One of the most complex wristwatches ever made
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It can be regarded as a pinnacle of human engineering. I am sure it's possible to draw parallels with equally complex software but thinking of the effort involved in making this, there would hardly be any equivalent.
I think most of the detraction comes from people who think that impressive things must also be useful or practical.
I would argue it is pinnacle of art and not of engineering.
Engineering is the application of mathematics, as well as scientific, economic, social, and practical knowledge to invent, innovate, design, build, maintain, research, and improve structures, machines, tools, systems, components, materials, processes, solutions, and organizations.
I can agree the most of them aren't engineering either.
Some spinning weals, gears, and springs are much much much more efficient!
Absolutely - I mean which programmer wouldn't admire the mechanics of an Enigma, a Z3 or any mechanical calculator.
I sometimes use an Abacus or a sliding rule - just for fun!
On its back this watch has sunrise/sunset times. These times are derived from a so-called sunrise equation [1] which depends on the day of the year and the latitude, and is expressed via trigonometry functions.
I can see how this can be translated into some sort of irregularly shaped gear(s) if there were a single variable (the day of the year), but I have no idea how one could also allow for different latitudes.
Does anyone know or care to guess?
TL;DR: The factors such as latitude are user-programmable.
PS. And it's only 6.5 mm thick!
Amazing peace of art though..
I think that it can be made to use latitude input with some more complex set of cams and user setable input.
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i_vfsuCpJY 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_dial
I used to manage a small apartment block in Stockholm and remember setting latitude and day-of-year into ours to get the timing to agree with the sun, and to stay there. Here's a photo of a similar device:
http://www.aew-electrical.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/e...
I am a reasonable person - I wouldn't spend excessive amount of money on a watch. Mine did cost 300 Euro - that's the right price and you can get a very nice one if you look around. I even took the hassle of importing it from Japan.
In fact, the argument that this involves fewer people seems to point to it being less complex. If one guy with a CNC micro lathe and some metal stock could make a precision clock like Chris of Clickspring, and a quartz watch takes huge industries with thousands of people, isn't the latter definitely more complicated?
"I rely on these equations and the powerful software to find a solution with our input. It's a question of using these tools to find new solutions."
Also notice the quote towards the end that they were able to redesign the whole drive train just to make it a bit thinner.
What I'm trying to say is that this watch has little in common with what people assume is a "hand made and designed watch".
So this watch feels more like your later example, where you have the huge (computer) industry behind it.
When people emphasize the artistry and craftsmanship of mechanical timepieces at this price point, they're talking about two facts:
1. Most such watches are designed in-house according to rigorous specifications and long R&D cycles, with the majority of tooling and manufacturing processing being wholly original and unique to the firm,
2. The watches are assembled and serviced entirely by hand with a sophisticated precision that takes watchmakers years to learn.
On the upper end of the spectrum you have independent watchmakers like F.P. Journe who singlehandedly design and build entirely new systems in their movements.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLZioPDnFPNsETq9h35dgQq80Ry...
I advise you not to click on it. It will eat up your time and it takes your complete attention.
If it was priced to reflect its complexity it would be probably more on the order of $10m or more. Much simpler movements frequently cost $1-2 million to develop, often higher.
I gave my watch collection to my son, keeping just a Citizen. He had them appraised and they have all pretty much retained or increased in value.
And if Hollywood is to be believed, an expensive watch may be traded to a minor speaking-role character for a plot-necessary object in an emergency. By that theory, this watch is not only a watch, but also a canoe, a pair of shoes, or even a motorcycle.
Modern assembly lines simply can't pull off something like this. And this is why even the cheapest Chinese Tourbillion watches cost about $5k USD.
Other than that, part of the appeal is the handcraftsmanship involved in these pieces. The engraving and setting work on my own Lange is a thing of beauty to look at under a magnifier, and it can't (yet) be achieved by a machine, even if the design and modeling can be done in software and the tools themselves can be mass manufactured.
I strapped a Citizen Eco watch on my wrist about 12 years ago. It charges itself via four solar panels behind the hands - they simply look black. The only pains are I have to do BST/GMT adjustments and worst of all: "30 days hath September ..." Oh, and its not water proof. The time keeping is good enough.
I am surrounded by more ntp daemons than you can shake a stick at if I need millisecond accuracy, eg this laptop:
$ ntpq -p remote refid st t when poll reach delay offset jitter ============================================================================== +server1.webster 193.190.230.65 2 u 237 256 377 15.144 0.081 0.713 *85.199.214.100 .GPS. 1 u 11 64 377 12.541 -1.346 0.698 -ntp3.ds.network 203.135.184.123 2 u 196 256 377 334.847 4.998 23.715 +babbage.betadom 80.94.65.10 2 u 177 256 377 10.992 -0.505 1.023
Tut! one of the servers I'm using is showing an offset of nearly 5ms but it's OK: that system has a - against it.
