
Timex Is Making Watches in America Again - ycombonator
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-26/timex-american-documents-watches-bring-manufacturing-back-to-u-s
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AmVess
The question is why? It's a $20 movement in a poorly finished case. The most
important part of the watch isn't made in the USA. It's a $50 product being
sold for $500.

Further, it completely misses the point of what made Timex famous to begin
with; excellent quality at a low price. This is neither.

For $500, they are going up against some vastly superior products. For
example, this cannot hold a candle to any similarly priced Seiko.

The price is, frankly, insulting. It would be an iffy sell at $50, but at
$500, this has complete failure written all over it.

~~~
bouncing
Questions of cost and "why" apply broadly to the whole category of watches. Up
until the late 70s, watches were tools to keep you from being late.

Since then, you've been able to get a cheap, reliable watch for next to
nothing. Quartz movement, combined with mechanization of production, ensured
that. The whole industry had to adapt to making watches themselves sort of an
aesthetic statement, not a practical tool to keep you from being late.

At this point, any watch costing more than $25 is itself an aesthetic piece.
Part of that aesthetic is where and how it's made. There's probably a market
for watches made in Antarctica because of whatever sense of taste that "story"
appeals to.

~~~
logfromblammo
Who is supposed to be wearing these wristwatches? I can comprehend the use
case for wrist-worn electronics devices that do more than just tell time, but
we have mostly gone back to pocketwatches now--pocketwatches with a rounded-
rectangular form factor that also function as telephones, cameras, notepads,
maps, compasses, calculators, game consoles, and televisions.

As adornments go, I also think that handing over $500 to a local jewelry
artist would get you a better bracelet.

The mechanical-movement wristwatch is obsolete. Bring on the Pip-Boy.

~~~
craigsmansion
Obsolete? Not by a long shot, even if by a narrow margin.

Wristwatches _do_ tell the time, and a decent mechanical one will do so far
far longer than any electronics device, even high end quartz wristwatches.

~~~
bouncing
What do you mean? Original quartz watches are still working, are they not? Do
we have a good idea of how long they'll last?

Not having any moving parts would generally mean a quartz movement will be
more durable.

~~~
craigsmansion
> Original quartz watches are still working, are they not?

Barely, and replacement parts (and sometimes even appropriate batteries) can
be extremely hard to source.

> Not having any moving parts

Electronics are brittle and do degrade over time. As I observe them, they last
about 20 to 30 years realistically. Early mass produced commercial quartz
watches are prized collector items, whereas mechanical watches from before the
quartz revolution are easy to find in perfect working condition.

~~~
logfromblammo
Technically, quartz piezoelectric-movements do vibrate.

Equally technically, non-functional mechanical-movement watches from before
piezoelectric-movement are also easy to find in garbage heaps and bankrupted
watch-repair shops, and the "perfect working condition" of the functional ones
are possibly a result of Ship-of-Theseus-style maintenance. Note that
mechanical timepiece repair is a somewhat less viable business than it once
was, and able to support only a tiny fraction of workers as it once did.

Quartz watches have fewer individual repair parts available, because the
typical repairs are to replace the battery and to replace the entire movement.
Now, it is reasonable to consider the repair part for a broken quartz watch to
be a newly-manufactured watch, and the repair procedure is to remove the
broken watch from your wrist and replace it with the working new one.

Mechanical watches are certainly useless when removed from Earth, whereas
electronic timepieces may be reprogrammed to display the numbers of a
different timekeeping convention.

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4thaccount
Interesting article on doing more manufacturing in America. The problem is
that this is an extremely expensive and niche product.

I want slightly more expensive products made in the USA and I'll pay a premium
for it, but nothing astronomical.

If I can pay 20% more on coffee and chocolate to make sure the farmers were
paid a living wage, we can do similar things in the US. I understand that US
wages are much higher and make this more difficult, but it would be a step in
the right direction. Globalism has brought down prices and made many things
very cheap and affordable, but at what cost?

I'd like comments from anyone with more understanding of the issues.

~~~
keeganjw
Watches are a weird market in that a $30 one from Walmart keeps better time
than pretty much any watch from a luxury brand costing $5000 or more. $500 is
way more than the average person will spend on a watch but once you get into
the watch world a little bit you start to become numb to prices and all of a
sudden $500 seems dirt cheap. I don't think this is targeted to a normal
person, but the type of people who already own tens of thousands of dollars in
watches and will buy this as a novelty with out even blinking. It's a weird
and very rich (elitist) market.

