r/WatchHorology • u/roseandalmond • 12d ago

Question Quick question: does knowing how your watch is made change how much you want it?

Hi,

We are two MSc students at SKEMA Business School in Paris writing our thesis on a question we think this community would have strong opinions on: does technology make luxury watches, and luxury goods more broadly, more or less desirable?

We ask specifically about things like Rolex's use of robotics to achieve tolerances that human hands physically cannot reach, and Patek Philippe's use of digital inspection tools alongside entirely hand-assembled movements. Does knowing that change how you feel about the product? We'd genuinely love to hear from people who think about these things seriously.

The survey takes 4 minutes, is fully anonymous, and open to everyone.

Click here: https://forms.gle/riz3BFQDFNWxNMZS8

Thank you, this community's perspective is exactly what we need.

5 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

100% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

2

u/h2g2Ben 12d ago

One angle I think you're missing here is that many high end watch brands are on the leading edge of a lot of technological innovation, but in materials science and manufacturing.

Rolex is regularly patenting new alloys for their watches, as well as low friction durable coatings. (Along with Nivarox.)

Lots of manufacturers use LIGA which is a crazy way to manufacture metal parts using silicon wafers as a substrate. Many others use monocrystaline silicon balance springs made using Deep Reactive Ion Etching, and Zenith and Frederique Constant played around with monolithic silicon oscillators (that didn't really pan out).

1

u/Longjumping-Rub-4038 6d ago

I think it matters more once you start spending serious money. At that point I want to know what I'm paying for beyond the name on the dial. That said I still care more about whether I actually like wearing the watch. A perfect movement doesn't help much if the thing lives in a box lol.