Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Timex Is Making Watches in America Again

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 103 posts

Re: Timex Is Making Watches in America Again

#91

Post by Scene_Cast2 »

logfromblammo wrote: post #77
bouncing wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Questions of cost and "why" apply broadly to the whole category of watches. Up until the late 70s, watches were tools to keep you from being late. Since then, you've been able to get a cheap, reliable watch for next to nothing. Quartz movement, combined with mechanization of production, ensured that. The whole industry had to adapt to making watches themselves sort of an aesthetic statement, not a practical tool to k…

Who is supposed to be wearing these wristwatches? I can comprehend the use case for wrist-worn electronics devices that do more than just tell time, but we have mostly gone back to pocketwatches now--pocketwatches with a rounded-rectangular form factor that also function as telephones, cameras, notepads, maps, compasses, calculators, game consoles, and televisions. As adornments go, I also think that handing over $50…

I seriously don't think I can find a $500 bracelet with a good aesthetic appeal I'd like. Part of the reason is that I like moving things (with a mechanism), and would dislike skeuomorphism in bracelets.

Re: Timex Is Making Watches in America Again

#92

Post by craigsmansion »

bouncing wrote: post #90
craigsmansion wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obsolete? Not by a long shot, even if by a narrow margin. Wristwatches do tell the time, and a decent mechanical one will do so far far longer than any electronics device, even high end quartz wristwatches.

What do you mean? Original quartz watches are still working, are they not? Do we have a good idea of how long they'll last? Not having any moving parts would generally mean a quartz movement will be more durable.

> Original quartz watches are still working, are they not?

Barely, and replacement parts (and sometimes even appropriate batteries) can be extremely hard to source.

> Not having any moving parts

Electronics are brittle and do degrade over time. As I observe them, they last about 20 to 30 years realistically. Early mass produced commercial quartz watches are prized collector items, whereas mechanical watches from before the quartz revolution are easy to find in perfect working condition.

Re: Timex Is Making Watches in America Again

#94

Post by logfromblammo »

craigsmansion wrote: post #92
bouncing wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? Original quartz watches are still working, are they not? Do we have a good idea of how long they'll last? Not having any moving parts would generally mean a quartz movement will be more durable.

> Original quartz watches are still working, are they not? Barely, and replacement parts (and sometimes even appropriate batteries) can be extremely hard to source. > Not having any moving parts Electronics are brittle and do degrade over time. As I observe them, they last about 20 to 30 years realistically. Early mass produced commercial quartz watches are prized collector items, whereas mechanical watches from befo…

Technically, quartz piezoelectric-movements do vibrate.

Equally technically, non-functional mechanical-movement watches from before piezoelectric-movement are also easy to find in garbage heaps and bankrupted watch-repair shops, and the "perfect working condition" of the functional ones are possibly a result of Ship-of-Theseus-style maintenance. Note that mechanical timepiece repair is a somewhat less viable business than it once was, and able to support only a tiny fraction of workers as it once did.

Quartz watches have fewer individual repair parts available, because the typical repairs are to replace the battery and to replace the entire movement. Now, it is reasonable to consider the repair part for a broken quartz watch to be a newly-manufactured watch, and the repair procedure is to remove the broken watch from your wrist and replace it with the working new one.

Mechanical watches are certainly useless when removed from Earth, whereas electronic timepieces may be reprogrammed to display the numbers of a different timekeeping convention.

Re: Timex Is Making Watches in America Again

#95

Post by ggm »

I loved my first timex. I lost it in a swimming pool in Les Eyzes, in france in the early 1970s. It lost 10min a month minimum and I had a NATO watch strap which stank of stale boy sweat.

I bought a replacement in the 1980s. It was fantastic. It was identical, lost the same ten minutes a month, had the same sweaty stank on the NATO strap. I lost it in a swimming pool in Swiss Cottage London.

I bought the Timex Watch Will Farrell wears in the film, the ironman. It was fantastic. Somehow, I haven't managed to lose it in a swimming pool. Unfortunately, indiglo kind-of sucks, and it lost its alarm function, and I had to move to another watch

(I went J Springs, and I love it and it loses 10 minutes a month...)

