I really wish companies would spend more time advertising the cool features of their quartz movements with the same amount of hype as mechanical movements. It's weird how a lot of movements like the Precionist or HAQ ones are hidden away and not really talked about on product pages. I remember I was on the watches subreddit and people were digging into the background of the movement inside a Tissot Seastar, and how it was actually a HAQ movement but Tissot literally doesn't talk about it or mention it anywhere!
Exactly. Even now, nobody really knows that many of those little Seiko Dolce gold dress watches from the 1980s are HAQ. I bought one about four months ago, set it then, just checked it, and it’s still bang on. I think they were spec’d at +-20spy. Under $200, readily available. But small.
It actually goes much deeper than that. The crystals cannot be trimmed 100% accurate to 32768 Hz (or whatever their base frequency might be), so they make them slightly faster on purpose, and in the factory, they measure a constant for every watch on a oscilloscope, or similar counter. This gets set into every watch as a correction factor. You'll never see it happen, but every hour, or few hours the quartz watch actually delays one of the seconds by that much to get it accurate again. Even the very best ones do this, albeit less regularly perhaps. On most quartz watches it can even be changed with a small potentiometer. But its incredibly hard to regulate accurately yourself, because you have to wait a month or so every time to see the effect of your adjustments. So, its best left alone. You're not going to do better than the factory.
I have a plug-in alarm clock with a backup lithium cell and automatic time change for DST. It gains several minutes a year because its quartz crystal oscillates too fast. I’ve had it for maybe 12 years and it seems to be getting slightly faster over time.
32768 Hz quartz crystals are typically trimmed (or tuned) by laser during the manufacturing process to be 32768 Hz. Yes, they may end up being off by a fraction of a Hertz which can be compensated for by tuning the watche's oscillator during the watch manufacturing process (if the watch manufacturer desires to make a more accurate watch). P.S. an oscilloscope is not a counter (although many scopes do have that function built in)...
I really wish they made that black Bulova chrono in a smaller version. I tried it on my wrist and its a huge watch in every dimension. I would buy a 38mm or under version in a heartbeat.
Except the movement itself is 40.5 mm, so it wouldn't fit into your 38mm case. Bulova has done a great job of making the 43mm case efficiently wrap around the movement.
They do have women’s watches that look more or less unisex, and those are smaller. Don’t know if those include any chronographs in a smaller size: possibly not.
I wish you would've talked about how whether or not the seconds hand hits the marks on the dial has absolutely nothing to do with the movement's accuracy.
More info if you want to nerd out: Accuracy in Quartz oscillators is a culmination of things. Quartz crystal cut (XT or AT), the stability of the capacitors that makes up the resonant tank and the stability of the amplifier that makes up the oscillator.
It would be cool if you could do this again but explain the idea behind certain quartz movements like the Seiko 7548/7C movements which, from my understanding, are basically an automatic movement that has been adapted to quartz. And so people often say they are very good because they can be serviced and adjusted in a way that more contemporary quartz movements cannot. Not sure if that’s true or not, but it would be neat to see the difference. I have a 7548 id be willing to send along for the video lol!
I love my two Precisionists. The other watches in my collection are 6 manuals and 10 Quartz. I have noticed some of my cheaper Quartz are not super accurate but the nicer ones are. My mechanicals need resetting several times a day.
I have a number of Precisionist watches and love them. Bulova has tended to put them in large cases which is a bit off putting, but the Chronograph you showed is a marvellous watch which I also own. I also have a number of Maurice Lacroix quartz watches and they have lovely well built movements. I wish people saw the quartz for what it is, a marvel of technology!
I have a Citizen eco-drive (BN0085-01E) which runs at +8 secs per year. Amazing for such an inexpensive watch - I realize that I got lucky with a particularly well made unit. Much respect to Citizen though.
Just for fun, you might explain just how clock accuracy is determined. It might be interesting to many to note that the traditional average and standard deviation do not apply to clocks. An explanation of the Allan Variance method could be very enlightening. Cheers.
Thanks. I have a long lasting aversion against the 1 second clicking that kept me awake at night and kept me from buying quartz watches. Now I see there are others and will be more open to quartz watches again.
Electronics engineer here. It doesn't make any difference what the frequency of a crystal is. All "common off-the-shelf" crystals are +/-20 to +/-50 ppm. That goes for every frequency, whether it is 32,768 Hz (the most common watch crystal), the 262,144 Hz in the Bulova or a 10 MHz crystal. The frequency is divided down to whatever step rate is required for the second hand and but the accuracy remains the same. An electronic temperature compensation can be desgined-in, adjusting the crystal frequency over temperature. Well designed, it can bring the accuracy down to 1 pmm. A well designed oscillator circuit also has a trimmer capacitor to adjust the frequency. But there will always be drift caused by ageing of the crystal. Translated to seconds per day or per month: +/-50 ppm equals 4.32 s/day +/-1 ppm equals 0.0864 s/day or 2.7 s/month. Long story short: you cannot judge the accuracy of a watch by simply looking at its crystal frequency. You need to know the accuracy specification of the crystal that's being used, if it is temperature compensated and if a trimmer is used to adjust the frequency to specification.
