Quartz Watches – Their Place In The Watch Making Industry

by Toni Szmuk

men's quartz watch

Everyone knows what a quartz watch is. Quartz (also called electronic) watches have few or no moving parts.

Essentially, all modern quartz watches use the piezoelectric effect in a tiny quartz crystal to provide a stable time base for a mostly electronic movement. There are significant differences in the accuracy of the watches quartz, but the difference is much smaller than that found between mechanical movements and quartz movements.

Watches quartz, even in their most inexpensive forms, are an order of magnitude more accurate than purely mechanical ones.

The Quartz Watch Demystified

by Zai G Zhu

Ever wonders how the quartz watch got its name? The discovery of how a quartz crystal could accurately power a wrist watch changed portable timekeeping like no other invention. When the first quartz watch was introduced in the United States in the early 1970s it was an expensive wrist watch priced at around $500. Later, the engineering behind watches quartz was transformed so the displays could be shown in digital format using LCD (liquid crystal display) or an hour and minute hand, just like a mechanical watch’s face.

The quartz crystal of course is at the heart of how a quartz watch works. Quartz crystals have long worked as transmitters. The exact method used in a quartz watch involves using thin bars of quartz that are plated. There are certainly different quality levels and accuracy levels within the general category of “quartz watch.”

For a quartz watch with second, minute and hour hands the initial process is the same. Quartz watches have truly changed the way watches are made.