In a few days time I will be firing up a new member for the general ntp pool(s). I've been using it for many years and its time to give back. I'll be following this guide: https://www.ntpsec.org/white-papers/stratum-1-microserver-ho... Depending on how that goes, I may be able to fire up quite a lot of them scattered across the UK. Some internet links I look after are only for failover and are largely idle most of the time.
It's a beautiful thing and I've gotten so used to having perfect time on my wrist that I actually feel strange when I don't have it.
I don't have a full fledged smartwatch, but a running watch with some smart features. Its killer feature is not to pretend to be a phone. It's much simpler than that. Its receiving (only high priority) notifications on my wrist. Incredibly convenient when I can't pick up my phone.
Edit: apparently my phone strongly prefers "it's" over "its".
Wanna swap phones? Mine always writes "its" which I almost never want -.-
I was both curious about the ntpq listing and mildly fidgety about its current presentation, so I fiddled with it to see if I could reassemble it.
$ ntpq -p
remote refid st t when poll reach delay offset jitter
==============================================================================
+server1.webster 193.190.230.65 2 u 237 256 377 15.144 0.081 0.713
*85.199.214.100 .GPS. 1 u 11 64 377 12.541 -1.346 0.698
-ntp3.ds.network 203.135.184.123 2 u 196 256 377 334.847 4.998 23.715
+babbage.betadom 80.94.65.10 2 u 177 256 377 10.992 -0.505 1.023http://www.businessinsider.com/gselevator-on-wall-street-wat...
I mean, I dig the notion of the human experience being "analogue." But the human experience doesn't normally include spending twenty-plus years worth of a normal person's wages for a useless trinket to wear on your wrist. I'm really torn about this. The device is something amazing, but the cost is extravagant in the extreme.
The truth is that extremely expensive watches are a poor form of wealth signaling unless they're loud (think of a Hublot encrusted with diamonds, or something extremely iconic like a Rolex). If you walk into nearly any room wearing a Patek, Lange, Vacheron, etc. I can virtually guarantee that your watch will simply go unnoticed.
I actually like Rolex watches quite a lot for the real engineering work that goes into manufacturing them, but I don't own one specifically because I'd rather not broadcast an expensive item on my wrist. I consider watches like these to be a form of art that emerges from the idea of practicality but also frees itself from it (as do most collectors I've personally spoken to).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imEKoKg1I1k
...and other companies that release new music on old long dead mediums:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unj79pzEHNQ&t=605s
It may be kinda hipster, but it's also pretty impressive.
You apply modern engineering to those old color and memory limitations and it's pretty amazing what you can get out of decades old hardware. In the same way, you can apply modern manufacturing techniques to the classic design of a mechanical watch and really stretch the amount of functionality you get with such a small space.
Seriously, what you're paying for here is the labor (mental and physical) of a highly-skilled artisan. It's the same thing as paying more for a painting by a skilled artist than you do for an inkjet printout of a digital photo.
Whenever I write complex code, it is worth less instead of more.
In the same way, when viewed at from a high enough level, developers are generally paid more as the systems they work on get more complex
If you can design a watch that achieves what this watch does with less complexity and more reliability, it would be hugely rewarded and hailed as a crowning achievement.
Just remember the design constraint is that no electricity of any sort can be used.
There are in fact high-end luxury watches that keep unusually accurate time. I own one - an Omega Speedmaster Skywalker X-33. It has a thermocompensated quartz movement (TCXO) and so is accurate to ~10 seconds a year, compared to the ~15 seconds a month of a normal quartz movement.
The fact is that most luxury watches are mechanical; the Skywalker X-33 is an oddity in that it's a luxury quartz, which barely exists as a market segment. Mechanical watches are not as accurate, with standard COSC deviation being -4 to +6 seconds... per DAY.
Modern mechanical watches can do significantly better than COSC, by the way - I have owned an Omega Planet Ocean (c.2500C) for a decade now, for the first seven or eight years it ran consistently 0.7 seconds/day fast - so I just adjusted it back a minute or two every time I unscrewed the crown to correct the date.
Now it is due for a service soon - but still within a couple of seconds a day.
The point I was trying to make is that probably one of the LOWEST selling points of a luxury watch is accuracy -- there are far more accurate, electronic solutions in the watch space. I love mechanical watches, but I hold no illusions as to how they compare to more modern technology as timepieces. :)
I do agree 100%, though - much as I love my mechanical watches, if I happen to be in a situation which requires exact knowledge of the current time, I simply look at my HP Z3801A.
A mechanical wristwatch serves a different purpose - and in addition being good enough for everyday life, much as vinyl is plenty good enough to have us enjoy music, even if there are more high fidelity-solutions out there. Vinyl has its own intangible advantages; as do mechanical watches.
In fact they're more like cult power objects - what anthropologists call fetish objects, which confer an implied cultural blessing on their owners.
In other words, I own the watch because I enjoy it for its own sake. It's a beautiful piece of handcrafted machinery. It's not supposed to have superlative practical utility, nor does any serious watch house actually strive for that. These timepieces are a form of art, and whether or not you appreciate them has no bearing on the fact that their manufacturers are under no illusions of their practicality.
