14 ms·
New oscillator system in Zenith mechanical watches
- sbmassey 9y agoAll this technology is amazing, but does it have any applications beyond mechanical timepieces?
- olympus 9y agoRealistically, no. The design is very clever, but nothing is truly new here. You could have made this out of wood 200 years ago, but it would have been much bigger and less precise. Using silicon for a mechanical device is neat, but not new. All the technology in terms of the movements- springs, levers, escapements, wheels, gears- has been known for a while. New designs are pretty much all digital (for better or for worse). If a spaceship needs a backup timepiece, it will just carry a second digital clock. If a spaceship needs a mechanical lockout, it will just do it with microswitches, solenoids, and digital logic.
- sowbug 9y agoIs silicon-material manufacturing now within reach of industries other than IC manufacturers and high-end watch manufacturers? If so, you could imagine all sorts of mechanical devices that will experience a renaissance now that they can be precisely designed and manufactured in tiny sizes and in huge numbers. I suspect I just reinvented nanotechnology. For some reason, this watch article makes it feel much more real.
- anfractuosity 9y agoHave you heard of MEMS before? There seems lots of cool applications for that, apparently also Timex is bringing out a watch which uses the technology in some way ( http://www.ablogtowatch.com/timex-silmach-watch-movements-mems-technology/ http://www.ablogtowatch.com/timex-silmach-watch-movements-me... ). Also MEMS is used in DLP projectors, where lots of tiny little mirrors can be moved which seems rather amazing.
- sowbug 9y agoAh, of course. Thanks. Yet another set of dots I hadn't connected. From the Wikipedia article, one might even say this is a MEMS watch. MEMS describes devices up to 1mm having components up to 100 microns. This watch has parts as thin as 20 microns, so although it is overall larger than MEMS, its components encroach on MEMS territory.
- nabla9 9y agoNo. Expensive watches are jewelry for men. Accuracy of this watch has no real value for the owner. He just wants to own technical mobile.
- Nullabillity 9y agoDo analog watches have any applications to begin with, these days?
- wyager 9y agoEMP resistance. This isn't exactly a practical justification for most uses, of course.
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoWould they be resistant to EMP, surely you've got lots of possibility for induced currents that will warp/melt fine components sufficiently to damage the watch? A sundial is what you need.
- wyager 9y agoI feel like most EMP damage on small electronics comes from blowing out small in-chip wires and transistors. I wonder if an EMP could induce enough current to overheat those little (but large by chip scale) silicon wires.
- fsiefken 9y agoSo, these watches are all pre-sold and we can't buy one? When would be able to buy a watch with this innovative mechanism?
- dogma1138 9y agoEventually you will, hopefully it won't be as expensive as the gyrotourbillon that one is the most amazing mechanism I've seen. https://youtu.be/lmxLAZZ2fhM https://youtu.be/lmxLAZZ2fhM https://youtu.be/IQJTGPtYtqA https://youtu.be/IQJTGPtYtqA
- anfractuosity 9y agoWow, that is truly amazing, are there large versions of the gyrotourbillon out of interest, as in for a clock.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- SamReidHughes 9y agoThe thing about clocks is, they sit in only one position, so there's no justification for a tourbillon, which averages out the errors caused by change of position.
- anfractuosity 9y agoWasn't one of the first tourbillon mechanisms in a carriage clock though? I thought this was pretty cool regarding tourbillons: http://www.laimer.ch/laimer_tourbillon http://www.laimer.ch/laimer_tourbillon I'm not sure what that would be classed as though. Edit: Oh, doh, I misunderstood you, yeah I see what you mean
- SamReidHughes 9y agoYeah, that would make sense. And (googles) you can get a tourbillon clock in your carriage today -- if your carriage is a Bentley Bentayga.
- AnonNo15 9y agoI wonder what are the mechanical properties of the case material (aluminium foam filled with plastic). This seems like entirely new class of composites.
- jacquesm 9y agoThis one is super coarse, there are much finer ones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_microlattice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_microlattice I've played around a bit with such super light metals and aerogels as well, they are very interesting materials with surprising properties.
- icantdrive55 9y agoThis is a cute innovation in horology. That said, if the Swiss Watch industry wants to get some of that millennial disposable income; let them buy parts for the pricey watch they bought. See--Zodiac, like Rolex and all the rest, with the exception of Seiko, will not sell the parts to the customer, or most watch repairers, or supply houses. You can't even buy a strap link, or a screw. They want the customer to send the watch back to the factory when it breaks down, or needs a Service. So once that nifty watch goes out of warranty, you are stuck with shelling out large sums of money to the factory. Now--they claim it's for Quality Assurances, but it's a carefully calculated move to grab more money. If the Rolex, or the Swatch group are listening, you're just going to hurt your business in the long run. You have had the US look into violations of the Sherman anti-trust Act, and they had bigger fish to fry. There might be the day when you don't get so lucky. Don't shoot yourself in the foot. I'm a big watch guy. I repair them to. There's nothing more frustrating than not being able to secure parts. In all honesty, generic Rolex parts look just like Rolex parts under a 40x scope. That's not the point though. People have a right to original parts, if available. That new Iwatch really got attention, until I read it needed to be thethered to a iPhone, or open wifi. My point is I will never get rid of my bubbleback, or my IWC, but would never buy a new pricey watch until you change your tactics.
- mixedmath 9y agoIt's likely that this is a paid post. And if that's the case, then I think it's money well-spent, as this is a beautiful post and an effective advertisement.
- anton69 9y agoOnly 10 have been made and all have been sold for some exorbant amount, so mostly it’s genuinely motivated coverage of some cool tech.
