In-house vs. Outsourced Movements: Does Origin Truly Impact the Value and Performance of a Watch?

I feel like in house only really starts to matter at the higher price points. Where you get extravagantly finished movements put on display. Though I am impressed that my 60$ Vostok has an in house movement, I doubt it is any better than my any of my ‘generic’ movements. To each their own though. I get the romance of in house.

Yes.

All my Seiko's are In-house, & I bought Omega because I believe they make the best mass produced movements.

If it's not in-house, then it's not a real watchmaker, more of a watch assembler imho 🤔

I don’t know if you are into cars at all. But Pagani sourced their engines from Mercedes. So are they not really a car maker, just a car assembler? I don’t think most people would make that argument. So I don’t know if not having an in house movement makes a company just a watch assembler. At that point, unless every single piece is made in house, aren’t they all just watch assemblers?

I’m not really bothered either way but what does bother me is the lack of honesty within the industry when a 3rd party movement is lightly modified and then presented as in house.

I would say it depends on the price of the watch, take the SW-200, in Oris I can just about justify it, but in TAG or Breitling, nahhhh.

This is a good question and I thought initially that I wasn't bothered.

Then I looked at most of the watches in my collection in ascending order of cost and the vast majority have in house movements, from vostok to Orient to Seiko to Tudor and Rolex, so I voted A!

Depends. I personally find in house, or more obscure generic brands, to be interesting if they are any good. Orient has in-house movements and from what I understand they’re good. Vostok has in-house movements too, but they’re pretty lousy in terms of accuracy. FTP has a range of generic USA built quartz movements which I also find interesting

Depends on the specs and cost of the watch, if it’s expensive then you are more likely to expect an in house movement to justify the sticker price. I agree with the previous post regarding honesty of watch brands as they are known to give a movement an in-house number but it’s an ETA or variant. ETA make great movements of different grades but the watch brand should be up front on what you are buying.

What the OP doesn't cover - and it's something that's massively important - is that generic movements can be serviced cheaply, and easily, by any decent watchmaker. In-house can be a total pain in the arse to deal with, especially if you live on the other side of the planet to where they are serviced. Not to mention, cost WAY more to service. It's an expense that a lot of people seem to not know about, or just ignore.

I didn’t vote cause it does matter and I’m still not cynical to think it’s a marketing ploy. I like both in-house movements or ebauches from tried and true manufacturers (ETA, Sellita, Citizen and Seiko) but it depends on the watch. You can get an in-house movement in the 1K range and I would expect one for anything over but there are quite a few brands eclipsing 5K that use ETA, Selitta and I would have problems buying those.

I don’t think in-house automatically means better quality as my Tudor “in house” Kenissi movement absolutely crapped out on me. It does mean, in my opinion, a higher level of craftsmanship, artistry and engineering. I’m amazed how Nomos can offer an in house movement at their prices, I guess Seiko does at an even lower price range but you know not well regulated for accuracy.

AP, Patek and Vacheron all at different points had third party movements but everyone still loved them

I don't drive, life long biker. Most motorcycle manufacturers make the heart of the beast themselves, with a few outliers using other manufacturers engines- but these are a very small minority.

I guess it's a matter of perspective & obviously personal preference 👍🏻

Of course to each their own. I was just curious if you would apply that standard to other industries as well, or just watches.

Ride safely out there!

Proper design, assembly and lubrication is the key to a quality movement no matter what the brand.

I think the new video from WatchFinder talking about “why is Hublot so hated” is a good video on the topic of in-house movements versus ebauche movements, and in particular once you hit a certain price point, I think ebauche movements in today’s age are not accepted and in-house movements are what the watch buying public of today desires in their timepiece. As many other people have commented, mini brands, 30 to 40 years ago, were using movement supplied by other Maisons such as JLC, Piaget or companies like ETA, Valjoux & Lemania (which became Manufacture Brequet under Swatch). AP, PP, VC, Brequet, Blancpain, Omega & Rolex have all ordered movements straight from the catalogue of the likes of ETA & Lemania, especially for Chronographs. But that was then and today the watch buying public expects in-house movements in luxury watches. It’s not like Patek Philippe or any of the other top-tier watchmakers purchased movements ready-made and just slapped them into cases as is. Instead, they plied their trademark styles of hand finishing, graining, bevelling and polishing the movement blanks into the works of art the watchmakers’ reputations were built on.

