[PaulAJ]

Why would anyone want a mechanical watch? If you want an accurate timepiece, use a quartz oscillator. If you desire more accuracy, get something that sets itself by radio transmissions, or uses Bluetooth to synch with your smartphone that in turn uses NTP to set its internal clock.

AFAICT the only reason that people want a mechanical watch is to show how much money they have to waste.

[dmreedy]

There was a post on HN a couple years ago that I should probably have dug up instead of vaguely gesturing at, but here we are.

Anyway, it described the transition to digital technology as moving towards "magical rocks". They are amazing, perfect, and betray no hint as to their mechanism. They are excellent tools, in many ways better than their predecessors, but they don't tickle the brain the same way as a machine that wears its heart on its sleeve.

Everyone can have an intuition about how a mechanical watch works. You can see it right there, watching as the gears spin, the balance swings, the mainspring uncoils. It's alive. Like watching a steam engine. It takes a lot more knowledge, and a lot more trust in things unseen, to build intuition around how electronics work. And I'm not sure it's ever quite as evocative, even while being perhaps more amazing.

There are a million other arguments either way, but that's the one that's compelled me the most. And granted, I'm pretty biased, typing this with a mechanical watch on my wrist.

[kwhitefoot]

> There are a million other arguments either way, but that's the one that's compelled me the most. And granted, I'm pretty biased, typing this with a mechanical watch on my wrist.

Me too, except the bit about wearing a watch. I haven't worn one since my Seiko 5 died at about the same time that the magical rock telephones took off about 20 years ago.

Thanks for the 'magical rocks' phrase!

[Someguywhatever]

"magical rocks" I love it. Too bad you can't find the article. I am now googling "magical rocks" to see what I can get...

[clay_the_ripper]

That’s like saying a painting has no value because photographs now exist. Artistic value is real value. How an object is designed, makes you feel and how it looks and operates are all part of the experience of an object.

I realize you don’t see artistic value as actual value. But many people do.

[mikeash]

I see no point in mechanical watches, but I have a Soviet slide rule sitting on my shelf. People often enjoy things that are not particularly useful.

[tzs]

If I were to buy a watch, I'd want a wind-up mechanical watch with an alarm because the purpose of the watch would be backup when for some reason I cannot use my smartphone or my computer for timekeeping. The most likely scenario would be an extended power outage.

I could stick the watch in a drawer and completely forget about it for decades, and it would be ready to go to work when needed.

Unfortunately, I did not have the foresight to buy such a watch back in the late 70s or early 80s when such a watch was a near commodity item with mass market appeal, and priced accordingly. Now they are luxury items bought for style and priced way higher than I'm willing to spend.

For similar reasons, I have a wind-up alarm clock as a backup for the plug-in digital alarm clock next to my bed. If I have some very important meeting for which oversleeping would be very very bad, I'll wind it up and set its alarm, so that I don't have to worry about a middle of the night power glitch resetting the digital clock.

Unlike with wind-up watches, wind-up alarm clocks are still available as cheap utilitarian items [1], so no foresight is required [2], although in my particular case my wind-up alarm clock [3] is one I've had for at least 50 years. I think I was given it as soon as I was responsible enough to not destroy it and old enough to use it.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Besplore-Double-Mechanical-Alarm-Silv...

[2] I'm not actually sure that new inexpensive utilitarian wind-up alarm watches are not available, but a bit of Googling only turned up the expensive fashion watches for me.

[3] https://i.imgur.com/4CljfDL.png

[SamReidHughes]

You can pick up a vintage Seiko Bell-Matic for cheap on eBay, and presumably some others. Anything new (like a new JLC Memovox) isn't something people would classify as a "fashion watch" -- they're luxury watches. A fashion watch is something like a Gucci or Daniel Wellington.

[Someguywhatever]

>AFAICT the only reason that people want a mechanical watch is to show how much money they have to waste.

You can get a seiko automatic for < $100 USD, they look cool and have a little window where you can see all the gears turning. There's definitely something there beyond showing off.

[detaro]

> Why would anyone want a mechanical watch?

Because it's neat. Prices generally are above my "I'd pay that for the neat-factor" level though, so there's an element of your suggestion...

[kwhitefoot]

You can get plenty of mechanical watches brand new for less than USD 100. The classic Seiko 5 Automatic is USD 64: https://www.worldofwatches.com/seiko?movement=3563&price=-68.

[Gys]

I never wear a watch. But this looks beautiful and is only US$150...