Will we see a spring drive competitor soon?

Never appealed to me TBH, I see it having the disadvantages of both (wear on mech parts & once the quartz part is worn out it needs replacing) . Don't see any advantage over a high accuracy quartz other than a smooth second hand and I'm not fussed about that.

Agree on GS styling too, not the most exciting or tooly either. Great if you love textured dials, but honestly they do nowt for me.

Sounds like I'm knocking GS, I'm really not, I can appreciate the effort and skill that goes into them, they're just not my thing.

I doubt a competitor will emerge. I imagine the market for spring drive watches is small, a competitor would have to make a large investment to develop a spring drive movement and they would probably struggle to sell them as most people are likely to want to buy the original Seiko.

If I want a G-Shock I buy Casio. If I want spring drive I buy GS. GS is the spring drive movement. So far I haven’t found one that has given me an itch. Personally I’d like to see what Bulova does with their precisionist range in the coming years.

Well we can make a very expensive frankenwatch!! Ohhh love doing those things!! First, I commend you for trying 🍻… kudos!! At least you have the brain power to even think of the engineering part, me nada 🤯…

Eventually when I get really bored of my watches I will transplant perhaps a Rolex movement into a GS case or a Spring Drive movement into Rolex case kinda thing … @Watchovski knows what I’m talking about 😁

The Swiss watch industry is raking the millions in already by re-releasing the same old watches over and over. No interest whatsoever in innovating beyond incremental steps on mechanical movements. Or no interest in innovating in general… I still remember how excited everybody was on last year’s W&W because Rolex (25% of the Swiss watch exports) had dared mounting a display case back on a Daytona and released a titanium Yachtmaster! Wow!! Such innovation!! Something that can compete with the Spring Drive is simply out of the question.

The 1hz tick never looked right to me. Time doesn’t move like a poorly streaming YouTube video, so the second hand shouldn’t either. It my mind it’s about a proper representation of the continuity of time.

Yeah a Bulova with a 10 year battery life and EOL indicator would be fine. I just don’t like the idea that they may stop suddenly on you one day.

I reckon if other brands made a SD clone, people would appreciate it for the core three advantages. I don’t think consumers would reject the movement for not being in a GS case.

It’s really just a case of (legally) copying Seiko’s homework, so wouldn’t be as big a venture this time around.

Didn’t realise the quartz parts wore out. Not that I’ve researched it. What part of the quartz module fails?

I don’t think a GS clone would necessarily come out of CH. Chinese technical ability could come to the rescue here and produce movements for micro brands to use.

I suspect that if any of them had any interest in a Spring Drive or Kinetic movement, they would have done it already.

As mentioned by @nichtvondiesemjahrhundert the market for that type of movement is likely already satisfied by GS, so there is not likely enough money to be made in it. Even if just copying the Spring Drive, it's still a huge investment to produce the parts and assemble the movements.

I also suspect the number of people buying watches that share your philosophical view of the seconds hand is quite small. For most I'm guessing the smooth sweep of the second hand is just a novelty amongst their collection of mechanicals/standard or HAQ.

Chinese technical ability could come to the rescue here and produce movements for "Swiss made movement" brands to use.

FTFY

Looking forward to a spring drive sellita 😁👍

The closest thing to a direct competitor would probably be thee new Acutron electrostatic movement.

I’ve always thought of Spring Drive as a Rube Goldberg machine, a complex and expensive solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

That isn’t to say I don’t appreciate the technical solutions but I can’t get excited when the styling looks like an 80’s mall watch.

Nah, spring drives are a pain just like any auto watch and even more maintenance cost down the road! If you don't wear them regularly (which most of us won't because we have a collection to rotate and give wrist time!) all that accuracy and smooth sweep are nothing, just like a typical automatic watch...or you have to wind them up when you put them back in the watchbox till it's turn comes up to be on the wrist.

Some tuning fork models has a smooth sweep and decent accuracy, but needed batteries and made an audible high pitch noise that would quickly drive you to distraction.

