
Can the Swiss Watchmaker Survive the Digital Age? - aaronbrethorst
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/can-the-swiss-watchmaker-survive-the-digital-age.html
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carsongross
Of course. They survived the quartz crisis, they will survive this.

Smart watches will eat some quartz watch market share and some mid-range
mechanical, but the cogent smart watch criticism applies: that it doesn't
provide enough of a functional delta over a phone. People who want mechanical
watches want mechanical watches. Otherwise they'd already be wearing a more
accurate, more functional and less fussy quartz watch.

As an aside, in an ironic development, a Belgian _mechanical_ watch maker
(Ressence) has produced the best design I have ever seen for a smart watch:

[http://ressence.eu/collection/type-3/](http://ressence.eu/collection/type-3/)

[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CGmnh0_UYAANb_j.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CGmnh0_UYAANb_j.jpg)

Available for the bargain price of 20-40k...

If a smart watch maker ripped this design off, and made the bezel touch-
rotatable... Well, I might change my tune a bit.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
“The ‘quartz crisis’ killed off so many Swiss watchmakers that by the end of
the 1970s, the number of workers in the industry had shrunk to 30,000 from
90,000.”

Define “survive.” The article doesn’t state what to what extent the industry
recovered, but surely not to pre-seventies levels.

[edit damn but that Ressence is dope]

~~~
Zigurd
That would be an interesting study. As China develops a significant upper
middle class, lots of niche pursuits, like handmade shoes, fine wines and
distilled spirits, hand-made clothes, fine art, etc. should experience a
global boom. The expansion of pursuits like keeping horses should boost,
literally, the buggy-whip industry. So maybe fine mechanical watches will come
back the same way, on the wave of wealth in populous countries.

~~~
gaius
The Chinese boom has already happened, and busted. The market over there is
saturated with Omegas and Audis and cases of fancy French wines.

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niuzeta
Watches are male equivalent of jewellery; so long as vanity exists, and there
isn't an alternative, easy-to-discern display of wealth/style, they will stay.

Also the Rolexes are almost artificially made scarce; adding to the allure of
wealth.

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ctdonath
When asked about paper vs e- books, lots of people will comment about
preferring the former because of the "smell" etc. But...nobody walks into a
bookstore and buys one because it _smells nice_. The linked article says
similar about watches: lots of obsession about preserving the elegant
mechanical essence...which has practically nothing to do with the _reason_ a
watch is bought, that being to tell time. Sure, given a desire to buy a book,
or a watch, one may opt for the embossed leather-bound edition printed with a
movable-type press, or the 300-component hand-carved self-winding watch, but
the driving point is to read The Hobbit, or tell when to leave work.

We went thru this with music and photography. Tape & vinyl gave way to CDs
which gave way to MP3 & AAC & FLAC. Film gave way to terabyte hard drives &
multi-gigabyte flash cards. Sure, there's an occasional nostalgic resurgence
of vinyl and film, but those technologies are largely relegated to artisan
use. I was at Kodak when the photo industry pivoted; it's little more than a
brand and a mostly-sold patent portfolio now.

There's the old line that when a news headline asks a yes/no question, the
answer is invariably "no". So...no, the Swiss watchmaker won't, on the whole,
survive the digital age. The Movado on my desk and the Apple on my wrist cost
about the same, but one's on my desk and the other is used every few minutes
for a variety of purposes (from accurate-to-50ms-and-50m time to up-next
calendar to notifications to backup telephone to exercise monitor to mapping
to ...). Yeah, the mechanical version (even a mere quartz movement, akin to an
old literal-pulp novel) appeals more to the base senses, but given which will
actually get near-constant use, well, ask Kodak how their film business is
holding up.

~~~
kstenerud
There are two purposes to a timepiece:

1\. To tell the time.

2\. To make a fashion statement.

Digital watches (and now smart watches) add to that various functions, but,
for most people, the fashion statement aspect of a watch trumps the
functionality.

Analog watches will survive because they are, first and foremost, jewelry.

~~~
Someone1234
Your post is predicted on two assumptions:

\- That a smart watch cannot be a fashion statement.

\- That a smart watch isn't also jewlery.

If it turns out that a smart watch CAN make a fashion statement and IS jewelry
then traditional watches just offer less functionality overall without
offering any unique advantages.

~~~
kstenerud
Nope. I never said that a smart watch (or a digital watch for that matter)
cannot make a fashion statement, or is not jewelry. My point is that analog
watches are not going away because the decision to buy a particular watch is
not a purely functional one.

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pothibo
Not only they will, but I bet they will remain unaffected. Style and
architecture of a mechanical watch will never be outmatched by its digital
counterpart.

The mechanic of a watch is mind boggling. All those little pieces moving
together in harmony. It's beauty.

