Saving the Swiss Watch Industry Again • Hacker News Board

Re: Saving the Swiss Watch Industry Again

#21

Post by user5994461 » Thu, Oct 20, 2016, 11:30 AM UTC

alphadevx wrote: post #9

kanwisher wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Apple Watch is out selling every luxury brand except Rolex. Definitely a generation shift here

I'd argue the people buying digital smart watches are a new market: they are not giving up their mechanical watches to buy a smart watch. Instead they are smartphone users who have realized that taking a 5" smartphone from your pocket every time you want to check the time is not always convenient...

And I'd add that they stopped being part of the watch market a long time ago, when they realized their cellphones were enough to read the time.

The smartphone removed people from the watch market. Now it's bringing them back aboard the new [expensive] smartwatch market.

This 20 years slow move should be taught in marketing and business courses.

Re: Saving the Swiss Watch Industry Again

#22

Post by lb1lf » Thu, Oct 20, 2016, 11:31 AM UTC

I think part of the problem is that just about all Swiss watch brands have taken the realisation that what they offer is a Veblen good to extremes; high price has become a selling point to the extent that the mass market can no longer buy their offerings.

That's kind of bad, as that's where the money is at.

I am a mechanical watch nut - I own a few dozen, mostly bought second hand, I do my own basic maintenance etc - I have to date bought one luxury watch new; an Omega Planet Ocean which close to a decade ago set me back USD 2,700 or so - by all means a lot of money, but doable for a working professional in a reasonably well off economy.

Today, as far as I can tell, a comparable model in the same range retails at $6,000, while cost of living overall has increased only 19% in the same period. Go figure.

Re: Saving the Swiss Watch Industry Again

#23

Post by jedrek » Thu, Oct 20, 2016, 11:59 AM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #20

nl wrote: post #6

I used to be a watch fan. Not hardcore - I didn't collect or anything, but I liked good quality quartz watches. Then I got given a Huawei smartwatch as a gift. It's good . Firstly, it looks nice. Maybe not as good as a high-end Swiss watch, but it's much nicer than a Pebble (I think it's nicer than a iWatch, but YMMV). Also, changing faces is fun. Secondly, it's amazingly useful. I can be in a meeting or talking to s…

> Also, the battery life is really good. I went away and forgot my charger and got 2 1/2 days out of it. I'm surprised that they can sell 2 days battery as a feature and have people swallow it. What's written behind my watch: "10 year battery life".

To be fair, your watch can be replaced by a well crafted stick and dial combo.

Re: Saving the Swiss Watch Industry Again

#24

Post by keenerd » Thu, Oct 20, 2016, 12:08 PM UTC

laurent123456 wrote: post #16

ungzd wrote: post #15

Why saving it? Mechanical watches fall into the same category of crappy swank for poor people as golden jewelry and chains. Swag for salesmans from office ghettos. Even design of these watches is complete postmodernist nonsense. Lots of clock hands, bells and whistles, glittery things.

I use an automatic watch because I don't want to have to charge it every 2 days (or even change the batteries), and all I need is the time and date. I also don't want to have to debug my watch every time an update or app breaks it, it's just one less thing to worry about.

A $30 solar powered Casio will do that just fine.

Re: Saving the Swiss Watch Industry Again

#25

Post by trabant00 » Thu, Oct 20, 2016, 12:34 PM UTC

xHopen wrote: post #4

Smart watch , and I love tech I own a pebble and apple watch and an Android wear, it doesn't have anything to do with a watch. In fact a mechanical watch is already far far away from a quartz movement watch. IWC , Omega, junghans(German), Nomos , rolex, Patek... all this brands all this watch making houses are something that a smart watch can't compare with. The person that likes watches, will wear a smart watch to e…

You are describing the current status. That is not where the doubt is. The article worries about the future and how trends will change. As mentioned in the article what "a real watch" means changed a couple of times and it could change in the future. I'm sure the very ornate gold pocket watch wearer of decades ago sneered at those ridiculous little simple looking things that went on the wrist.