- QAPereo 9y agoZenith is also debuting a new material for the case: a composite called Aeronith. Aeronith is essentially an aluminum foam; melted aluminum is poured into a mold "where a procedure initially developed by Hublot transforms it into an open pore metal foam," according to Zenith. The voids in the foam are then filled with an "extremely light polymer" and the result is 2.7 times lighter than titanium, 1.7 times lighter than solid aluminum, and even 10% lighter than carbon fiber.. F1 engine tech, in a watch case, and that's not even the innovative part. Sooooo cool.
- TylerE 9y agoYou've obviously never heard of the concept of a halo product. Ford doesn't make GT's because they're profitable. They make them to sell Mustangs.
- sv7n 9y agoAwesome write-up.
- lb1lf 9y agoI am a long-time watch nut, and I loved this write-up - it concisely explained what makes this mechanism unique and was most educational. Fun to see a departure from the norm - until this, the probably largest innovation horology over the past couple of hundred years was George Daniels' coaxial escapement (which basically eliminated friction from the equation, ensuring all transfer of energy in the escapement took place between components tangential to each other, allowing for excellent long-term precision) The plural of anecdote is not data, but my ten year old Omega with coaxial escapement (in a c.2500C) is still accurate to within a second a day without ever having been serviced. That,in my book, is remarkable. (It is due for a service soon; I do not intend to run it into the ground...)
- craigsmansion 9y ago> the probably largest innovation horology over the past couple of hundred years There was this little thing called the quartz revolution though :) Just because it turned out you can make really cheap watches with it doesn't make it less of an innovation. But limiting the field down to mechanical watches, there is also Seiko's springdrive which manages to combine the durability of mechanical watches whilst approaching the accuracy of quartz watches by using a complete new method of escapement. Co-ax movements are surely a worthy innovation, but I wouldn't want to claim it was the most significant horological innovation of the last few centuries.
- lb1lf 9y agoFair point. Spring drive is a very fascinating concept and one could debate for weeks on end in the right (or, rather, wrong) circles whether it or co-ax holds the top spot. (Or whether the spring drive is even a fully mechanical movement or a hybrid!) (And I should have been more precise - I meant in mechanical horology; my apologies) Not that there's anything wrong with quartz (except its inherent inaccuracies; I say this tongue-in-cheek as my interest in all things horological extends to my having a rubidium standard in the man cave - a hand-me-down HP 5065A. Sadly, my wife does not appreciate the beautiful engineering, and suggested a Seiko wall clock would have to do for our everyday time-keeping needs...)
- SAI_Peregrinus 9y agoMuch more practical but much less accurate than an atomic wristwatch[1]. I wonder how small a cesium frequency standard could be made. Miniaturization isn't typically a priority in their design, there's surely room for improvement. [1] http://www.leapsecond.com/pages/atomic-bill/ http://www.leapsecond.com/pages/atomic-bill/ (Yes, that is a guy with an HP-5071A strapped to his arm.)
- y04nn 9y agoYou can also get a radio controlled watch
- SAI_Peregrinus 9y agoOf course, or a GPS-synchronized smart watch. But where's the fun in that?
- makomk 9y agoHigh-precision quartz wristwatches with well-designed temperature compensation can get accuracy within single-digit seconds of drift per year, and even that level of accuracy is enough to make them a niche product. Also, you need pretty good battery life in order to ensure the battery doesn't run out before the drift becomes relevant - some of the higher-end quartz movements already struggle with this a little, and chip-scale atomic clocks are much worse and likely to remain that way. Having accuracy of a second in 5,000 years doesn't give you much benefit over quartz because the battery life is measured in days.
- SamReidHughes 9y agoIt's actually been shrunk down a bit: http://www.ablogtowatch.com/bathys-cesium-133-atomic-wrist-watch-hands-prototype-carbon-fiber/ http://www.ablogtowatch.com/bathys-cesium-133-atomic-wrist-w... https://www.hoptroff.com/collections/atomic-timepieces https://www.hoptroff.com/collections/atomic-timepieces I think they all use the same "chip".
- factsaresacred 9y agoNot only is the content incredibly interesting, but that website layout is perfect. So clean. The ads page is interesting: > The typical HODINKEE reader holds a master’s degree or higher, browses from his professional office, earns more than $200,000 per year, owns seven watches, and purchases, on average, three watches per year with an average value of $7,000 or higher per watch. An attrition rate of three $7,000 watches a year is a lot!
- christoph 9y agoHodinkee is a great site! Some of the videos of people discussing their collections and stories are fantastic and well worth checking out. Do bear in mind though, even very wealthy collectors also regularly sell pieces and 'trade up' over time. You can only wear one watch at time after all... unless you decide to start 'Schwarzkopfing'
- jacquesm 9y agoHow durable would Silicon be in this application? Those teeth look awfully delicate.
- beloch 9y agoWhat interests me about this movement is that it's mechanically simpler than a conventional movement and should eventually be cheaper to produce. We might actually see these in relatively affordable watches rather than sold-out unobtanium stuff. This is a lot more exciting than yet another watch-maker piling on ridiculous numbers of complications to make a watch nobody will ever want to actually wear.
- thyrsus 9y agoA nit: the article states "A guitar string is a harmonic oscillator; no matter how soft or hard you pluck it, a G string is going to play a G note." It's not that simple. I have a steel string guitar which, when a string is stuck loudly, will play sharp, then asymptotically approach the Hz it has when sounding its quietest. I hear it, and my digital tuner displays the effect as well. I speculate that when the the string is more perturbed (arced further away from straight), the tension increases more than proportionately to the displacement from straight.
- kazinator 9y agoLove the irony of how silicon is used.