Two Ways to Keep Time: Automatic and Quartz Explained

Like many enthusiasts, we love the romance of a beautifully engineered automatic watch. But we also have enormous respect for the incredible reliability and precision of modern quartz technology. Understanding the difference begins with understanding how they actually work.

How does an automatic movement work?
Imagine you have a little toy car powered by a spring. You wind it up, place it on the floor and let it go. As the spring slowly unwinds, it powers the wheels until all the stored energy has been used. An automatic watch works in much the same way.

Inside the watch is a tightly wound mainspring that stores energy. As you wear the watch, a small weighted rotor swings back and forth with every movement of your wrist. That rotor continually winds the mainspring, keeping it full of energy throughout the day.
The stored energy then passes through dozens of tiny gears before reaching the escapement - the heart of the movement - which releases the energy in perfectly timed pulses.

Those pulses move the hands around the dial. Every sweep of the second hand is the result of hundreds of miniature components working together entirely without batteries or electronics.

It is extraordinary engineering on an incredibly small scale.

The wonderful complexity of the Seiko NH35 movement

How does a quartz movement work?
A quartz watch approaches the same problem in a completely different way. Instead of storing energy in a spring, it gets its power from a small battery.

The battery sends electricity through a tiny crystal of quartz. One of quartz's remarkable properties is that it vibrates at an incredibly stable frequency whenever electricity passes through it—exactly 32,768 times every second.

A tiny electronic circuit simply counts those vibrations. Once it has counted 32,768 vibrations, it knows that exactly one second has passed and tells a tiny electric motor to move the hands forward. That's really all there is to it. No mainspring. No escapement. No hundreds of moving parts. Just a battery, a quartz crystal and some very clever electronics.

The result is astonishing accuracy combined with exceptional reliability.

The Seiko VK64 Meca-quartz chronograph movement as used by Enoksen across the Drive and Krono ranges

A little like cars...
The choice between automatic and quartz reminds us very much of what has happened in the automotive world. For more than a century, the internal combustion engine was the undisputed choice. People admired the engineering, the sound, the character and the mechanical complexity hidden beneath the bonnet.

Then came the electric car.

An electric vehicle is quieter, mechanically much simpler, requires far less maintenance and is generally more efficient. It may lack some of the theatre of a traditional petrol engine, but from a purely practical perspective it does many things better.
Watches have experienced much the same evolution.

An automatic movement is the beautifully engineered petrol engine. It is full of moving parts, craftsmanship and personality. A quartz movement is the electric motor: efficient, dependable, incredibly accurate and requiring very little attention. Neither is inherently better. They simply excel in different ways.

Same brand, same purpose, but worlds apart. A classic 1980s Porsche 911 Turbo and today's Porsche Taycan Turbo S.

The romance of the automatic movement
There is something deeply satisfying about wearing an automatic watch.
Knowing that it is powered entirely by springs, gears and your own movement creates a connection with centuries of traditional watchmaking.
Watching the second hand glide smoothly around the dial is part of that experience. It is not merely telling the time - it is demonstrating hundreds of tiny mechanical components working together in perfect harmony. For many enthusiasts, that emotional connection is reason enough to choose an automatic watch.

The reality of mechanical accuracy
That beauty does, however, come with compromises. Unlike quartz watches, mechanical movements are living mechanisms. Their accuracy changes depending on temperature, how active the wearer is, how much power remains in the mainspring, the position in which the watch rests overnight and even the effects of gravity.

For example, the Seiko NH35 movement used in many automatic watches is officially rated at between -20 and +40 seconds per day. Those figures often surprise people.
In practice, every hand-assembled automatic watch at Enoksen is carefully regulated before it leaves our workshop.

By adjusting each movement across five different positions, we typically improve performance to around ±6 seconds per day—bringing it remarkably close to chronometer standards.

Every automatic watch develops its own personality. Some consistently gain a few seconds each day. Others lose a few. Neither necessarily indicates a fault. It is simply the nature of mechanical timekeeping.

Regulation of an automatic movement. This is where we take a movement from Good to Great

Quartz: quiet precision
Quartz movements solve the same problem with far fewer compromises. Because they rely on the incredibly stable vibration of a quartz crystal rather than hundreds of moving parts, they are generally much more accurate.

Even an inexpensive quartz watch will often outperform a luxury mechanical watch when it comes to pure timekeeping.

Modern quartz movements also require very little maintenance and commonly run for between three and ten years on a single battery. There is a reason military personnel, emergency services and professional users around the world continue to rely on quartz watches. When reliability matters above all else, quartz is exceptionally difficult to beat.

Accuracy isn't everything
So why would anyone deliberately choose a watch that is technically less accurate?
Because watches stopped being purely about telling the time a long time ago.
Every smartphone synchronises itself with atomic clocks.
If perfect accuracy were all that mattered, very few of us would still wear wristwatches.
We wear them because they represent craftsmanship.
Because they tell stories. Because they connect us with history. Because they remind us that not everything beautiful has to be perfect.

Mechanical watches appeal to the heart. Quartz watches appeal to the head.

Fortunately, there is room for both. So which movement should you choose?

Ask yourself one simple question: What do I want this watch to do?

If you appreciate traditional craftsmanship, enjoy interacting with your watch and love the idea of wearing a miniature mechanical machine on your wrist, an automatic watch will reward you every time you look at it.

If your priorities are accuracy, reliability and minimal maintenance, quartz remains one of the greatest achievements in modern watchmaking.

At Enoksen, we no longer see automatic and quartz as competitors. We simply see two different solutions to the same challenge. One celebrates centuries of traditional engineering. The other embraces the remarkable precision of modern technology.

Both deserve their place in watchmaking. And whichever movement you choose, the best watch will always be the one you enjoy wearing every single day.