I don’t understand why most quartz watches are stuck with ticking second hands rather than smooth sweep second hands. I prefer quartz movements for their dramatically superior accuracy, but I also prefer the look of a smooth sweep second hand. I have yet to see a convincing explanation for why quartz second hands must tick beyond vague gesturing at power saving, but not only that, I have seen sweeping second hands on inexpensive quartz wall clocks from IKEA, so it’s clearly possible.
I regret to say I’ve started to think that ticking second hands on quartz watches are essentially cartelized marketing on the part of watchmakers to easily distinguish less expensive but technologically superior quartz movements from luxury-branded mechanical movements. Can anybody talk me out of this conspiratorial thinking, or confirm it?
Not sure if you’ve noticed but those tend to be quite a bit larger than the average watch. So putting a normal sized battery in them isn’t much of a challenge. Which means power isn’t much of a concern. It’s also vastly easier to change batteries in a wall clock, compared to a watch.
Fair enough. It’s very possible (even likely, I guess) that I just don’t understand the technical constraints. But it seems like it ought to be surmountable.
As I wrote in reply to another comment, most mechanical movements translate the stepwise movement of a governor through a series of interlocking gears to achieve a smooth motion, it seems like something like that could be applicable without draining too much additional power.