zOwie Omega Discussion Forum

: There is no way that a automatic watch, even
: the certified chronometers can beat the
: accuracy of a quartz.

I disagree. While quartz are more PRECISE, they are not necesarily more ACCURATE.

Consider a quartz watch that runs at a consistent and precise -1.0 seconds per day. After one month of running, I know for certain that it will be 30 seconds off. This is because the deviation of a quartz movement are precise too, so the errors are always in the same direction and accumulate over time.

But a Chronometer grade automatic will vary in its performance. While it may run at a much less consistent and precise -4 to +6 seconds per day in normal use, at the end of the month much of that variation will cancel itself out and the watch may still be no more than 30 seconds off.

This tested out in a 12 month competition I had between my Breitling Aerospace and Seamaster Pro. At the end of the 12 months, the quartz Aerospace was off from correct time by MORE than the auto Seamaster was.

Where the quartz lost was the accumulation of the consistent deviation over time. Even a quartz watch running at the COSC Quartz Chronometer limit of 0.2 seconds per day will be off by almost 1 1/4 minutes at the end of a year.

My Breitling, running a consistent -0.6 seconds per day was off by over 3 1/2 minutes at the end of the year.

Sure, the Seamaster varies more during the year, but the net effect was partially canceled since the variation was positive part of the time, negative the rest. At the end of the year, it was off by only 2 minutes.

So for me, the quartz was less accurate!