Mark Twain’s Quest to Bring Affordable Watches to the Masses

Re:Mark Twain’s Quest to Bring Affordable Watches to the Masses by vinay427 on Monday September 02, 2019 @09:48AM (#20859081)

All of my sub-$30 digital quartz watches are still working and are within a few seconds of the current time around 10 years after being purchased and set. A mechanical watch would likely need much more maintenance in that period, perhaps even to keep it running.

I still have an automatic mechanical watch, for what it's worth, and in theory it should last longer when maintained but will likely cost far more every year than one of my digital quartz watches would cost to replace even every few years.

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Re:Mark Twain’s Quest to Bring Affordable Watches to the Masses by chris11 on Monday September 02, 2019 @01:58PM (#20860749)

I'd say a major quality problem in cheap watches is water resistance. Before I knew much about diving, I tried snorkeling with a couple really cheap watches. They both died. There are some good cheap dive watches, like the Casio MDV106-1A. But in general I wouldn't want to get a cheap watch wet. 30m WR just won't cut it.

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Re:Mark Twain’s Quest to Bring Affordable Watches to the Masses by kennywinker on Monday September 02, 2019 @10:02PM (#20863147)

Hackaday story on waterproofing (700m) the casio f91w by hand... does not look difficult at all! https://hackaday.com/tag/casio-f-91w/

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Re:Mark Twain’s Quest to Bring Affordable Watches to the Masses by craigsmansion on Monday September 02, 2019 @10:57AM (#20859450)

In general quartz watches seem to have a lifetime of 20-30 years.

Mechanical watches without factory defects should easily run 10 years without maintenance, but it's advisable to have them serviced every few years.

But yes, even with their longevity, it's a given that replacing a cheap quartz every few years would probably still be cheaper than a mechanical watch.

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