Basically, people need to think about the hands just like a display. They totally belie what's going on in the circuitry of the movement. It's just how the designer of the movement decides to sample the beat of the crystal and update that more often as a position change on the hands. The best example is a solar quartz. Certain solar watches stop the hands entirely in darkness to save power, but internally they're still keeping time until you bring it back into the light. A brilliant watch and learn Marc 👍
Very interesting video. The Bulova is a very impressive watch for the price. I’ve been into this hobby 6 years now and find myself turning to my Seiko quartz chronograph much more than all my other automatic watches these days. I appreciate the convenience of not having to keep resetting the time due to mechanicals stopping when you stop wearing them and also the far superior accuracy of quartz (which also means far less adjusting of the time)
@@dyslexicbien It’s actually an alarm chrono - model SNAF09P1 which has been discontinued. Lovely green dial with gold hands and markers. A RU-vid channel called 2stime did a good visual only video of it a few years ago.
@@lewisham Yes buying watches although of course watches are practical tools but I’ve bought too many over the past few years. Maybe an addiction is a better word than hobby.
That's an important and critical point about the Bulova's Precisionist movements: The energy cost of having all this extra work means larger batteries with shorter lifespans, and the larger case sizes to accommodate those larger batteries. There are going to be trade-offs between mechanical and electronic power consumption: A digital LCD is the "sweet spot" for efficient timekeeping because has no moving parts. However, liquid crystal displays are function over form (they're not beautiful).
Bulova Precisionist is an amazing technology. Sadly, my Bulova Sea King with Precisionist movement died on me recently. However, my Bulova Lunar Pilot with Precisionist movement is still going strong!
I own a Lunar Pilot for more tahn 1 year now and i have to say it was a great purchase, extremely accurate, you can trust the tme it says it is, it's a really set anf forget watch.
I have a multitude of quartz and mechanical watches, love them both. But I cannot imagine a single advantage of a quartz second hand ticking more than once per second. To my eye, doesn’t even look “more accurate”.
Quartz is unfortunately unloved by so many in the watch world. The precisionist movement (back when it was 10 seconds a year!) Seiko 9F, Citizen Chronomaster, and the hand built Yamagata Casio’s are truly phenomenal watches. I wish more companies would make really impressive quartz movements. Great video 👍
Hello! Frequency is not the best gauge of timekeeper accuracy. Rather, it is the quality factor of the timebase oscillator. Quality factor is essentially the number of free oscillations that the timebase can achieve before stopping. English engineer Douglas Bateman showed that there is a good correlation between timekeeper accuracy and the quality factor of its oscillator timebase. The quality factor of a mechanical watch is about 200, while quartz watches have quality factor going up to 100,000. For example, the most accurate pendulum clocks have frequency 1/2 Hz, but have similar accuracy to the best quartz watches, and have similar quality factor.
My latest Seiko Prospex Solar Diver is running better than -1 seconds per month, or around 10 seconds per year. For a movement that is only guaranteed to within 15 seconds per month, I regard that as outstanding accuracy. It is up there with the Bulova, The Citizen or Grand Seiko at several times the cost. Of course a radio controlled movement would have zero error over a year.
I’ve never heard anyone, let alone everyone, say that a quartz movement that tics more times per second is what makes one more accurate. However, the only time I hear anyone talk about quartz accuracy is when I have searched RU-vid for how quartz watches work. Can someone give me an example of when they have encountered everyone being wrong about quartz accuracy?
People think that because a watch, like the precisionist, has a second hand that moves smoothly, it is automatically more accurate. That is not true. If you don't believe it, that's fine. I'm saying that most people do believe it. Sure, 'everyone' is hyperbole.
@@islandwatch my comment was too pugnacious. I’m actually never around anyone talking about watches in real life. I was wondering if this was more of a RU-vid watch reviewer thing or just casual watch conversations in day to day life.
A lot of people who don't know about watches will never believe that a $20 Casio at least twice as good as a $20,0000 Rolex, and more than likely closer to an order of magnitude better.
Very cool video Marc, and great explanation of everything. As you talked about the big battery in the Bulova, I'm wearing a G-Shock Mudmaster GG-1000 right now which holds 2 batteries! It's a 1 tick per second seconds hand but in the year I've owned it, it's gained around 15 seconds and I just recalibrated it today.