Don't generalize your perception of the entire industry based on your experience or preconception of a relatively diminutive portion of its consumers. There are people who buy Rolexes because it's a good way to show off money, but there are many other people who honestly buy them because Rolex genuinely manufactures high quality mechanical watches. My experience as a collector is that most people do not buy these to show off. Rationally, a Vacheron Constantin is an inefficient vehicle for doing so - it looks pretty, but virtually no one will recognize it nor even comment on it.
That's ridiculous, he (or she) doesn't do it just for the money, the work itself is satisfying entirely separate from the monetary compensation. I'm sure he could find a job with pretty much the same income but less responsibility and therefore less stress if he felt like it but then he wouldn't have the satisfaction of building such an object.
I don't make watches but I do write some moderately complex software (I try to avoid it being complicated). It pays me the money that I use to feed my family but that is far from the only reason I do it. It is a satisfying endeavour in itself, sometimes just to see the customer's delight in using the finished article and sometimes my own delight in achieving a neat and efficient solution.
Back to physical things, I used to be a test equipment designer and the one thing I regret about moving into software is that I can no longer show my creations to people like my wife and have her see even a slight glimmer of what I have achieved.
I collect and restore fountain pens, and I have to disagree. There is surely a segment of the market that this fits well (Montblanc, for instance), but the majority of the fountain pen market is < $100.
For example, I have three pens with me today: a TWSBI Vac700, a Pilot Falcon, and a Sheaffer Snorkel. The TWSBI and Pilot are modern and cost $70 and $110 respectively, but the Snorkel is vintage (1958) and I paid $35 for it.
Excellent modern fountain pens can be had for <$20.
You can pick up a good mechanical Seiko watch with a tried and tested automatic movement for $100. When properly adjusted these can keep good time and do not need batteries. They stay wound simply by wearing them.
They have a sweep second hand (not a "tick-tick" 1hz hand like quartz watches). There is no need to change a battery. There is a lot of practical utility in that. In addition watches can be beautiful objects and a pleasure to wear.
Overly complicated mechanisms tend to be less robust, perform more poorly,require more energy, and more.
Why? You have Google at your fingertips.
Is there a place to read up on gear ratios/design patterns for complications, and for linking complications together to form the mechanical watch?
Is there a watch designing application that would allow you to drop in a complication (however simple) and learn how all the gears perform the calculations needed for a complication?
I find elite watch designers to be fascinating.
Edit:
Never-mind this looks amazing and was posted lower in the thread:
I'm not a part of that world, but I hang around the periphery of the high-end European firearms community. Most of the master gunmakers and engravers didn't go to school to do that; they apprenticed under a master.
I imagine watchmakers do the same.
Where exactly does one go to school to be a watchmaker?
The article mentions the Bulova School (closed since 1993 according to Wikipedia), and WOSTEP.
The disconnect between rich and poor must be real, or else there wouldn't be a market for such things.
> That's money that could be invested in the local economy to build industries and create opportunities for the people in the area, yet they've chosen instead to buy a shiny toy.
They're literally supporting the watch industry, which does employ people, and is part of a local economy. Watchmakers are artisans, and deserve to be paid for their craft.
Yet I seem to lose no sleep over this.
Or consider the case where clothes manufacturers, giving in to public pressure, ended child labor in some third world countries. Those children ended up in even worse 'jobs' if you could call them such. Not only did people behind this not feel bad about it, they saw it as having done a good thing.
On take all the time I devote to entertainment. While some relaxation is necessary to keep a good work life balance, I likely far over indulge in it. That time could've been spent making the world better in some way.
I really don't feel I'm in a place to criticize someone for building their a masterpiece of their craft.
That's not a display of opulence, that's you using your own wealth to make your life more pleasant. You didn't get a $500,000 computer, did you? _That_ would be a display of opulence, and would be on par with a million dollar watch.
> it adds up to 10s of thousands of dollars
There is a very limited amount of investment you could do with $20-30k. You could build much, much more with a million dollars.
It's a matter of degree. The wealthy have such potential to make the world a better place, much more potential than the normal middle-class American. They have power, and instead of using that power to make the world better, they buy a machine that shows off how rich they are.
> Or consider the case where clothes manufacturers, giving in to public pressure, ended child labor in some third world countries.
That has nothing to do with this situation. That is capitalism gone awry to maximize profit at the expense of the workers. There's no display of wealth there. I'm not saying that guy with a million dollars should build a sweat shop.
> take all the time I devote to entertainment... I likely far over indulge in it.
I have no issue with the wealthy relaxing. They're people too. I have issue with them having such potential to help people, yet spending massive amounts of money on stuff like this instead. It's obscene to those of us who aren't and will never be wealthy like they are.
Aside: I don't really care for either smartwatches or complex mechanical watches. I want my wristwatch to tell time, and all else being equal, to look good on my skin along with clothing I wear. To me, complexity should drive function and performance, and on that front, nothing competes with a quartz watch with a standard battery (or solid electromechanical drive) in a hand-opening case.