Five Reasons to Buy a Radio Controlled Watch

Driven by an increasing demand for excellence and punctuality, the quartz wrist watch has become a stable time piece for anybody with a need to be on time. Since the first commercial quartz watch became available in 1969 the technology has gone from strength to strength while becoming ever smaller. Quartz movements can now be found everywhere from toasters to calculators.

However some readers will remember a time when mechanical watches were championed as super accurate and reliable. Unfortunately in modern times, the accuracy achieved for the cost of such a device makes a quartz watch the obvious choice, but is the quartz watch walking in to a trap? We look at five reasons why radio controlled watches are here to say.

1. Super accurate timekeeping. Needless to say, this had to be top of the list. A radio controlled watch retrieves the current time from a radio transmitter with time sourced from an atomic clock. One can even match chimes on their radio station to the time on this watch.

2. Ease of use. More often or not (due to quality control reasons) one receives their new watch already running. With a quartz movement this normally means the watch will be ticking on arrival but with a completely wrong time. This problem is alleviated with a radio controlled device which normally arrives fully set and ready to go!

3. Very little maintenance. Most people will remember a nightmare caused by daylight savings. Now wouldn’t it be great if your watch could automatically update? Great news, most modern radio controlled watches do. Never turn up an hour early again.

4. Now affordable. Why haven’t these devices taken over already? Well up until recently the technology wasn’t affordable or justifiable, a larger than normal radio controlled wrist watch could have cost upwards of £1000. But with devices available for less than £100 and costs decreasing it is only a matter of time before the revolution begins.

5. Incredibly cool. Maybe this should have been number one. Everybody has an inner geek. But a watch controlled by radio signals? Surely that appeals even the most macho of people. It may just have something to do with the innate curiosity of the human race.

So there we have it. Five great reasons to own a radio controlled watch. The days of quartz are definitely numbered — at least until people are carrying atomic clocks on their wrists!