The best selling Casio F-91W provides all of the advantages of quartz time at a price tag of less than $10

Why the humble quartz watch is the ultimate timekeeping device

An appreciation of an enduring technology and its understated impact in daily life

The quartz wristwatch, broadly introduced to consumers by Seiko in 1969, has become a ubiquitous item in consumer culture, with nearly unlimited variations to cater to every person from the average Jane to feature-hungry technologists. What are the common threads of quartz watches that make them such powerful personal devices, and how do they stack up against competition from smart watches and their analog companions?

Defining smart

The familiar wristwatch is currently undergoing the most significant shift in its evolution since the mid-20th century. Manufacturers in the last two to three years have been scrambling to answer demand for external connectivity in watches that links them with the rest of the internet-centered tech ecosystem. Even if a watch is not marketed as “smart device” per se, Bluetooth connectivity and enhanced functionality through pairing with smartphone apps can provide a wealth of functionality and networked context to a watch that was previously unimaginable. Casio, the king of great standalone watch features, has even modified some of its latest G-Shock offerings, like the updated Rangeman GPR-B100, to include GPS route tracking capabilities through pairing via Bluetooth with a phone app.

But therein lies a fatal flaw in these watches — the enhanced functionality on offer has been extracted from the watch itself and thrust into a high-turnover ecosystem that is governed by an essentially different set of rules. A smart watch cannot ever be just a watch; it must now masquerade as a “smart device” exemplary of buzzwords like “wearable technology”, and adhere to the same vicious life cycle constraints as its parent device where the real smarts lie. It follows naturally that the watch will have all of the trappings of OS updates, engineered obsolescence, and the relentless churn that is characteristic of the mobile industry.

To keep pace with the breakneck speed of developing for the ever-connected world, manufacturers have ample incentives to leave behind older, less-profitable devices in favor of their latest shiny models. This means that an $800 smart watch may only have a life span of two to three years for the user to enjoy its full set of features. In other words, from the moment of purchase, the watch runs the risk of having the plug pulled on its highly touted advanced connectivity. This can happen two months or two years down the road, once the cost of keeping the connecting phone app or watch OS up-to-date becomes cumbersome or unprofitable for the manufacturer.

As a former Apple Watch owner and attempted “believer”, I can attest to the fact that in my case the smart watch created more problems than it solved. Mandated nightly charging, buzzing distractions despite careful settings, and trying not to scratch or damage the pristine aesthetics of the device eventually became a burden that wasn’t worth the actual benefit of the watch’s much-touted features. It also began to weigh on me that if I were ever in a situation without access to the specialized charging cable, the watch would essentially become useless after a day or so.

I watched as Apple began its familiar hype process with better and faster versions of the Watch released that claimed to be game changers and, by suggestion, make previous models obsolete.

After all of this, I drew the same conclusion as many that most smart watches were indeed born from (and thriving on) hype rather than utility, and that they attempt to solve problems that didn’t ever really exist in the first place.

Intelligence, independence

Contrast this with the humble quartz watch, with a battery life measured in years, not hours, and an independent longevity that easily stretches decades into the future. A quartz watch is future-proof in the truest sense of the word, meaning that all of its features will continue to work exactly the same from the day it was purchased, and essentially for the entire life of the wearer.

Even the modest sub-$10 Casio F-91W, which is known for selling millions of units annually since its introduction in 1991, boasts a 7 year battery life, and provides all of the major benefits listed later in this essay. Provided that the manufacturer has a reasonable maintenance operation in place, you can rest assured that your quartz watch purchase, no matter the price tag, will last for essentially as long as you like it to, and that any unlikely problems can be easily amended at minimal cost with a rich network of replacement parts.

This independence and peace of mind, coupled with precision timekeeping ability and rich multi-functionality, is key to understanding the consistent appeal of quartz watches, and gives us a hint of why they are still as relevant as ever today.

Superiority over analog offerings

Watch buffs are often known for their appreciation of classic analog mechanical watches, ranging from budget models to expensive designer brand limited editions and collector’s item vintage pieces.

The argument for analog watches, and specifically mechanical analog models, often reads as follows:

Analog watches, with their hundreds of finely tuned moving parts, are essentially works of art — a testament to the craft of engineering and human ingenuity.

A properly maintained, high quality mechanical watch is an heirloom that can be passed down for generations.

The slightly less precise timekeeping and need for mechanical winding provides a sense of the familiar in its imperfection and charm.

Analog watches are better suited for dressing up and formal attire.

I won’t refute these points, as each person is entitled to his or her own opinion on these kinds of aesthetic concerns. However, it must be acknowledged that quartz digital watches present considerable practical advantages over their analog ancestors.

Quartz technology, which operates by vibrating a tiny pitchfork-shaped crystal at a fixed frequency in the core of the watch, ensures a monthly time deviation of +- 5 seconds in most cases. However, even better performance is easily obtained in environments with low temperature variation. When left untouched for extended periods of time, an average quartz watch will only deviate by a maximum of one minute or less per year. Contrast this with mechanical watches, where all but the most expensive offerings will drift significantly farther in the same amount of time.

