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In Geneva it is easy to walk down the street and see watches selling for prices that vary by over 4 orders of magnitude. They all keep pretty good time. Some o

In Geneva it is easy to walk down the street and see watches selling for prices that vary by over 4 orders of magnitude. They all keep pretty good time. Some of the cheaper digital ones have much more functionality than the expensive mechanical ones. It's clear that keeping time is not the purpose of the watch.

Domenic_S 7y ago
Correct. If you're looking for the most accurate timekeeper, well, you already have it, it's your phone. I got into watches because the engineering of the watch is amazing and beautiful. The fact that someone could design a series of gears and springs that correctly identifies not only the time but the day - including 31 day months and leap years - is astonishing to me.
- pdpi 7y ago
  There's an important factor here — Some of these things have intrinsic value to the owner, and the social signalling can actually be undesirable (in that you don't want to be associated with the group of people that ordinarily use that item as a status symbol) I currently use a smartwatch, but before that I had a cheap Seiko automatic watch. The whole point of buying that watch was precisely that having an automatic (self-winding) mechanic watch on my wrist makes me the geek inside me a tiny bit happier, because how freaking cool is an automatic watch? I would've been willing to pay a fair bit more money for a fancier, more precise (i.e. MORE GEARS!!!) watch over what I got, but I specifically did _not_ want a showy "I'm a rich prick" watch, and there's just a vanishingly small number of watches in that segment.
  - tcmb 7y ago
    Seiko itself makes very high-end watches, especially under the 'Grand Seiko' moniker, some of which are as expensive as the well-known ones from the Swiss manufacturers, but at the same time incredibly understated unless you're really into the matter. This can be a branding/marketing claim in itself, of course. There's an origin story around their Spring Drive mechanism that goes something like a lonely engineer-genius tinkering on it for 30 years until he had it perfected (don't quote me on that). In that way, Seiko appeals to the 'Japanese artisan/craftsmanship geek' who consciously chooses the non-mainstream brand. Not sure if that is intentional marketing or truly authentic company identity.
  - Domenic_S 7y ago
    I had the same instinct as you but quickly realized that almost nobody notices most fancy watches unless they're also a collector. Also showiness is often unrelated to price - lots of showy watches are really cheap [0], and some of the most understated are very expensive [1]. [0] example of a watch a normal person probably finds showy: https://invictastores.com/men/invicta-pro-diver-mens-quartz-50mm-stainless-steel-case-black-dial-model-25856 https://invictastores.com/men/invicta-pro-diver-mens-quartz-... [1] $63k on a rubber strap https://forums.watchuseek.com/f29/fs-patek-philippe-aquanaut-18k-white-gold-5168g-001-new-box-unworn-5048489.html https://forums.watchuseek.com/f29/fs-patek-philippe-aquanaut...
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  True, my phone is more accurate than my watch. It lives in my pocket, though, so my watch is more convenient for finding out the time.
  - KozmoNau7 7y ago
    I've actually found that not wearing a watch and having to pull my phone from my pocket to check the time has made me more relaxed about time in general, being early/late and being stressed out over other people being early/late.
jolmg 7y ago
How well they keep time should not necessarily be the only consideration, though. A couple of years ago, I went shopping for a cheap watch, because it's been years since I've used one and I wanted to feel one again. Most of the ones I saw on sale (all cheap ones) were incredibly bulky, so comfort is a consideration. Most couldn't be read in the dark, so that's another consideration. The one I ended up getting fell apart in a month, so construction is yet another consideration.
- kijin 7y ago
  There's also the fun factor. Mechanical watches on the cheap end are usually not very good at keeping time compared to a quartz watch, and they stop if you don't wear them for a couple of days! Still, people buy mechanical watches and wear them diligently to keep the rotor moving. It's a bit like driving manual. There's fun in taking care of a machine that responds promptly to your body movement and adapts to your lifestyle, even if there are plenty of alternatives that require no such care.
- peteradio 7y ago
  Casio alarm chrono cost me 10 bucks. Water resistant has a button to illuminate. Is not bulky. Stylish in a kind of classic retro way. Had one for 2 years until one of bands wore through, probably from fiddling with it too much. Got another for 15 last year and now it's got no signs of wear and just works.
  - jolmg 7y ago
    Yeah, that sounds far better than what I saw. I swear, a toy watch from a cereal box should have been worth more money than the watches I saw. What a waste of metal.

