French innovator aims to consign ticking quartz watches to history
French innovator aims to consign ticking quartz watches to history
A French company (SilMach) backed by Timex Group is claiming to have opened a new chapter in watchmaking with the creation of a silicon motor that matches the accuracy of quartz-based movements with the elegance of a mechanical watch’s sweeping hands.
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Admittedly I'm not that into watches, but my mechanical watches also tick in discrete steps. Those are just smaller steps than once a second.
If that's what some people apparently care about, why not make a quartz watch move the hands in increments of (say) 1/16ths of a second? It seems totally feasible without fancy new motors.
Higher beat quartz watches do exist, like Bulova's Precisionist watches (which I believe do beat 16 times per second like you mention).
My understanding is that they are not more common because moving the hands more frequently like this uses battery a lot faster, so the watches either need to be bigger for more battery or require more frequent battery changes.