm especially enjoying my Eco-Drive Citizens now.

 

[Joe Smith]

I bought an Addiesdive watch and within two weeks the crown fell off and it could not be reattached. There seems to be no recourse to getting a replacement or repair. There has been no response when I tried to inquire about repair or replacement. No one is out there once you buy it, it seems. I bought it on AliExpress.

The same issue - lack of support in the US - has made me limit my love of Vostok Amphibians. I had one go missing on a repair run back to Europe, so I just use my two remaining ones and don't try to f*** with the time adjustment any more - at least they keep fairly decent time. But no one here in my part of the US wants to work on them.

I've had good luck thus far with the 3 Addiesdive watches I bought for a total of $130 - two of the VH31 movement ones and one of the regular quartz ones - but they are so accurate, I've only pulled out each crown to adjust a handfull of times. At $40 per, I basically consider them to be a"use until they break" kind of thing.

 

[pablolie]

Today's a formal day presenting to bankers in a suit etc. My trusty old Sinn Regulateur manual representing. At 44mm it is about the smallest size I wear these days. Seldom comes through in snapshots, but the craftsmanship is beautiful.

PS: It is 11:07am.