~~~
buster
That's why i love my automatic watch, where you can see (and hear!) all those
tiny pieces moving. It's fascinating and a master work of centuries of
engineering and craftsmanship. Why should i buy a watch made by some mid-20s
computer engineers, manufactured by some chinese slave, when i can wear the
testament of centuries of finest engineering!

~~~
timrichard
I completely agree with you and the parent.

Sometimes (developer) friends haven't understood my attraction to automatics,
but became interested in the mechanics when I showed them videos like these :

[http://youtu.be/dao0mbAbNLE](http://youtu.be/dao0mbAbNLE)
[http://youtu.be/qtgAJBPPefM](http://youtu.be/qtgAJBPPefM)

------
mpdehaan2
I definitely like mechanicals, and I don't think smart watches are going to
kill them. Swiss pricing however is something that exists because someone
found out how to get crazy amounts of money from folks with too much of it.

Good mechanicals need not be swiss, of course. On the lower reasonable end
where people aren't making their own movements, there's still a lot of expense
in what folks like ETA are doing to things, and there's a lot of price padding
in Swiss stuff (and even rising prices from German companies like Sinn and
Nomos, though a lot more affordable, still not cheap). There are plenty of
smaller US watch-companies too (Lum-tec is a good example) making reasonable
margins.

These things tell time without a battery, and aren't something that will
distract you and cut into your attention like a smart watch.

I use my phone, I appreciate it, but I also realize it cuts into attention and
concentration, and in some ways, liked it better when it did not exist. I
don't want a second phone doing the same thing to the way I think in long-
form, and I definitely don't want a watch I have to remember to check the
battery on every day. There are times when I'd like to have a dumb phone
again, really.

~~~
mariodiana
Seiko makes good mechanical watches and uses in-house movements, no?

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leanthonyrn
I would love to have an e-Strap that coordinates with my $1000 mechanical
Robert Weil watch. If the e-strap came from Montblanc, Google, Apple, or
pebble I would not mind. As long as it matched and gave me usable
functionality. Also, when I sent it in to Robert Weil for service, they
respected the e-Strap, even if it was from Montblanc.

~~~
hauget
Wow. I just found out about the e-strap. Sadly I don't think Montblanc will
get it right unless developers embrace it. This is exactly the kind of
innovation watchmakers should embrace though! I'd love to keep wearing my
trusty G-Shock while taking advantage of everything smartwatches/fitness
trackers have to offer.

~~~
leanthonyrn
I wish Apple, Google, and pebble would embrace the e(i)-strap and leave the
timepiece, front-facing jewelry, to the watchmakers.

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snambi
Come on. A rolex is a rolex is a rolex. Apple watch and Google watches will be
dirt cheap in 10years time. These digital stuff cannot and will not withstand
the impact of time.

~~~
JohnTHaller
Android Watches can be had brand new for $50 on sale today. Smart watches are
designed to be disposable, just like smart phones are. Your average <$100
automatic watch will be functional, useful, and good looking longer than the
$10,000+ Apple Watch Edition.

------
wereHamster
Just a few hours ago I was sitting in a Starbucks in Zurich and a group of
american tourists came in to enjoy some coffee and present each other the new
watches they had bought just before. I have no idea why they decided to buy
those watches... but, I guess, I should say thanks for helping to save the
watch businesses?

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Atropos
I guess it depends on how productive the smart watches become. Maybe 10-15
years ago, you could still find politicians openly state that they do not use
computers, that they never read emails but only get them printed out by their
secretaries, that they do not own or use a mobile phone... Nowadays, that is
not very common anymore, and I don't believe it is the generational change
alone, I believe it is due to a change of the cultural attitude, not engaging
with technology like email or mobile phones makes you seem backwards and even
a bit incompetent. Maybe "smart watch" vs "dumb watch" will turn out the same?
But I guess nothing precludes the Swiss watchmakers from producing expensive
smart watches, that will be both functional and a fashion statement.

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SeanLuke
I don't understand. This article is essentially a veneration of someone who's
proposing a virtually identical copy of the Withings Activite. Does Withings
really have no patent or copyright protection here? Did the article author
purposely ignore the fact that what's being proposed not only is not new, but
already exists in a well-regarded product?

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fla
More than survive, I'm persuaded it can innovate by taking the best of both
worlds.

------
krisroadruck
people who are interested in one of these:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmxLAZZ2fhM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmxLAZZ2fhM)
don't give a crap about the apple watch.

~~~
atmosx
You can buy a Tesla but you can not match the beauty and 'statement' this
babe[1] makes when entering the scene. Accordingly, you'll probably be wearing
something like this [2] instead of ugly digital watch.

Well put, people who can afford a Rolex, a Breguet, etc. Don't give a damn
about some silly digital toy.

[1] [http://www.astonmartin.com/en/heritage/past-
models/db5](http://www.astonmartin.com/en/heritage/past-models/db5)

[2]
[http://www.breguet.com/en/timepieces/classique/5140](http://www.breguet.com/en/timepieces/classique/5140)

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fizixer
Swiss watchmaking will definitely survive. (See also: flint-knapping)

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27182818284
Hilariously I know a clocksmith that pivoted from repairing watches to
repairing Apple products (iPhones, MacBooks, etc)

Now he is poised to be right back in his old business :)

