this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2023
47 points (71.6% liked)

Technology

60109 readers
3275 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s
[email protected]
[email protected]
L4s
enu
47
French innovator aims to consign ticking quartz watches to history (usa.watchpro.com)
submitted 1 year ago by Salamendacious to c/technology
29 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] farcaster 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] SeriesOfTubers 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.