Domenic_S 7y ago

Correct. If you're looking for the most accurate timekeeper, well, you already have it, it's your phone. I got into watches because the engineering of the watch is amazing and beautiful. The fact that someone could design a series of gears and springs that correctly identifies not only the time but the day - including 31 day months and leap years - is astonishing to me.

pdpi 7y ago
There's an important factor here — Some of these things have intrinsic value to the owner, and the social signalling can actually be undesirable (in that you don't want to be associated with the group of people that ordinarily use that item as a status symbol) I currently use a smartwatch, but before that I had a cheap Seiko automatic watch. The whole point of buying that watch was precisely that having an automatic (self-winding) mechanic watch on my wrist makes me the geek inside me a tiny bit happier, because how freaking cool is an automatic watch? I would've been willing to pay a fair bit more money for a fancier, more precise (i.e. MORE GEARS!!!) watch over what I got, but I specifically did _not_ want a showy "I'm a rich prick" watch, and there's just a vanishingly small number of watches in that segment.
- tcmb 7y ago
  Seiko itself makes very high-end watches, especially under the 'Grand Seiko' moniker, some of which are as expensive as the well-known ones from the Swiss manufacturers, but at the same time incredibly understated unless you're really into the matter. This can be a branding/marketing claim in itself, of course. There's an origin story around their Spring Drive mechanism that goes something like a lonely engineer-genius tinkering on it for 30 years until he had it perfected (don't quote me on that). In that way, Seiko appeals to the 'Japanese artisan/craftsmanship geek' who consciously chooses the non-mainstream brand. Not sure if that is intentional marketing or truly authentic company identity.
- Domenic_S 7y ago
  I had the same instinct as you but quickly realized that almost nobody notices most fancy watches unless they're also a collector. Also showiness is often unrelated to price - lots of showy watches are really cheap [0], and some of the most understated are very expensive [1]. [0] example of a watch a normal person probably finds showy: https://invictastores.com/men/invicta-pro-diver-mens-quartz-50mm-stainless-steel-case-black-dial-model-25856 https://invictastores.com/men/invicta-pro-diver-mens-quartz-... [1] $63k on a rubber strap https://forums.watchuseek.com/f29/fs-patek-philippe-aquanaut-18k-white-gold-5168g-001-new-box-unworn-5048489.html https://forums.watchuseek.com/f29/fs-patek-philippe-aquanaut...
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
True, my phone is more accurate than my watch. It lives in my pocket, though, so my watch is more convenient for finding out the time.
- KozmoNau7 7y ago
  I've actually found that not wearing a watch and having to pull my phone from my pocket to check the time has made me more relaxed about time in general, being early/late and being stressed out over other people being early/late.

jolmg 7y ago

How well they keep time should not necessarily be the only consideration, though. A couple of years ago, I went shopping for a cheap watch, because it's been years since I've used one and I wanted to feel one again. Most of the ones I saw on sale (all cheap ones) were incredibly bulky, so comfort is a consideration. Most couldn't be read in the dark, so that's another consideration. The one I ended up getting fell apart in a month, so construction is yet another consideration.

kijin 7y ago
There's also the fun factor. Mechanical watches on the cheap end are usually not very good at keeping time compared to a quartz watch, and they stop if you don't wear them for a couple of days! Still, people buy mechanical watches and wear them diligently to keep the rotor moving. It's a bit like driving manual. There's fun in taking care of a machine that responds promptly to your body movement and adapts to your lifestyle, even if there are plenty of alternatives that require no such care.
peteradio 7y ago
Casio alarm chrono cost me 10 bucks. Water resistant has a button to illuminate. Is not bulky. Stylish in a kind of classic retro way. Had one for 2 years until one of bands wore through, probably from fiddling with it too much. Got another for 15 last year and now it's got no signs of wear and just works.
- jolmg 7y ago
  Yeah, that sounds far better than what I saw. I swear, a toy watch from a cereal box should have been worth more money than the watches I saw. What a waste of metal.