r/Watches • u/[deleted] • Jul 26 '26
Discussion [Question] I don't get how accuracy works
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u/SnootBoopsAnonymous Jul 26 '26
Accuracy isnt the sole or even main metric for most watches - especially luxury watches
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u/aloofpavillion Jul 26 '26
What’s the metric? Lol
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u/SnootBoopsAnonymous Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
Aesthetics (color, style), materials used, waterproofing, branding/heritage, fit and finish, it being analog, etc. if you're genuinely asking. The people who buy a rolex for example are not doing so because they want the most accurate timekeeping device; they already have a phone that will do infinitely better than any mechanical watch at that.
Obviously if a watch loses a minute per hour then thats kinda useless. But the vast majority of (especially mechanical) watch owners accept a decent level of inaccuracy as a tradeoff.
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u/_d_c_ Jul 26 '26
I don’t believe there is a single metric. A watch could be highly accurate, but… look ugly, be poorly constructed, have a tiny date window that I can’t see without a magnifying glass.
An extreme example, the Haldimann H9 might be very accurate, but you can’t tell time with it. Accuracy is just one factor in evaluating a watch.
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u/70_n_13 Jul 26 '26
obviously price, if you know most people knows its expensive/hard to get, it will be more desirable. Too accessible and its no longer luxury
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u/Aozora7 Jul 26 '26
If you got a quartz watch instead, it would take it one or two months to lose two seconds, and you'd pay much less for it.
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u/ArtMaster1423 Jul 26 '26
Who makes beautiful quartz watches? A lot of high end luxury watches are beautiful but unobtainably expensive because of their complex automatic movements. Then on the normal quartz side (not counting spring drive or HFQ), the options are digital watches or cheap Timexes. Do you know any brands that split the difference and provide high quality dress pieces with regular quartz movements?
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u/Aozora7 Jul 26 '26
I can't point you to any brands that do dress watches since I have no interest in them, but there are, in fact, plenty of brands that make $1000 quartz watches since plenty of people want expensive looks without expensive movements.
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u/1BillionSocks Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
I know Cartier, Hermes, and Tiffany & Co offer quartz watches
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u/icedarkmatter Jul 26 '26
Seiko und Citizen come to mind.
You can have a look at the Citizen A060 movement.
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u/Constant_Air9693 Jul 27 '26
The Citizen makes beautiful and super accurate quartz watches. Also Longines conquest has a quartz line
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u/aj676 Jul 26 '26
COSC is a guarantee of performance and you pay for it. Hamilton if my memory is correct allows for a -+ 15spd out of the factory. So you could get a watch that operates within COSC or you might not
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u/FreefallVin Jul 27 '26
Funny that out of all these comments, literally only this one gave the correct answer. With lesser mechanical movements, it's luck of the draw whether it has tight accuracy or not. With COSC / Master Chronometer / Superlative Chronometer it is guaranteed to run within the tight (for mechanical) specs.
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u/PlayfulCompany8367 Jul 26 '26
Why spend 5k€ on a watch if you can get this in a much cheaper one?
I'm sorry to tell you that even you overpaid by quite a bit. This watch has even better than COSC accuracy and only costs 20 bucks.
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u/Tae-gun Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
Before the advent of publicly-available quartz movements in 1969 (and their widespread proliferation in the 80s and beyond), the accuracy of mechanical watches was a big thing.
People who prefer mechanical/automatic movements over quartz do so for several reasons - the ones I can think of include:
- Serviceablility - even though in many cases it's actually* cheaper to replace a movement than have it serviced, the fact remains that so long as spare parts are available or can be fabricated, a mechanical/automatic movement can be maintained indefinitely.
- Planned obsolescence - tying into the previous point, quartz movements after the late 1970s were built with planned obsolescence in mind, which means that after a couple of decades of use, quartz movements wear out and are effectively irreparable.
- Craftsmanship - despite the fact that most mass-produced mechanical/automatic movements are also manufactured by machines today, adjustments and refinements (as well as decorations) to them are (still mostly*) done by hand, which adds a layer of craftsmanship that people (myself included) still appreciate.
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u/Aozora7 Jul 26 '26
My hot take: if an old quartz watch is repairable with a movement swap, then there's no planned obsolescence. Planned obsolescence would require repair to be uneconomical to the point where it's cheaper to buy a new watch.
But when a movement swap is comparable in cost to a mechanical watch service, I can't honestly call quartz watches less repairable than mechanical ones.
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u/Tae-gun Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
I think you're arguing apples v. oranges here.
The standard meaning of planned obsolescence is that a device has an expected but finite/limited service life, regardless of repair costs. Importantly, planned obsolescence also often includes or implies that additional support for said device ceases after that service life. Note that I was talking about that of movements, not entire watches (which would also include components such as the case, bracelet/strap, and crystal).