There are no motors. There are quite a number of videos explaining it, but I think you're misinformed when you mentioned it has both disadvantages of the quartz and mechanical movements. If anything, it has advantages from the 2: accuracy of quartz, with no reliance on a battery (powers itself from a main spring). I don't think there's any real wear on the IC module, considering it's operating at very low power; and for the movement itself, there isn't any physical contact associated with traditional escapement (magnetic brakes used for regulation, no fork frequently hammering against the escape wheel). It is a very sophisticated piece of tech that in theory should outlast most mechanical movements (considering similar use and conditions). The main spring will eventually fail though, which would probably be analogous to a battery running out and needing replacement in a quartz watch. I think you're right on servicing being done exclusively in Japan though.

Not sure when you say electronic but not quartz. Maybe analog watches? All electronic watches use quartz to determine time, but they'd differ on how it is presented (digital display, or analog/3 hands). The similarity between that and a spring drive would be the use of a quartz crystal and a circuit for regulation, but they differ vastly in the manner of energizing the circuit, and how the regulation (ensuring the time is correct) is done.

Doesn’t the Bulova precisionist movement do the job? It beats at 262kHz and is a delight to see

Spring Drive reminds me of one niche product from my other collecting hobby - keyboards.

Spring Drive is in watches what Topre is in keyboard switches. How watch collecting puritans sometimes claim that Spring Drive is not mechanical, similarly keyboard enthusiast puritans claim that Topre is not mechanical switch.

Both are very unique Japanese inventions too.

I use Topre keyboards 80% of the time and find them superior to Cherry switches. Similarly, my grail is to get one day Grand Seiko Spring Drive watch and it might be my main daily wear.

Rolex should bring back the oyster quartz with some crazy high accuracy specs

Probably not. At least from the Swiss.

I don't entirely agree or disagree with that statement that no one is trying to innovate, just look at the frederique constant monolithic.

The spring drive is an engineering marvel. The escape wheel is completely frictionless - instead of a pallet fork and balance wheel regulating the angular velocity of the wheel, spring drive uses electromagnets to apply the breaking, with the strength of the breaking regulated by an IC that compares the velocity of the wheel measured against the oscillation of quartz - all of this made possible by the electricity generated by a stator on one of the gears on the gear train powered by - you guessed it - a mainspring.

It's a shame there are still lots of folks here that assume springdrive is just a fancy word for 'expensive quartz movement' - of which it is not. The Citizen Caliber 0100 is an expensive quartz movement. The Seiko Hi-Beat is an expensive quartz movement.

Spring drive is absolutely a mechanical movement - it is not electricity that powers the gear train - it's the mainspring. There is no battery, there is just the mainspring. There is no motor - there is just the mainspring.

And one day it will be mine

Seiko did make at least one spring drive tuna SBDB013

Also, I don’t believe GS published specs. I think they sand bag. My SD is published to be +/- 10 sec per month. I measured it daily for 7 weeks through much pain and found it to be consistently fast at 1.5 sec per month, meaning I think not only do the grossly over estimate, but it is more of a regulation tolerance rather than a performance variability

Im talking about Timex dynabeats and Accutron watches. I did some quick google searches and it looks like Timex has had the Dynabeat since 1962 earlier than the first seiko quartz. I could be wrong defently not an expert but is this a different kind of movement?

Oh wow, I didn't realize the original Accutron used a tuning fork instead of a crystal. I'll try to read up on that and see if I can wrap my head around how it works. But I read the new Accutron uses a quartz crystal though. I can't seem to find anything on the Dynabeat. Oh and yes, these appear to be a lot different from the spring drive.

If you are going down the rabbit hole, there are also Citizen Cosmotron watches, which were a stepping stone between mechanical and quartz.

Also, there is also Citizen HiSonic, which were tuning fork watches.

Thank you for taking the time to type that out, I've now a clearer understanding of how it works. Clearly I was badly wrong 🙄Much appreciated mate, thank you. 👍🏻👍🏻

It's a very unique mechanism that takes both craftsmanship and technical precision and combines them into an elegant package. Of course we'd all like to pay less for something but to me its worth the price.