And today, the differences aren’t as great as you might think: even though these watchmakers are now capable of producing their own movements independently of each other, it’s only because of advances in machining technology that this has become possible. The real skill is, as it always has been, in the hand finishing.

I feel there aren’t many watchmakers left, if any at all, going by this standard 😂

My point was not necessarily about the quality of using third party parts. More the question whether a watch company using third party movements is still a watch maker, and a car company using a third party engine is still a car maker. Same principle can be applied to the laptop I suppose.

OTOH - lets say I took a sellita, removed a bunch of parts, refinished a few of them, replaced a few of them then regulated the movement myself surely I'd be a liar if I kept the original part number and pretended that was a sellita and probably open to prosecution for IP fraud?

Hmm... I guess I do not get your point. What is the distinction between maker Vs assemblier for you then? How does it affect your purchase?

Either one is fine for me. But I believe watches that are proudly made in-house deserve to be repaired and serviced fully in-house as well! It's all part of the in-house experience, and a test of a brand's capability to deliver its end-to-end services.

Well that wasn’t really my point, I was posing the questions to someone else who said a watchmaker is more of a watch assembler if they do not use an in house movement. I don’t agree with that statement so I asked if he would apply that to other industries as well, like cars.

In house vs. third party movement is personally very low on my list when buying a watch.

A commonly used movement likely means a movement that has been vetted by various companies for quality and reliability, achieved economies of scale making a good value proposition, and worthy of “assemblers” to stake their brand reputation on. An in house movement offers the ability to be unique, but likely less of everything else. If unique is important to a customer, than in house is the way to go. If that doesn’t matter so much, then one might want to the value in what one is getting. In this thread, the point is that a Swiss made Valjoux 7750 movement can be purchased for $350, yet the charge on the final product watch might range from $550 up to $12k. Buyer beware.

https://www.watchcrunch.com/skydave/posts/selling-a-commodity-as-luxury-items-45476

It’s a ticklish subject but I feel that it doesn’t matter unless you’re talking about an old company like Vacheron. Tudor used ETA movements for years with very little issues. Now they’re doing “in house” supposedly. Imo, it’s not an in house movement unless everything is designed and built in the brand’s own factory. Buying parts from another Swiss company and building it in your own brand’s factory is not an in house movement.

Additionally, off the shelf movements can save one enormous costs or financial ceilings on repair. If a new movement cost $150, then a repair on ones watch may be capped out $150 + swap labor fee. An in house movement repair, may mean a rebuild and or replacement part that only a single supplier can provide and or charge whatever the market will bear.

Fair comment, but my comment was about the dishonesty within the industry regarding the origin of the movement and how that movement is sold as ‘in house’. To many collectors the movement is the watch.

If movements are actually important to you then the second you see 38hr or 42hr you know precisely what that movement is - if you need to be told then the movement isnt that important to you.

So you’d agree that there is a lack of transparency within the industry, and that it is up to the consumer to be knowledgeable enough about their products to know if a third party movement has been used and then called ‘in house’

Not really.

I cant think of too many (or any) brands calling movements originating from other suppliers as in-house. I guess there is a little fudging around with the use of 'manufacture' and there are sins of omission (so not claiming inhouse but not declaring 3rd party either) but flat out crying in-house and not delivering? Nope, not an issue.

On the consumer side I think more people are interested in (using a local football expression here) playing the man not the ball. Frankly I think most of the angst about movements is entirely confected as a way of bashing a brand and people dont really care about the movement except in so far as it gives them a stick to beat a brand.

I have found quite a few brands - BALL, Hamilton, Zodiac (I’m sure there are more) that do this. I have no problem at all with the renaming of the movements, they have often done much to improve the base movement but I don’t think it should be difficult to find out this information which it often is.

I think it depends on the watch brand.

For example, I have a Farer using a Sellita SW330, i'm happy that this small brand has used a generic movement as the brand is reasonably new and as suchif there's some complicated in-house movement, how easy will it be to maintain it in years to come.

On the other hand, I have a Longines Master Collection with a complicated in-house movement, but i'm confident enough in the brand to not worry about future maintainance.

Lastly, I have the Christopher Ward Worldglow which has a Sellita base with an in-house module. The brand has been around for a long enough that it reduces the concern over future proofing.