[KaiserPro]

its a fairly reliably stepper motor system. You're right it will degrade over time, you'd be surprised how many steps it can do before it degrades.

[aidenn0]

I had a clock where the second hand was not properly balanced and it would miss steps fairly reliably in the second-half of the minute (when the heavier side of the hand was going up). I added some tape to the counterweight to fix it.