~~~
galangalalgol
A thermally compensated crystal is one or two orders of magnitude more
accurate than a ten dollar Casio or Timex. Less than one second per year.

That said, mostly you are right, a 5 million dollar patek will sell a few
copies to someone...

It's good to be king I guess.

~~~
anthonybsd
[http://www.sapphytimes.com/movement/ephoto_show.asp?PhotoID=...](http://www.sapphytimes.com/movement/ephoto_show.asp?PhotoID=1405)

This is just "normal" price. For a large production you can get an even larger
discount. It's still a cheap movement.

~~~
ljcn
And that's a standard quartz; the specs say -10 to 20 s/month.

Still ~10x more accurate than a mechanical watch, but not ~200x more accurate
as thermocompensated ones are (as mentioned in the message you were replying
to).

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glvn
I don't understand this watch. It has a Ronda cal.6004.D movement which is a
Swiss Quarts movement. Not that the Ronda movement is a bad movement, there
are just so much better options out there for the same price. Why not go with
an ETA? And if you're going to advertise that your watch has a "Swiss
Movement", why go for a Quartz movement over an Automatic or Hand-Wind.

On top of all that, it's $500. Now $500 for a watch isn't that much in the
watch world considering how many watches are $1-10K+, but compare this watch
to a Seiko SARB. The SARB has 100m water resistance, a 50hr automatic
movement, and comes in at >$100 cheaper.

Unless you're a Timex fanboy or collector, I really can't recommend this watch
over other similar options.

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ggm
I loved my first timex. I lost it in a swimming pool in Les Eyzes, in france
in the early 1970s. It lost 10min a month minimum and I had a NATO watch strap
which stank of stale boy sweat.

I bought a replacement in the 1980s. It was fantastic. It was identical, lost
the same ten minutes a month, had the same sweaty stank on the NATO strap. I
lost it in a swimming pool in Swiss Cottage London.

I bought the Timex Watch Will Farrell wears in the film, the ironman. It was
fantastic. Somehow, I haven't managed to lose it in a swimming pool.
Unfortunately, indiglo kind-of sucks, and it lost its alarm function, and I
had to move to another watch

(I went J Springs, and I love it and it loses 10 minutes a month...)

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logotype
I’m a developer and a total watch nerd (mechanical watches). Partly what
attracts me to watches is the micro-mechanics, but also how it’s a mix of
artistry, craftmanship and old technology and know-how. I often post on
Instagram, please have a look and hope you like the content:
[https://www.instagram.com/openworked/](https://www.instagram.com/openworked/)

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maxxxxx
That’s a nice looking watch. If it had an automatic movement I may seriously
consider getting one.

~~~
ImprovedSilence
Agree completely. However I’m pretty sure theres a cartel (ETA?) for automatic
Swiss movements that Timex doesn’t want to cater to. Which basically leaves
this watch in the “overpriced fashion” category. And they probably don’t want
an Asian movement cuz that appears cheap (although there’s some good ones out
there).

I think it’d be awesome to see a USA made movement again in this price point,
but I’m not holding my breath.

~~~
wrigby
ETA is owned by Swatch group, which owns a ton of watch brands[1], including
Hamilton, which I would say competes head-to-head with the most Timex pieces
(at least in the $500 price range).

There are other Swiss automatic movement makers though, like Sellita (the
SW200 is basically an ETA 2824[2]).

1: [https://www.swatchgroup.com/en/brands-
companies](https://www.swatchgroup.com/en/brands-companies)

2:
[https://www.christopherward.com/etasellitastory.html](https://www.christopherward.com/etasellitastory.html)

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Zigurd
It's for the hipster/nativist niche. Automatic (probably Swatch). Made in
America (in big letters on the face, but the movement is ETA/AXIA/Ronda or
other Swiss maker).

I guess premium-ish-but-not-really PBR is next, brewed by some previously
"craft" brewer gobbled up by a mutual parent company. Oh man. A little
googling reveals the horrifying plausibility of that.

As the watch connoisseurs have pointed out it's not really a moderately priced
premium product. It's a cheap product with pumped-up margins so it can get
internally green lighted because the margin contribution will be enough to
move the needle a bit.

You see a lot of the same in clothing e-commerce: Stuff that's not unique, not
especially high quality, and shockingly expensive for what you get because it
hit a hip vibe.

