The watch industry’s big powwow - More Japanese and more global - Part 4 of 4

Twenty-five years ago, Seiko exhibited for the first time in Basel. This was not, however, the first time that the Swiss had heard about this Japanese giant. At the end of 1969, ten years after the debut of the mysterious ‘Projet 59A’, Seiko was the winner of the final sprint. On Christmas Day, the Japanese company introduced the Quartz Astron.
This first quartz watch would dramatically alter the global watch industry forever. And, this year at BaselWorld, in celebration of the 40-year anniversary of this major event, Seiko presented the replica of its historic timepiece. Available in a limited series of 200 pieces, it is priced at €4,300. The Astron Commemorative Edition has been described by its designers as “the best quartz movement ever made”. The Calibre 9F is accurate to within 10 seconds over an entire year—something that has never before been seen in a wristwatch. The movement’s quartz crystals are individually chosen and tested and their performance characteristics are then individually fed into the watch’s integrated circuits, thus compensating for any possible tiny variations. Thanks to another integrated circuit, which delivers two pulses per second instead of only one, the Calibre 9F can drive heavier and longer hands, thus conferring upon the watch the allure of a mechanical timekeeper. The precision of the display has also been re-visited. The second hand aligns itself perfectly to each second marker, obtained thanks to the addition of a ‘backlash auto adjustment system’ based on a balance spring!

QUARTZ ASTRON THE COMMEMORATIVE EDITION and ANANTA SPRING DRIVE MOONPHASE by Seiko

The new Quartz Astron is thus not an exact replica of its ancestor in the strict sense of the term but rather is a demonstration of the cross-platform technological and mechanical savoir-faire of Seiko. The large Japanese company is continuing then, after the launch of the Spring Drive, to increase the synergy of its areas of expertise. This year, the Spring Drive technology is adding two very lovely elitist models to the Ananta collection—the Ananta SD Moon Phase and the Ananta SD Chronograph (prices at €4,000 and €6,300, respectively). In a move to demonstrate even further the Japanese stylistic and cultural aspects of the Ananta, the new Ananta SD Moon Phase offers a movement that is distinguished by its architecture and its very evocative and splendid ‘moon-beam’ finishing.
Moreover, the strategic decision of Seiko to gradually move upmarket, to affirm its immense heritage (the brand was founded in 1881), and to enhance its international image, has been confirmed with the introduction of the Grand Seiko Collection into the global marketplace. This represents the best of Seiko’s traditional mechanical watches, a line originally launched in 1960 and selectively reserved until now for the Japanese market only.
In another domain, that of technological research and development, Seiko continues its advanced research on electronic ink with the second generation of this very advanced and precise technology. The first Electronic Ink (or Electrophoretic Display) was awarded the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie in Geneva in 2006 in its category. At that time, it had only a few hundred pre-positioned black and white segments, while the display of this new generation of electronic ink comprises 80,000 pixels each with four tones of grey. The resulting 300-dpi resolution (the quality of a print image) allows for amazing precision and a very high definition display in the small space of the dial—oops, excuse me—of the screen. This makes it poss-ible to display numbers, letters and images. We can imagine the multiple functions that might arise as well as the resulting user-friendliness of the watch. In the medium-term, at least, this will totally upset the traditional digital display and sweep away the ‘labyrinthine’ presentations of many watch-instruments.
When it comes to innovation, Seiko is not stopping with its electronic ink. It is actively developing a line of solar watches with the stated aim of eliminating the need for batteries. Solar should thus gradually replace quartz.
Without a doubt, the wealth of its offer, ranging from the prestige mechanical timepiece to the electronic ink display, is certainly one of Seiko’s strengths, but it is also one of its weaknesses—or more exactly, it is one of the brand’s marketing handicaps. Contrary to the Swatch Group that can position its different brands in a complementary fashion, Seiko regroups almost all of its varied offer under one single umbrella (with the exception of sub-brands like Lorus, Pulsar or Alba). As far as the Swatch Group goes, the consumer probably does not even know that Certina, for example, belongs to the same group as Breguet. But when it comes to Seiko, this same consumer does not have a clear image of the company, where one proposal and its opposites are all lumped together under the same roof.
Seiko’s current efforts to enhance and improve its international image, which emphasizes its Japanese roots, its historical legitimacy, and its vast savoir-faire, should help get the message across to public about the large palette of its offer.

EPD stands for Electrophoretic Display, a method of display with electronic ink technology. Electronic ink is a proprietary material that is processed into a film for integration into electronic displays. Although revolutionary in concept, electronic ink is a straightforward fusion of chemistry, physics and electronics to create this new material. The principal components of electronic ink are millions of tiny microcapsules, about the diameter of a human hair. Each micro­capsule contains negatively charged white particles and positively charged black particles suspended in a clear fluid. When a negative electric field is applied, the white particles move to the top of the microcapsule where they become visible to the user. This makes the surface appear white at that spot. At the same time, an opposite electric field pulls the black particles to the bottom of the microcapsules where they are hidden. By reversing this process, the black particles appear at the top of the capsule, which now makes the surface appear dark at that spot.

The visit continues
The grand watchmaking powwow at Basel-World was a vast, heterogeneous, colourful, and sometimes noisy place. It was a theatre where egos intermingled, a scene where all the tribes appear under the sunlights, each in its own way. For those whom we did not cover in this article, please do not be upset. It is impossible to report on everything at the show. We apologize in advance for not having enough space for everyone. We will, however, come back to many brands over the course of the year. In the meantime, the visit to BaselWorld continues on the following pages with articles by Sophie Furley, Malcolm Lakin and Keith Strandberg. Other brands, tribes and people are waiting for you.

• Part 1 of 4 – The watch industry’s big powwow
• Part 2 of 4 – Modern times
• Part 3 of 4 – Cleansing the eyes

Source: Europa Star June - July 2010 Magazine Issue