Re: Saving the Swiss Watch Industry Again

#26

Post by buserror » Thu, Oct 20, 2016, 12:41 PM UTC

Funny that, my interest in watches started /because/ of the smart watches. I picked a cheap chinese automatic watch on aliexpress last year, just to see if it'd still annoy me to wear a watch, as it used to last time I tried a few years back. Idea was, if I can wear a basic watch, i'd buy a smart one...

Lo' and behold, I loved it. My £12 chinese crapiola was actually pretty darn good and I wore it for several weeks, before I bought another 'proper' watch, and I since bough half a dozen, including 'expensive' swiss ones...

The really funny thing is -- it has increased my phone battery life! I'm not kidding, since I no longer have to wake up the phone to check the time, my phone battery lasts significantly longer!

Now that's a side effect people aren't talking about :-)

Re: Saving the Swiss Watch Industry Again

#27

Post by jrockway » Thu, Oct 20, 2016, 12:59 PM UTC

marincounty wrote: post #12

"The most resilient part of the industry is that you buy a Swiss watch because you want to say, 'I have a Swiss watch,'" said Paul Swinand" I love mechanical watches. I repair watches. I love all things related to horology. That said, if I bought a new Rolex, I really wouldn't own the watch the minute it went out of warranty. What? Yea, Rolex, and 99% of the other Swiss Watch Companies will not sell parts to their cu…

Really? I thought everyone that owns a mechanical watch knows that they have to send it in for a $700 servicing every ~5 years.

Re: Saving the Swiss Watch Industry Again

#28

Post by jrockway » Thu, Oct 20, 2016, 1:02 PM UTC

kanwisher wrote: post #5

misja111 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's because: "Much of the pain has to do with factors the watch companies couldn't hope to control—including the strength of the Swiss franc and climbing gold prices" Smartwatches are a niche product, they have little to do with the problems that the Swiss companies are currently facing.

The Apple Watch is out selling every luxury brand except Rolex. Definitely a generation shift here

A $349 gadget with a refresh cycle of about two years is outselling a $15,000 gadget with a refresh cycle of 50 years? How could that be.

More amazing is that Rolex outsells Apple, actually. Their watches are not inexpensive.

That said, I feel like the watch companies must be making some money. I've visited a few with my friends looking to buy watches and they are pretty nice places of business; way nicer than the Apple Store ;)

Re: Saving the Swiss Watch Industry Again

#29

Post by scandox » Thu, Oct 20, 2016, 1:11 PM UTC

My Dad had in no particular order:

Audemars Piguet (gold with Moon phase)

Breguet Jumphand Limited Edition

Diamond encrusted Patek Phillipe

Reversible face Jaeger le Couture sports watch

Various 1960s Omegas and Longines with beautiful designs/inlays

And for years I thought of luxury watches as something interesting and worthwhile, even if I personally could not countenance or afford spending £30,000 on one. But I learned something:

They're expensive to maintain. They don't actually keep perfect time. They're heavy.

In fact, they're silly things really, except for the clockwork itself, if you like that kind of thing.

This is the best watch in the world: http://www.staples.com/Casio-A168W-1-Mens-Classic-Digital-El...

Re: Saving the Swiss Watch Industry Again

#30

Post by apozem » Thu, Oct 20, 2016, 1:26 PM UTC

I wasn't interested in mechanical watches until reading this from Marco Arment:

> Logically, I shouldn’t like these. I’m a usually-rational software developer and computer geek. Mechanical watches are ancient technology that’s outclassed in every objective metric — accuracy, reliability, simplicity, cost — by any inexpensive quartz watch, let alone the high-precision timekeeping and unmatchable connected-computer features on the Apple Watch...

A big part of that joy, for me, is that this isn’t like anything else in my life, and the difference is refreshing.

Most of my work and hobbies involve technologically cutting-edge digital electronics reliant on complex, inconsistent software, with a typical lifetime of a few years at most. Almost everything else I use and make is effectively disposable.

As software creeps into ever more objects in my daily life and makes them more capable yet more disposable and less reliable than ever, it’s nice to have something that does less, always works, never needs a software update, requires no cables, doesn’t need to be charged, and whose useful life will probably be longer than mine.

https://marco.org/2016/02/05/watch