What Makes High Accuracy Quartz Watches So Accurate?

Quartz watch movements are battery-powered, why the price and accuracy gap will be so large?

High accuracy quartz watches are determined by a quartz oscillator, temperature control, circuit calibration, gear drive, and whole watch assembly.

What you really need to judge is not which movement is the most expensive, but how high precision your custom watches needs.

1.Why Are Ordinary Quartz Watches Already So Accurate?

Compared with the mechanical watch relying on the balance wheel for continuous mechanical oscillation, quartz crystal is less affected by external posture, friction and power changes, with travel time stability.

Common MIYOTA 2035 as an example, for ordinary fashion watches, commercial quartz watches and mass brands, such accuracy is enough to cover the vast majority of daily use scenarios.

2.What Makes High Accuracy Quartz Watches More Precise?

The key to a real high-precision quartz movement is not simply to increase the price of parts, but to further solve the biggest enemy of quartz: temperature.

The oscillation frequency of quartz crystals is affected by temperature changes.

Under different temperatures such as summer, winter, indoors, and outdoors, the crystals will produce very subtle frequency changes. Ordinary quartz movement allows this change to exist, while high precision movement will actively compensate.

For example, the Grand Seiko 9F series will detect the internal temperature of the movement and use an IC for temperature compensation, allowing some 9F movements to reach an accuracy of ±10 seconds per year, with only very small cumulative errors allowed throughout the year.

Therefore, the most precise watch movements often require:

•      More stable quartz crystals;

•      Temperature compensation systems;

•      More precise IC control;

•      Factory calibration;

•      More strict part tolerances;

•      More stable motors and gear transmission.

These are the real reasons for the increase in the cost of high-precision quartz movements.

3.What Can The Most Precise Quartz Movements Achieve?

High-precision quartz technology can go very far.

For example, Citizen Caliber 0100 can achieve a nominal accuracy of ±1 second/year without relying on GPS or radio time signal calibration. Citizen uses high-frequency AT-cut quartz crystals and redesigns the circuit, gear, and pointer systems.

True high-end quartz technology is not simpler than mechanical movements.

To compress the annual error from minutes to seconds or even a second, a large number of engineering problems that ordinary consumers cannot see need to be solved.

4.Where Does A Costly Quartz Movement Come From?

The real differences lie in four aspects.

• Accuracy grade

Ordinary movements are usually calculated according to the monthly error, and high-precision movements may be calculated according to the annual error.

• Temperature compensation

Common quartz movements usually do not have complex temperature compensation, while high-end HAQ movements actively correct for frequency changes caused by ambient temperature.

• Pointer control

High-end movements may have stronger motors, finer second hand positioning, and structures that reduce gear regression.

• Factory screening and calibration

The higher the accuracy standard, the more stringent the crystal, IC and final calibration requirements.

5.How Should Watch Brands Choose a Quartz Movement?

High Accuracy Watches means imported materials of higher quality and high cost. In fact, different imported quartz movements also have different quality. Market positioning is the core of choosing watch movements.

FOKSY once had an overseas brand project. The customer initially specified the use of Swiss quartz movements.

But in the process of product development, after the movement, packaging, case and overall configuration were stacked, the cost of the whole table began to exceed the price range originally set by the customer.

What the customers truly need is not a high-precision model with a large time difference, but a daily quartz watch suitable for mass-market sales.

Therefore, FOKSY re-evaluated the plan, and suggested the customer to test a more reasonable cost of Japanese quartz movement, through the foksy factory constantly debug the watch structure, movement stability and parts adaptation, can also meet the accuracy error of the project.

After the launch of the watch product, the market feedback is good, and it has become one of the styles that customers continue to make up orders.

What consumers are willing to pay for is the value of the entire watch, rather than the purchase cost of a single part.

6.What Is a Cost-Effective Quartz Watch Configuration?

For most watch fashion brands and mass customization buyers, a more practical, affordable and profitable solution is:

Mature Japanese quartz movement + 316L stainless steel case + reasonable dial configuration + good timekeeping and waterproof testing + high-precision factory debugging.

If you want to improve the overall configuration, you can upgrade sapphire glass, dial set with diamonds and other configurations, if the brand positioning is a high-end precision watch, then the ordinary Japanese movement can not support the product story, need higher precision Japanese movement and Swiss movement, FOKSY watch factory custom design a variety of watches and manufacturing programs for customers.

FOKSY has been producing different types of quartz watches and mechanical watches for a long time. Based on the brand budget, product positioning and target market, different movement solutions are matched, and the final performance is confirmed through assembly and watch testing.

High-accuracy quartz watches achieve the correct balance of accuracy, cost, design and what consumers truly need.