To paraphrase the late Deng Zheoping....." it does not matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice"....so if a watch clicks or ticks, it does not matter so long as it's accurate. And 262 kHz is bloody accurate, better than any clockwork driven mechanism.
6:58 The weirdest thing I’ve ever heard about resonant frequencies is that there was, many years ago, a factory in, I think, France. They ventilated the shop floor with a huge fan, which turned very slowly. Workers started getting violently ill at the company and they realized that the fan, even though it was moving very slowly, was moving with the same resonant frequency as the workers’ guts! It was literally breaking up their intestines.
It’s too good a story for me to go read some factual article that debunks it. (It probably claims those workers were eating bad escargot from a food cart.)
Iv'e been moving into the quartz side lately, the Bulova Jet Star Precionist is on my radar at the moment. It's not that i wouldn't buy another automatic but it would have to be pretty special for me to do so.
I have by now collected 3 HAQ watches, a Bulova Precisionist, a Longines Conquest VHP GMT, and a Grand Seiko GMT. The Longines is the most accurate. The Bulova looks cool with its 16 beats per second.
Great video, full of stuff we like to hear about. Love my Bulova lunar pilot! It's in my short list of 'daily' wears. I really enjoy the mechanicals, the movements have always been a source of fascination for me. But the no hassle ready to go of quartz watches keeps them on my wrist a lot. My fav lately is Tissot prc chrono, most legible / easy to read watch I have. Looks great, feels great. Thanks lots for another great watch and learn, this was especially informative IMHO!
that door knob protector to the 4 o clock of your logo sticker, needs a 4 o clock blue hand painted (to resemble your logo) and then you can retire the sticker.@00:32😂
I understood your demonstration without any accuracy in my mind but it s fascinating, love it. I have a strange question here: is it possible that quartz watches being mostly non sweeping a cultural bias? Like people, except watch nerds, kinda freak out looking at time like a fluid unstoppable movement rather than a more reassuring ticking.
Mostly battery is my guess, starting a motor is much more demanding than running it for a little longer. Moving the seconds hand 3x per second probably takes nearly as much energy as moving it once per second for 3 seconds. Many analog quartz watches now stop moving the hands entirely when no movement has been sensed for 72 hours, then they spin the hands into position when you wake them up. Based on seiko “kinetic” movements that do this you could probably get a general idea how little the crystal is actually using, but I think not moving the hands makes the battery last at least 10x longer
I have the lunar pilot and love it. It is not a precisionist though. According to bulova it is as accurate though. I have been looking at some precisionist chronographs the last week. They tick 16 times per second so appear to sweep rather than tick. They can also time to 1 thousandth of a second where the lunar pilot only times to 1 twentieth of a second.
my only nickpick about my lunar pilot is that for the same 15 positions ob every hour the minute hand isn't aligned the same way, but goes back to following the minute indices after that time. wonder if it's a gear issue.
Quartz movements and nice and all but they've got nothing on the accuracy of the turbo encabulator. Now basically the only new principle involved is that instead of power being generated by the relative motion of conductors and fluxes, it is produced by the modial interaction of magneto-reluctance and capacitive diractance. The original machine had a base plate of pre-famulated amulite surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two spurving bearings were in a direct line with the panametric fan. The latter consisted simply of six hydrocoptic marzlevanes, so fitted to the ambifacient lunar waneshaft that side fumbling was effectively prevented. The main winding was of the normal lotus-o-delta type placed in panendermic semi-boloid slots of the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a non-reversible tremie pipe to the differential girdle spring on the “up” end of the grammeters. The turbo-encabulator has now reached a high level of development, and it’s being successfully used in the operation of novertrunnions. Moreover, whenever a forescent skor motion is required, it may also be employed in conjunction with a drawn reciprocation dingle arm, to reduce sinusoidal repleneration. Now that's accuracy (and precision) you can count on!
It would be interesting to see a companion presentation on thermocompensated quartz movements - I don't really get how those work (different current applied across the crystal? different calculation?). Come to think about it, a whole chapter on accuracy would be cool - chronometer, turbillion, how position affects accuracy, etc.). I know you've covered some of these topics in other videos. Maybe it's just making a playlist then.
I get it, thanks for this helpful video. Question: why do quartz watches often have second hands that move at one second intervals, or possibly a bit more rapidly, while quartz clocks have second hands that seem to sweep smoothly?
Those are running on an ac current and are regulated by the frequency of the electrical grid. A quartz watch uses a stepper motor one once per second to save battery. You could get a smoother sweep on a quartz but it would drain the battery. I wonder how long the Hemel battery lasts compared to others. Maybe you are taking about different wall clocks
Because quartz clocks that have continuous sweep are powered by AA cells, which have FAR more power than button batteries. Still, though, DC wall clocks with continuous sweep do not have long batt power
@@islandwatch thanks for adding to my answer! I was talking about really old school clocks, which work in a similar way to outlet timers (and are not quartz)
Yes, that sounds abt right for my Precisionist. As stated above, my $20 Casio analog is more accurate…approx +1-2 sec/mo. Not a Casio mvmt…Miyota 2305.
