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.
I’ll believe that it’s a contender against existing quartz movements when they lay out the production costs for their design. You can’t consign discrete ticks to the dustbin of history until you can compete with a $3 SpongeBob watch from Malaysia.
So this is pretty much just an advertisement. A total of 69 (giggidy) people so far have pre ordered this watch on Kickstarter.
It’s an overpriced watch with cheap materials and a novel motor. Hell, they even want 300 pounds for an extra leather strap.
All the intricate gears and gems and precise parts/machinery that makes high end watched actually have a bit of merit to their cost…none of it is in this watch. The thing though be 150. Not 1800.
I wonder how long the battery lasts. However, some big watches with conventional mechanisms use standard small movements with lots of free space (I could extend the battery life by sticking 4 more SR626SW cells there) so a larger battery could be an option.
It says the battery lasts 10 years before you have to replace it.
But I preferred my watches (I’ve gone smartwatch, now) to have the self winding as you walk mechanism inside. If you had more than one they made moving display cases that would keep them wound if you didn’t want to bother with setting the time again after a few days of not wearing it, plus those always seemed way cooler than needing a battery.
It could bring to an end the trick of spotting a battery powered watch by the jumping motion of its seconds hand because the SilMach motor powers sweeping hands.
This is bullshit. Some of my parents’ wallclock from the early 2000s already got sweeping hands. That “trick” was brought to an end literally decades ago.
catching up to Seiko with a copy of their springdrive is neither unique nor an innovation… it’s a copy.
💀
I am confused by this article. The quartz is how electronics keeps track of time accurately. The silicon motor is how you move the arrows. Those are not related or comparable things.
Its the ‘ticking’ part of ticking quartz
What “it”?
French innovator aims to consign ticking quartz watches to history
The ‘ticking’ is what is being consigned to history. The article is about an alternative to ‘ticking quartz watches’, a non-ticking quartz watch
But the ticking has nothing to do with quartz. One can use quartz oscillator with that silicon motor, for example.
Thats exactly the proposition. Eliminate tifking quartz watches in favor of non-ticking quartz watches.
Say goodbye to the quartz watches that do tick replace them with ones that do not tick
a silicon motor that matches the accuracy of quartz-based movements
How do you explain that? If it is still quartz based, then it is the same accuracy. No?
Yes, it is still a quartz watch. The oscillator is still a quartz oscillator. However the mechanism which advances the second hand is replaced with onethat does not need to tick.
The kind of quartz watch is no longer a ticking quartz watch, it is a non-ticking quartz watch.
As for the specific wording of the article, I would assume the authoris not fully versed in partsof quartz watches, and does not know that the oscillator which keeps time is different from the stepping motor which moves the hands.
This invention targets only replacing the stepping motor, not the oscillator.
I’m a tech guy and don’t give a crap about the sweeping motion of a watch hand. I’d rather have a watch that tells me the time, date, my messages, and vitals while also being able to configure how it looks plus change that any time I like. Way more useful than, “Wow, look at that hand sweep by!”
I guess I just don’t “get it” when it comes to watches like this. Is there something I’m missing?
you’re not a tech guy, you’re a tech enthusiast.
someone who understands computers will reduce the “smart” devices in their home to the minimum.
As a programmer, I’m pretty sure I understand computers. It all comes down to who you trust because at the end of the day we all have smart phones with us just about 24/7 with the potential to access just about every aspect of our lives in real-time. Personally, I don’t really trust any company so I limit what I put into my smart phone.
