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Seiko

Innovation

Quartz Movement

On December 25, 1969, Seiko released the world’s first quartz watch, the Seiko Quartz ASTRON. The watch uses a crystal oscillator at its core for accuracy, where the crystal generate steady vibration when voltage is applied to it. During the ten years of development period at Suwa Seikosha, Seiko manage to create many parts which enabled viable application of quartz on wristwatch. For example, Seiko cut the crystal oscillator into the shape of a tuning-fork, developed integrated circuit and step motor to properly operate the signals from the crystal oscillator.

Additional to creating the parts that enabled quartz watch, Seiko did not monopolized the patent rights for the unique pieces, but decided to open it to the world, with a vision to change the future of watches.

In 1973, Seiko announced the world’s first LCD quartz watch with six-digit digital display.

In 1975, Seiko launched the world’s first multi-function digital watch, the 0634.

In 1978, Seiko released the Twin Quartz watch to address the impact of temperature on the frequency of the quartz crystal oscillator, which put a limitation on the accuracy of quartz watch. Seiko put a second crystal in the watch that's linked with a processor that detects the change in temperature and signals the main oscillator to compensate. The result was a huge improve in the watch’s accuracy from 5 seconds per month to 5 seconds per year.

In 1988, Seiko combined the automatic with electric watch making with Seiko Kinetic, a movement that's powered by the user and convert the energy to electricity for the quartz movement.

Spring Drive

In 2005, Seiko Spring Drive was announced. It was developed by Yoshikazu Akahane and his team and inspired by Yoshikazu’s vision: “a watch wound by a mainspring and with one-second-a-day accuracy, a precision that only the finest electronic watches could deliver.” This movement achieved high accuracy with 1 second per day, long power reserve (72 hours) with its special developed alloy, fast winding with the “Magic Lever” design and glide-motion movement with the watch hands.

The movement uses a mainspring as a source of energy and transmits it through gear train just like a traditional mechanical watch, but instead of an escapement and balance wheel, Seiko used the newly developed Tri-synchro regulator, which acts like a quartz movement. The Tri-synchro regulator has three main function: controlling the mechanical energy of the mainspring, generate electricity for the crystal oscillator and generate a magnetic force to regulate the glide wheel. By replacing the traditional escapement with magnetic break, the Spring Drive operates with lower noise and present a glide motion hand that shows continuous flow of time.