You could mention thermocompensation as the best way to increase accuracy of the quartz. My ETA 251.264 with normal 32 kHz to this day gained about 1, maybe 1.5 sec since February 2022, when the crown was pulled out last time.
@@e28forever30 It has sort of quick set date on 1 crown position where it doesn't hack (GMT-like jump hour hand). So no reason to stop and reset the movement.
Would be cool to do the math on how much the accuracy changes from when the battery is full and nearly empty in different quartz movements, as the frequency in the tuning fork will change as the voltage changes, and the lower voltage output of a more depleted battery makes the watch run slower, probably with a very unoticable amount. But enough for solar movements that stay topped off to get a average higher accuracy than their battery counterparts
@islandwatch yes, it's more towards when it gets quite low and falls below the voltage used to keep time, you get a somewhat noticeable change, it won't do anything as long as it can deliver the desired voltage. Measured with a multimeter on a few batteries and voltage is a pretty consistent output of the range of charge you will have most of the time. So, if calculated for, it would be minor, I'd assume.
@@AnirossaFWIW I recently had a battery die in a Vaer w/ an Aneriquartz 6130 HT movement. I’ve been tracking it long term and the last data point was at 250 days, three days before it died. There was no deference. It maintained +0.048 until it stopped completely. It maintained that rate over a two year span which was really surprising. I have many quartz watches that vary greatly just by wearing them.
That's because the lower beat rate causes less wear and tear on the parts. Thus, all things equal, said watches will have a longer life. As a bonus, the oscillations of the balance wheel are more pleasing to the eye (open case back).
Hehe, believe it or not, my VJ-32 quartz movement on my Columbia almost vintage field watch is running at -1s every 60 days. Beating all of those hands down.
Hi mark I have a question.. quartz is more reliable accurate and cheaper than automatic, so why do navy and army often opt for the auto version? Like the gsar. Any ideas?
Nice one Mark. Disassembled an inexpensive quartz clock a couple of weeks ago , could see the tuning fork and it had a small magnet at its centre that drove a set of (plastic) cogs for Second ,Min and Hour. i presume that must be the absolute cheapest type of quartz movement? (:
That Bulova is a Lunar Pilot isn't it and not a Precisionist. Just checked the Bulova website because was wondering if the LP fell into their Precisionist line of watches. Looks nice in black.
By that you mean compared to quartz? We're talking about 4 Hz versus 32.768 Hz. So while a mechanical beats 8 times per second, a quartz does it 32.768 times. I'd say the mechanical is crazy accurate for what it is.
@@johnfadds6089 I agree. And to think that clock makers/watch makers had it all "figured out" so long ago. To think that the movement on my wrist now is a "micro machine" that essentially regulates the energy released from the spring, and can do that so accurately, and repeatedly is a testament to the people who not only figured it out, but then had to fabricate all of the tiny gears and axles by hand! Not to mention all of the other tiny pieces!
Bulova Precisionist isn't thermocompensated and won't hit +-10 sec/yr unless kept at a set temperature. Mine were definitely more accurate then standard quartz movements but not as accurate as my 9F or A060.
Is bounce back considered bad? I’ve often wondered how to visually tell high quality vs low quality 1bps quartz ticks apart. Some seem to move snappy and fast, others slow, some bouncy and others firm. Etc
Casio Quartz accuracy seems random....I have ten Casios ... 3 seconds fast per week is good. ...A couple are one second fast, per day. ... One is a second SLOW per day. .
True sweep on quartz is possible or only possible with tiny steps? Of course would need solar power ideally. Wanted to ask this for your 'ask a watchmaker' video that didn't happen.
@@islandwatch Why is that since a standard second hand is accelerated from still, then retarded back to still before accelerated from still again. It looks like lots of energy used/wasted. Why isn't a constant one way movement more energy intensive? Engineer brain - make it simple for us!
I wonder when the next big jump in battery tech/design for watches will happen. Could enable different digital displays, lighting, smoother sweeping hands, and other maybe unexpected things. Will it still be years till a replacement, or could charging every couple of days become an accepted norm? Or maybe charging becomes so "frictionless".
@@Bob_Smith19 There are pretty small solar battery-less watches now. Not sure if they also have radio-atomic timesetting but that has always seems silly to me anyway when a $20 Casio is usually within 10s/year.
What you say about the accuracy of the Luna Pilot is absolutely not true. According to the Bulova homepage, the Luna Pilot has an accuracy of +9/+24 sec per month.
