How the Swiss save their watches from the smartwatch

April 28, 2020

Smartwatches are about as hot a topic for Swiss watch manufacturers as Napster for the music industry or Kino.to for the film industry. The path goes towards intelligence in the clock, that much is clear. But here worlds, oh what, universes meet. Because a mechanical watch from Switzerland can easily and easily cost a five-digit sum – after all, it counts as an investment. You can wear or collect them – and sell them like real jewelry again and again for a lot of money.

Smartwatches, on the other hand, are electronic waste after a few years, if at all. Just as you don't currently want to walk around with a three or four year old smartphone, you won't want to wear an “old watch” on your wrist in the future. Because while the large and small hands have not changed in the last hundred years, battery capacity, bandwidth, screen resolutions and sensor capabilities are growing faster than Kino.to has slowed down DVD sales.

Back to the Swiss: You can sit out the topic. Have you ever done it when the quartz watches came from Japan. You can find out what happened back then on Wikipedia under the keyword Quartz crisis read up. In a nutshell: within just under 20 years, the number of employees in the watch industry fell by two thirds, the number of companies fell from 1600 (1970) to 600 (today).

So doing nothing is not necessarily wise. Simply any smartwatch with Android Wear on the market shit sorry, bring, and write Rolex on it, but not either. That could harm the brand – and it would probably be the first Rolex that is no longer worth anything after two years. Innovative solutions are therefore in demand – and if possible now and not only when Wikipedia also knows an article on the smartwatch crisis.

Tag Heuer takes an exciting approach. The Carrera Wearable 01 should cost 1100 euros and run with Android Wear. It has not yet been determined whether the watch will receive the coveted Swiss Made inscription and thus be officially ennobled to become a Swiss noble product. That the watch should be upgradeable however, yes. Tag Heuer has not yet announced exactly how this should work. But this smartwatch should "go with the times". Visually, it should be based on the Caliber Heuer 01 model (picture above).

Other manufacturers of high-quality watches are working on alternative solutions. IWC and Montblanc (the latter comes from Hamburg), for example, do not want to put the intelligence and sensors in the watch but in the bracelet – for example with the E-strap, a kind of watch clasp with display and smartphone connection.

Personally, I would also like a solution that combines mechanics with electronics. A mechanical clockwork with space for a display – or a display that is integrated into the watch glass and allows you to see the hands when it is switched off. Manufacturers are also welcome to pack the associated sensors in an interchangeable bracelet in order to be fit for the future.

What do you think, what happens with high-quality watches?

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