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This is a guide to traditional lithium battery-powered watches that can attain an astounding level of accuracy. Even if you are late out the door, you can grab your quartz dress watch and know that you are not late for a conference call with your colleagues on the other side of the globe.įor the purposes of this guide, we’ll leave out watches that are synched to radio tower signals as well as non-standard battery powered quartz watches such as Citizen’s Eco-Drive line. As much as we romanticize the old-world art of mechanical watch movements, there’s something just plain cool about the other end of the spectrum–a watch that allows for such extreme precision.Ī practical use of a HAQ watch is for knowing you are on time for work-related events.
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Even trains don’t leave stops exactly on time. Of course, many of us are fine with even being minutes off of the exact atomic clock time. By regulating motor pulses in accordance to ambient temperature shifts, a higher degree of accuracy is achieved.Īs a Worn&Wound reader, you are probably more than OK with about a variance of 10 seconds a day with your mechanical watches. At a very fundamental level, by passing a current through a tuning fork shaped crystal, vibrations are generated powering the watch. Thermo-compensation allows these watches to maintain a stable rate in spite of temperature changes. Welcome to the world of high accuracy quartz or high end quartz, generally categorized as watches that are specified to plus or minus 10 seconds a year. For certain type of watch enthusiast demands far greater levels of accuracy. For the most part, quartz watches, from a $40 Casio at Target to an Omega Aqua Terra quartz, run at about plus or minus 15 seconds a month.
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