A watch is a timepiece 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 or leather straps. A pocket watch is carried in a pocket, often attached to a chain. A stopwatch is a watch that measures intervals of time.
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 the world's first commercial quartz wristwatch in 1969.
Bulova is an American luxury timepiece manufacturing company that was founded in 1875 in New York City. The company makes watches, clocks and accessories.
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 Louis Brandt et Fils 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.
The Contrôle officiel suisse des Chronomètres (COSC), the Official Swiss Chronometer Testing Institute, is the institute responsible for certifying the accuracy and precision of Swiss watches.
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 jewelry division, which includes TAG Heuer and Hublot. Benoit de Clerck is the company's current president and CEO.
In horology, a tourbillion or tourbillon is an addition to the mechanics of a watch escapement to increase accuracy. Conceived by the British watchmaker and inventor John Arnold, it was developed by his friend the Swiss-French watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet and patented by Breguet on 26 June 1801. In a tourbillon, the escapement and balance wheel are mounted in a rotating cage, with the goal of eliminating errors of poise in the balance giving a uniform weight.
Citizen Watch Co., Ltd., also known as the Citizen Group, 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. Beyond watches, Citizen also manufactures calculators, printers, health care devices, and precision CNC machining equipment.
Automatic quartz is a collective term describing watch movements that combine a self-winding rotor mechanism to generate electricity with a piezoelectric quartz crystal as its timing element. Such movements aim to provide the advantages of quartz without the inconvenience and environmental impact of batteries. Several manufacturers employ this technique.
Seiko Group was a Japanese corporate group consisting of three core companies Seiko Holdings Corp., Seiko Instruments Inc. and Seiko Epson Corp. The three companies were linked by a common thread of timepiece technology. In the present day, the Seiko Group is recognized as a corporate group composed of Seiko Group Corporation and its subsidiaries and affiliates. Although Epson still develops and manufactures wristwatches for the Seiko Group, Epson and its subsidiaries are not considered part of the group.
The quartz crisis (Swiss) or quartz revolution was the advancement 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. The strategy employed by Swiss makers was to call this revolution a 'crisis' thereby downgrading the advancement from Japanese brands.
Montres Corum Sàrl, commonly referred to as Corum, is a Swiss watchmaker based in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Canton of Neuchâtel. Founded in 1955, it makes high-price watches, many of which are limited editions. The benchmark watch series for Corum is its "Admiral's Cup" series. The company is owned by Hong Kong–based Citychamp Watch & Jewellery Group Limited together with Eterna. Both of these Swiss watch companies are managed by a management committee composed of Yeznig Magdhessian, Soon Boon Chong & Maxime Ranzoni.
Eterna is a Swiss watch company founded in Grenchen, Canton Solothurn, on 7 November 1856 by Josef Girard and Urs Schild. The company is now owned by Hong Kong–based Citychamp Watch & Jewellery Group Limited, an investment holding company formerly known as China Haidian Holdings.
Universal Genève SA is a Swiss luxury watch company, founded in 1894 as Universal Watch. It is a subsidiary of Breitling SA. Since its beginnings, the company has produced complete watches with in-house movements. Along with neighboring Geneva companies Audemars Piguet, Girard-Perregaux, Patek Philippe and Rolex, Universal is internationally regarded for its style of craftsmanship as a manufacture d'horlogerie. Universal Genève is known for creating the first-ever chronograph in 1917.
Gallet (ˈgæl.eɪ) is a historic Swiss manufacturer of high-end timepieces for professional, military, sports, racing, and aviation use. Gallet is the world's oldest clock making house with history dating back to Humbertus Gallet, a clock maker who became a citizen of Geneva in 1466. It is one of the oldest continuously operating companies in the World. The Gallet & Cie name was officially registered by Julien Gallet (1806–1849) in 1826, who moved the family business from Geneva to La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. Prior to this date, operations commenced under the name of each of the Gallet family patriarchs.
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.
Juvenia is a luxury Swiss watch manufacturer located in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. It is one of the few Swiss watch companies to have manufactured watches without interruption since its creation. The brand is currently owned by Hong Kong group Asia Commercial Holdings Ltd.
Solvil et Titus is a formerly Swiss, now Hong-Kong watch company and brand, founded in 1887 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Neuchâtel, Switzerland by Paul Ditisheim and developed by Paul Bernard Vogel.
The Omega Marine Chronometer was the first quartz wristwatch ever to be awarded certified status as a marine chronometer. The watch was made by Omega SA and developed by John Othenin-Girard and is one of the most accurate non thermo-compensated production watches ever made, keeping time to within 1 second per month
The Omega Electroquartz was introduced in 1969 as the first Swiss quartz watch to be produced. It was the collaboration of 20 Swiss watch companies and the movement was utilised by Rolex, Patek Phillipe and Omega amongst others. The Beta 21 movement used in the Electroquartz was accurate to 5 seconds per month, far better than any automatic or manual wind movement of the day.
