People that like to call themselves hard-core watch collectors prefer mechanical watches over their quartz cousins. There is just something special about a mechanical watch, you can actually see the components of the watch (if there is a display case-back) doing their thing without the aid of any electronics. Everything is so pure and manual.
As much as we love our mechanical/automatic watches, there is a big drawback to these watches. That is, the accuracy of keeping time. The best of the best mechanical watches are probably accurate to one second per day, but most luxury watches are accurate to +/- 5 seconds per day (COSC certified). A cheap quartz watch on the other hand is probably accurate to +/- 0.5 seconds per day and that accuracy improves as you go into the higher-end watches.
If you own a higher-end mechanical watch, you need to take them to a watchmaker/service person once every few years to get them checked for accuracy with an electronic timing tool. Or you could get the all-new and revolutionary Urwerk EMC watch, which comes with a built-in electric module to measure the mechanical movement’s accuracy and manually adjust it. EMC, Electro Mechanical Control, is the world’s first watch to offer this feature.
To keep the purists happy, the Urwerk EMC watch’s electronic components don’t use batteries, instead, there’s a Maxon generator that provides energy to the electric components when the user turns the foldable hand-crank. The user turns the hand-crank a few times and after a few seconds the left sub-dial on the case shows how accurate the watch is. The sub-dial shows how much the watch is off by, up to +/- 20 seconds per day. There’s a screw driver provided which lets the user adjust the balance wheel to bring the watch’s accuracy back to as close to spec as possible. This is a pretty impressive watch with a never before seen feature, it’s even more impressive if you’re a watch geek like myself.
The watch itself comes in a 41mm wide x 51mm high x 15.8mm thick titanium/steel case with sapphire crystal on the front and back. It’s powered by a hand-wound mechanical movement with 80 hour power reserve and water resistant to 30 meters. The Urwerk EMC watches will be limited to 55 pieces only at a price of $120,000. Via: Urwerk
Urwerk EMC Watch Photo Gallery
