The Accutron

Accuracy improved, albeit not in spectacular leaps and bounds. Then the Accutron, with its tuning fork resonator, saw the light of day. This marked a major advance in watch precision. This type of watch was also the outcome of a lengthy development process. First of all, the tuning fork resonator - ostensibly very simple - embodies thermal compensation, frequency adjustment, symmetry and a transducer providing stable amplitude. In this respect, it remains a technological marvel; the device that counts the vibrations of the tuning fork is also a wondrous feat of miniaturisation. The resonator of the Mosaba watch which later came onto the market still compensated for the frequency of the tuning fork in the gravitational field. The first of these movements featured a differential time zone device while the other featured a chronograph. To some extent, they signalled the end of an era of products housing a complex mechanical part that drew fully on the traditional craft of watchmaking. It also ushered in an era of automatic chronograph watches which epitomised this mechanical complexity and which would subsequently lose ground to a higher-performance watch: the quartz watch.