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Thread: Quartz is back!

  1. #1

    Quartz is back!

    And with a vengeance . Have you noticed the tons of people that wear "smart watches"?
    I always look around to see if I can spot a nice watch in the wild and all I see is that goofy looking Apple watch.
    Do you think that this will hurt the watch industry at all?
    I was browsing WUS and found this thread were Stuffler mentions how Baselworld 2018 will go on for less days, there will be less exhibitors and booth rental is also down 10%.

    http://forums.watchuseek.com/showthread.php?t=4576215

    Sent from Arrakis using Spice Melange

  2. #2
    Quartz never left us. And, arguably, the smart watches aren't quartz.
    Here's one of my quartz's

  3. #3
    Moderator - Central tribe125's Avatar
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    Smart watches will have an impact, but won’t prompt a crisis in the way that quartz did. The market has changed since then, with mechanical watches re-positioned as non-utility luxury items.

    The downturn in the industry has little to do with the smart watch - it’s due to economic factors and a kind of political correctness in China.

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  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by tribe125 View Post
    Smart watches will have an impact, but won’t prompt a crisis in the way that quartz did. The market has changed since then, with mechanical watches re-positioned as non-utility luxury items.

    The downturn in the industry has little to do with the smart watch - it’s due to economic factors and a kind of political correctness in China.
    ^This! Most the people I know who wear smart watches are people who wouldn’t otherwise wear a watch. Of the ones who would, they came from fashion watches. The current downturn, as was mentioned, is due to the Chinese market and a glut regarding supply.

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  7. #5
    What's the 'kind of political correctness' in China. It sounds interesting and I'm clueless.

    I've had a go at Smartwatches three times now and I'm pretty sure that the last, a Fossil Venture Q I picked up when they first came out, will be the last. The first time they were too slow and too cumbersome, the second they were too big and didn't really add anything to my life. Finally in the Venture I had a watch that was the right size, had a state of the art chip and ran the latest version of Google. It does everything it claims to do really well but fails on three counts:

    1) I just don't want, need or appreciate that sort of level of involvement with virtual society and if I did i'd want it to be transparent and ubiquitous; that probably means surgery. My phone does it all and can be a PC at a pinch.

    2) I like to wear a watch 24/7. A watch that needs to spend the night on the dresser and dies without daily charging is inevitably a paperweight inside of a few days.

    3) Until we get a fundamentally different interface then they are just too damn small to interact with without transparent fingers.

    Oh, and most of the apps are intrusive and loaded with junk.

    So it's no surprise that I'm now wearing a very vintage handwind watch and calculating how much CEX will give me on trade in on something else I really don't need. I'll need to be quick though, the Venture Q is getting on for a month old and I think the new model comes out next thursday and the next one the week after that...
    Last edited by Matt; Nov 27, 2017 at 01:04 PM.

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  9. #6
    Moderator - Central tribe125's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Matt View Post
    What's the 'kind of political correctness' in China. It sounds interesting and I'm clueless.

    The anti-extravagance / anti-corruption edict -

    https://www.theguardian.com/business...tion-crackdown

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  11. #7
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    I wear the Samsung Gear S3 Frontier at work because it's so stinking versatile. Multiple dials, useful integration with my smart phone, great looking, you know. A quartz is handy for grabbing a watch and rushing out the door. When my wife pops out of the bedroom and is suddenly ready to go I no longer have the time to open a box, stand there and look and decide what to wear, then correct the time, day,and date. You know. Today I think you have to own all 3 types to be whole.
    .
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    .

    Retired from Fire/Rescue January 2019 with 30 years on the job

  12. #8
    Moderator G-Shock/Digital Sedi's Avatar
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    I like quartz but I prefer solar powered Casios or Citizens. Preferably with atomic sync (not a deal breaker if they don't). I do have a Garmin Vivoactive which is almost a smart watch but I only wore it while I kept up running. Stopped after 6 months so the Vivoactive is now collecting dust.
    Don't like to charge my watch BTW. I already have enough stuff that needs to be charged.
    Cheers, Sedi

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  14. #9
    Hall Monitor Samanator's Avatar
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    Quartz is back!

    I’ve had a gen one Apple Watch since they came out. At first they missed the mark quite a bit what it is with some of the versions like the gold versions. I bought the sports model since I use it running. In the newer versions it is more sports oriented. After two years I was loosing interest in it and the first couple OS releases seemed to make it worse. Then with the newest OS release they seemed to address what all was missing. It made the gen one so much more usable to the point I would replace it if it died. That would not have been the case six months ago. All of these need some serious up grades in the battery department. Since 2011 we are an Apple household so that would be the only smartwatch I would consider.

    Agree, smart watches aren’t quartz.


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    Last edited by Samanator; Dec 3, 2017 at 12:44 PM.
    Cheers,

    Michael

    Tell everyone you saw it on IWL!

  15. #10
    Loves to yap about quartz I-B's Avatar
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    when did quartz left? I have a suitcase filled with Swatch' and i own only quartz

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