Re: Timex Is Making Watches in America Again

#96

Post by laken »

duxup wrote: post #67
criddell wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things are worth what people are willing to pay for them. There are lots of watches worth orders of magnitude more than $500. If you can buy a $10,000 Rolex today and sell it tomorrow for $11,000 it was worth it, right? Plus, nobody is buying a $50,000 Patek because it solves the problem of showing what time it is. It's about appreciation of artistry and craftsmanship and letting other people know that you are the ki…

That's kinda what I'm getting at. Complaining that the watch isn't "worth" something when it comes to fashion... not sure that jives exactly.

Is a BMW in your opinion "worth" the same as a Kia then? A BMW generally has more complex engineering, and a more "luxury" look.

A Kia works exactly the same at driving, so therefore with your logic, it's worth exactly the same.

High-end watches are extraordinarily complex machines, and yes, generally have a "luxury" look which may be un-necessary in your eyes. Though, the market for "incognito" luxury movements within cheap watches is way too small to be sustainable.

Re: Timex Is Making Watches in America Again

#97

Post by criddell »

laken wrote: post #96
duxup wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kinda what I'm getting at. Complaining that the watch isn't "worth" something when it comes to fashion... not sure that jives exactly.

Is a BMW in your opinion "worth" the same as a Kia then? A BMW generally has more complex engineering, and a more "luxury" look. A Kia works exactly the same at driving, so therefore with your logic, it's worth exactly the same. High-end watches are extraordinarily complex machines, and yes, generally have a "luxury" look which may be un-necessary in your eyes. Though, the market for "incognito" luxury movements with…

Watches are somewhat unique in that expensive mechanical versions perform their function more poorly than cheap quartz watches (with the exception of Zenith and maybe others).

Re: Timex Is Making Watches in America Again

#98

Post by laken »

criddell wrote: post #97
laken wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is a BMW in your opinion "worth" the same as a Kia then? A BMW generally has more complex engineering, and a more "luxury" look. A Kia works exactly the same at driving, so therefore with your logic, it's worth exactly the same. High-end watches are extraordinarily complex machines, and yes, generally have a "luxury" look which may be un-necessary in your eyes. Though, the market for "incognito" luxury movements with…

Watches are somewhat unique in that expensive mechanical versions perform their function more poorly than cheap quartz watches (with the exception of Zenith and maybe others).

Yes, that is true, quartz are better at keeping time, though mechanical watches are still better at measuring time. Astronauts for example are required to use Omega Speedmaster mechanical watches on spacewalks (which at it's cheapest is still about $8000), and it was the watch used during Apollo 13 to time the engine burn (which required great accuracy).

Re: Timex Is Making Watches in America Again

#99

Post by criddell »

laken wrote: post #98
criddell wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watches are somewhat unique in that expensive mechanical versions perform their function more poorly than cheap quartz watches (with the exception of Zenith and maybe others).

Yes, that is true, quartz are better at keeping time, though mechanical watches are still better at measuring time. Astronauts for example are required to use Omega Speedmaster mechanical watches on spacewalks (which at it's cheapest is still about $8000), and it was the watch used during Apollo 13 to time the engine burn (which required great accuracy).

> mechanical watches are still better at measuring time

What do you mean by that? In what way are they better at measuring time?

Re: Timex Is Making Watches in America Again

#100

Post by laken »

criddell wrote: post #99
laken wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that is true, quartz are better at keeping time, though mechanical watches are still better at measuring time. Astronauts for example are required to use Omega Speedmaster mechanical watches on spacewalks (which at it's cheapest is still about $8000), and it was the watch used during Apollo 13 to time the engine burn (which required great accuracy).

> mechanical watches are still better at measuring time What do you mean by that? In what way are they better at measuring time?

Quartz watches "tick" only once per second. Mechanical watches move generally 6ish times a second, causing a perpetual movement. This makes them better for measuring things in fractions of seconds than a quartz movement.
Post reply on HN