A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is designed to keep a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is designed to be worn around the wrist, attached by a watch strap or other type of bracelet, including metal bands, leather straps, or any other kind of bracelet. A pocket watch is designed for a person to carry in a pocket, often attached to a chain.
The Swatch Group Ltd is a Swiss manufacturer of watches and jewellery. The company was founded in 1983 by the merger of ASUAG and SSIH to move to manufacturing quartz-crystal watches to resolve the quartz crisis threatening the traditional Swiss watchmaking industry.
Seiko Group Corporation, commonly known as Seiko, is a Japanese maker of watches, clocks, electronic devices, semiconductors, jewelry, and optical products. Founded in 1881 by Kintarō Hattori in Tokyo, Seiko introduced world's first commercial quartz wristwatch in 1969.
Breitling SA is a Swiss luxury watchmaker founded in 1884 in Saint-Imier, Switzerland, by Léon Breitling. The company is known for its precision-made chronometers designed for aviators and is based in Grenchen, Switzerland.
Omega SA is a Swiss luxury watchmaker based in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland. Founded by Louis Brandt in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1848, the company formerly operated as La Generale Watch Co. until incorporating the name Omega in 1903, becoming Louis Brandt et Frère-Omega Watch & Co. In 1984, the company officially changed its name to Omega SA and opened its museum in Biel/Bienne to the public. Omega is a subsidiary of The Swatch Group.
A chronograph is a specific type of watch that is used as a stopwatch combined with a display watch. A basic chronograph has an independent sweep second hand and a minute sub-dial; it can be started, stopped, and returned to zero by successive pressure on the stem. More complex chronographs use additional complications and can have multiple sub-dials to measure seconds, minutes, hours and even fractions of a second. In addition, many modern chronographs use moveable bezels as tachymeters for rapid calculations of speed or distance. Louis Moinet invented the chronograph in 1816 for use in tracking astronomical objects. Chronographs were also used heavily in artillery fire in the mid to late 1800s. More modern uses of chronographs involve aircraft piloting, auto racing, diving and submarine maneuvering.
Swatch is a Swiss watchmaker founded in 1983 by Ernst Thomke, Elmar Mock, and Jacques Müller. It is a subsidiary of The Swatch Group. The Swatch product line was developed as a response to the "quartz crisis" of the 1970s and 1980s, in which inexpensive, battery-powered, quartz-regulated watches were competing against more established European watchmakers, focused on artisanal craftsmanship producing mostly mechanical watches.
Valjoux is a Swiss manufacturer of mechanical watch movements. It is known primarily for chronograph ébauche movements that are used in a number of mid- to high-range mechanical watches. The company is a part of ETA, and is a member of the Swatch Group. They are also the movement providers for early Rolex Daytonas such as 6263.
ETA SA Manufacture Horlogère Suisse designs and manufactures quartz watches and both hand-wound and automatic-winding mechanical ébauches and movements. Commonly referred to as ETA, the company is headquartered in Grenchen, Switzerland, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Swatch Group.
Eco-Drive is a model range of watches manufactured and marketed worldwide by Citizen Watch Co., Ltd., powered primarily by light. As of 2007, the company estimated the drive system had eliminated the disposal of ten million batteries in North America.
Zenith SA is a Swiss luxury watchmaker. The company was started in 1865 by Georges Favre-Jacot in Le Locle in the canton of Neuchâtel and is one of the oldest continuously operating watchmakers. Favre-Jacot invented the concept of "in house movements", believing that only through control of the entire watchmaking process could the highest quality be achieved. Zenith was purchased by LVMH in November 1999, becoming one of several brands in its watch and jewellery division, which includes TAG Heuer and Hublot. Julien Tornare is President and CEO.
The Hamilton Watch Company is a Swiss manufacturer of wristwatches based in Bienne, Switzerland. Founded in 1892 as an American firm, the Hamilton Watch Company ended American manufacture in 1969. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, the Hamilton Watch Company eventually became integrated into the Swatch Group, the world's largest watch manufacturing and marketing conglomerate.
Spring Drive is a name given to a series of watch movements produced by Epson in Shiojiri. The concept of using a mainspring to power a quartz timing package was first conceived in 1977 by Yoshikazu Akahane at Suwa Seikosha. Specified to one second accuracy per day, the movement uses a conventional gear train as in traditional mechanical watches, but rather than an escapement and balance wheel, instead features Seiko's Tri-synchro Regulator system in which power delivery to the watch hands is regulated based on a reference quartz signal.
Citizen Watch Co., Ltd. is an electronics company primarily known for its watches and is the core company of a Japanese global corporate group based in Nishitokyo, Tokyo, Japan. In addition to Citizen brand watches, it is the parent of American watch company Bulova, and is also known for manufacturing small electronics such as calculators.
Blancpain SA is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer, headquartered in Paudex/Le Brassus, Switzerland. It designs, manufactures, distributes, and sells prestige and luxury mechanical watches. Founded by Jehan-Jacques Blancpain in Villeret, Switzerland in 1735, Blancpain is the oldest surviving watchmaking brand. Blancpain has been a subsidiary of the Swiss Swatch Group since 1992, and is regarded as a top-tier Swatch brand.
A mechanical watch is a watch that uses a clockwork mechanism to measure the passage of time, as opposed to quartz watches which function using the vibration modes of a piezoelectric quartz tuning fork, or radio watches, which are quartz watches synchronized to an atomic clock via radio waves. A mechanical watch is driven by a mainspring which must be wound either periodically by hand or via a self-winding mechanism. Its force is transmitted through a series of gears to power the balance wheel, a weighted wheel which oscillates back and forth at a constant rate. A device called an escapement releases the watch's wheels to move forward a small amount with each swing of the balance wheel, moving the watch's hands forward at a constant rate. The escapement is what makes the 'ticking' sound which is heard in an operating mechanical watch. Mechanical watches evolved in Europe in the 17th century from spring powered clocks, which appeared in the 15th century.
The quartz crisis was the upheaval in the watchmaking industry caused by the advent of quartz watches in the 1970s and early 1980s, that largely replaced mechanical watches around the world. It caused a significant decline of the Swiss watchmaking industry, which chose to remain focused on traditional mechanical watches, while the majority of the world's watch production shifted to Japanese companies such as Seiko, Citizen, and Casio which embraced the new electronic technology.
Certina S.A. is a Swiss watch brand founded in Grenchen in 1888 by Adolf and Alfred Kurth. It is part of the Swatch Group. All Certina watches bear the "Swiss Made" seal of origin.
The Omega Seamaster 200 Omegamatic is a midsize automatic quartz watch that Omega produced from 1997 until 2000. It has stainless steel case and bracelet, screw-in crown and caseback, engraved with the Omega Hippocamp logo, 200 meters water resistant, unidirectional bezel, silver or black dial with orange accents, sapphire crystal (anti-reflective) with magnifying (cyclops) date window, case diameter 36mm, 2.4V capacitor, rotor charging micro generator, quartz controlled stepper motor and quickset date function.
Quartz clocks and quartz watches are timepieces that use an electronic oscillator regulated by a quartz crystal to keep time. This crystal oscillator creates a signal with very precise frequency, so that quartz clocks and watches are at least an order of magnitude more accurate than mechanical clocks. Generally, some form of digital logic counts the cycles of this signal and provides a numerical time display, usually in units of hours, minutes, and seconds.