Quartz watches do not need to be wound; they do not need to be worn daily to maintain spring tension or placed on a winding device like automatic mechanical analogs. They are essentially worry-free until the battery needs changing, which is, again, several years in the future for a standard model.

Quartz watches can offer calendar functionality that can be aware of the current year, and adjusts automatically for leap years and the differing number of days in each month. Contrast this with a standard analog watch calendar, which may need to be adjusted at the end of months with 30 days or less.

Multiple alarms, precision timers and stopwatches, easy world time, back-lit illumination, solar charging, automatic radio wave time synchronization, and extreme durability are all common features available on a mid-range quartz digital watch costing less than $150. The arrangement of features can be customized in endless combinations at a price point agreeable to the wearer.

Finally, even on non-radio synced models, a quartz watch is easier to synchronize with great accuracy to an atomic or network clock, with accuracy of 100 milliseconds or so easily achieved even when adjusting by hand. An analog watch is much more difficult, as the second hand must be stopped and started mechanically, often by some awkward combination of pushing, pulling, and rotating the crown of the watch.

Author’s note: A special exception can be made for battery-powered quartz analogs, where many of the above concerns are mitigated, although the difficulty in precise settings may remain if the watch is not radio-synced.

The importance of accuracy

A key benefit of digital watches is that they are specifically designed to answer precise questions like

What time is it now, exactly?

How long, in minutes and seconds, did it take to perform a specific action?

How much time, down to the second, is left in a set interval of time?

An analog piece, by contrast, gives an abstraction of time as a fluid and circular motion, allowing the wearer to visually imagine times in the future and intuitively answer questions like “Roughly how much time until the top of the hour? About how much longer until lunch break? How much longer do I have to endure before this boring meeting is over?” Time is understood in a rough and intuitive fashion, but at the expense of precision.

This may sound nice — “I don’t need to do any mental math to understand with my gut the difference between now and then.” Unfortunately, this convenience only holds true to a point. Allow me to illustrate with a personal anecdote.

When I wore an analog Seiko 5 watch for a previous job that required me to wear a suit as daily attire, I had already given up on the question of accuracy. I also did what many people who can’t set their watches accurately to the second do: I set my watch a few minutes ahead of whatever the current time was reported to be. “If I trick myself into treating this as the real time, I’ll never be late! The watch might be a minute slow in a month, but now it won’t matter!”

I was never able to answer questions like “Do I need to run to catch the train? Should the first pitch in the baseball game have happened by now? How can I be certain that I get to the departure gate within 20 minutes of my flight leaving?” Each of these questions involved a sloppy mental adjustment for the uncertainty of my watch. I found that when the exact time mattered, I was pulling my phone out of my pocket so I could see its accurate network time instead of the ambiguous time on my wrist.

Solution

The anecdote to all of these problems, and in spite of my experience with wearable technology, turned out to be an inexpensive quartz digital, which I now hand sync to Network Time Protocol once every so often when the urge strikes.

I now have access to exact, agreed-upon objective time with a glance at my wrist, accurate within milliseconds of atomic time. Because much of the rest of the world (including most time-critical services, nearly any network connected device, and most digitally-driven automated systems) operates in harmony with NTP, I am able to align my actions and expectations in life with little to no uncertainty, and enjoy predictable outcomes on nearly every occasion.

In other words, I don’t run for the train. The conductor and I agree on an objective time, and I know I can walk the rest of the way to the platform in the 1 minute and 15 seconds left before the train departs. I never rush up the stairs to work afraid of being late, because I know that my watch and the company’s digital time punch agree on exactly what time it is. I know precisely when the store will (or at least should) open, and later on I can sneak in for last minute groceries before they close without pissing off the cashier, who may also be watching his quartz watch for the exact moment when he can go home for the day.

To be clear, I consider myself a type B personality with a tendency toward generalization over precision in other parts of my life. However, this guaranteed degree of certainty with regard to time has made a significant positive impact on my daily life, and is offered at minimal cost by my quartz digital companion.

Quartz wristwatches have been commonplace and inexpensive for so many decades that their impact is easily forgotten, but the truth remains that they are truly fantastic devices that can be enjoyed for both their practical and aesthetic traits. When weighing the minimal investment of maintenance and monetary cost compared to the benefits to be gained, the digital quartz watch is a convincing winner in all of the critical categories.

In summary

A rare statement can be made about quartz watches that is not often true of other products: the power and convenience afforded by quartz technology has been available for years to nearly everyone, anywhere in the world, in anything from dollar store watches to indestructible high-end feats of engineering. You can choose a watch that is aesthetically beautiful and also makes life simpler, more efficient, and more enjoyable through an accurate understanding of time - humanity’s most coveted and limited resource.

This power can significantly benefit nearly every aspect of one’s life, from simple daily routines to the occasional urgent moment where every second counts. Easy access to quartz time allows better decision making, enhanced productivity, and the pleasure of certainty to tame the fluidity of human experience.