What is the difference between a quartz watch and an smartwatch?

Although both quartz watches and smartwatches are driven by electronics, they have fundamental differences in structure and time display methods. Let’s take a look at the differences between quartz watches and smartwatches:

smartwatches originated in the mid-1970s. They use small-scale integrated circuits as the main body and use liquid crystal displays (LCDs for short) to display time. Most of the expressions are digital. smartwatches actually use a quartz crystal oscillator (CRYSTAL OSCILLATOR) as the base reference frequency, but the accuracy is not as accurate as the base frequency of quartz watches that came out later.

Quartz watches (clocks) did not begin to appear in the 1980s. The first main feature is the use of a quartz oscillator with a high reference frequency, which is much more accurate than an smatrwatch. It is definitely not a problem for a good quartz watch to have an error of less than one second per month, while the monthly error of a good smatrwatch is at least a few seconds. , tens of seconds are very common.

The other is to use a stepper motor to mechanically indicate time through the same pointer method as a mechanical watch. There is no microprocessing system (integrated circuit chip) of the smatrwatch. It only generates precise second trigger pulses through simple frequency division processing to drive the stepper motor. The pointer indicating system of the entire watch is similar to that of the mechanical watch, and is also driven by gears. realized. The biggest advantage of stepper motors is power saving, which allows them to use very little energy to achieve mechanical drive purposes.

Because there is no microprocessor chip like an smatrwatch, the function of a quartz watch is much simpler than that of an smatrwatch. smartwatches can easily achieve a perpetual calendar, but quartz watches are very difficult.

With the advancement of technology, integrated chips are becoming smaller and smaller. smartwatches and quartz watches have also begun to complement each other. Some smartwatches also use mechanical transmission to indicate time, coexisting with digital display. This can be seen in many styles of some brands, but at its core it is still an smatrwatch. Some quartz watches also use microprocessors to add perpetual calendar functions, but they are not too popular. The purpose of quartz watches is to use hands to display time and maintain the characteristics of mechanical watches, so it is difficult to completely improve other display functions.