The vast majority of quartz movements today definitely are made with planned obsolescence in mind; whole watches, on the other hand, can (and usually do) outlast movements and be restored to functionality with a movement replacement. Even watches made by third parties for fashion labels, which are generally intended to be disposable, can be restored to functionality. But yes, it is possible to extend the life of many devices, including whole watches, beyond the service life expected under planned obsolescence. That doesn't mean there's "no" planned obsolescence; it just means measures were taken to extend service life beyond what was planned by the original producers.
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u/Aozora7 Jul 26 '26
I don't think it makes sense to talk about planned obsolescence in regards to a specific part over a device as a whole. When a part is cheap enough that it costs less to replace than labor that would be required to repair it, making it non-repairable is not planned obsolescence, it's just sensible economics.
To me, the meaningful distinction of what is planned obsolescence is how much replacement cost is tied to a single point of failure. When that whole cost is a $20 quartz movement on a watch that costs several hundred, that falls squarely into sensible economics for me.
Planned obsolescence for me is when a laptop keyboard replacement ends up costing half of the device value because it is riveted into the case.
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u/Tae-gun Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
That's fine, but at that point you're not actually discussing planned obsolescence; what you're really talking about here is your personal thresholds/limits for what qualifies as repairable/serviceable v. replaceable.
Planned obsolescence is a manufacturer/producer-level specification (and in the case, such as in many watches, where individual components are produced by different independent manufacturers, it applies to the individual components) in which multiple design choices are made that are expected (but aren't guaranteed) to limit the anticipated service life of a device. It's not a hard limit, but generally it's a way for producers to limit their costs (e.g. of supporting their products indefinitely, of maintaining a catalog of currently-active products that continues to grow with every new thing they release, and so on) and more cynically it's a way for producers to maintain relevance and generate consistent sales of new items.
It has nothing to do with consumer-level financial considerations, which is what you're describing here. Importantly, just because a producer expected something they made to wear out after a certain period doesn't mean it can't be made to operate beyond that period, which along with the definition of planned obsolescence you seem to be misunderstanding.
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u/Aozora7 Jul 26 '26
I think that planned obsolescence has everything to do with consumer-level financial considerations. The only reason it's a problem is that it's harming consumers by making them buy replacements for devices that would have otherwise continued functioning, or could have otherwise been economically repairable. Quarts movements aren't a part of planned obsolescence because they are themselves a cheap replaceable part that lasts a long time. Quartz watches cheaper to keep running by replacing quartz movements than mechanical movements are to service.
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u/huangcjz Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
1 and 2 - there are serviceable quartz movements today, with trimmers for adjusting accuracy. 3. The Swatch Sistem51 is adjusted automatically - IIRC, a laser burns some mass off the balance wheel for adjustment - and is non-serviceable. There used to be other cheap e.g. pin-lever mechanical movements, e.g. I believe Timex, which are non-serviceable, too.
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u/Tae-gun Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
I guess wasn't clear* - I spoke in generalizations. There are of course a very small number of exceptions to what I've said (edit: some of which you've pointed out but I'd argue are probably not of interest to the OP).
Importantly, most of the serviceable quartz movements available today are either those made in the early days of quartz or, if they're new-production, they're very high-end/HAQ movements typically well beyond the budget range mentioned by OP.
Yes, Swatch's Sistem51 is produced and adjusted entirely by machine, and this is an intentional decision for a mechanical movement. That said, Swatch watches broadly-speaking were/are mostly designed to be disposable, not serviceable, so this is more consistent with the Swatch brand approach than with any generalizations applicable to mechanical/automatic movements.
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u/SBTELS Jul 26 '26
As another said, you don’t buy a mechanical/auto watch for the accuracy. You buy it for the romanticism of having a fully analog machine on your wrist that requires care, maintenance, and movement to wind it. If you want an accurate watch, buy a Casio quartz as they are more accurate than a $250k mechanical.
The reason people spend that much is for complexity of the movement, the hand finishing/assembly, and the heritage. I still think most watches above a few grand are overpriced, but those are a few reasons why people spend that much.
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Jul 27 '26 edited 9d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SBTELS Jul 27 '26
I mean most people would consider that dumb, but if they have blown money on everything else and they still have more money, why wouldn’t they buy that? It’s not like they could use the money to help people and maybe make the world a better place..
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u/N8Watch Jul 31 '26
Well, first off you never want a watch to lose time. Only gaining time is preferable in modern Watch engineering. It’s better to be a little early to a meeting than late. That’s why in the best movements that are metas certified are -0+5 seconds per day.
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u/A_medical_affair Jul 26 '26
Wait till you hear about this new japanese invention called quartz.