Inside The Seiko VK Mechaquartz Chronograph Movement, And A Bunch Of Cool Watches That Use It
Your Favorite Microbrand Digs It, Do You?
We can hear the commenters screaming already.
In fact, let’s say something before this even kicks off: there’s absolutely nothing wrong with quartz. First off, quartz watches are deadly accurate. As in, put-all-mechanical-watches-to-shame accurate. Secondly, if you store them correctly (crown pulled out when not in use) they’ll last about as long as a mechanical watch should before a service; about three or four years. Sometimes much longer, depending on how regularly you use ‘em.
Yet, a whole lot of watch collectors will never buy a quartz watch. Why? They run on batteries, and they ‘tick’ instead of ‘sweep.’ We however say quartz is good. Quartz works. Especially concerning chronographs. We might even say that if there’s an ideal watchmaking application for quartz movements, a chronograph is it.
So watch nerds hate on quartz movements because of the second-hand ‘tick.’ Maybe it reminds you of the clock in your elementary school, or the one on the wall in the office. To an enthusiast, this ticking doesn’t look cool. So a quartz chrono minimizes the (visual) damage, as the traditional large second hand on a chronograph usually stays put at the 12 o’clock position instead of ticking around the dial 24/7.
This of course moves the whole ticking seconds operation over to a much smaller portion of the dial, which lessens its visual impact. Here’s where the beauty of the two-register quartz chronograph comes in; it gets rid of the second-hand subdial altogether, alleviating the visual problem of the ticking ‘running seconds’ by deleting the whole idea of it.
There’s one other fetish watch nerds have about chronos: when you engage a mechanical chronograph, the pusher engages a system of levers, so the button action is quite mechanical in feel. In a traditional quartz chronograph, the pushers activate or deactivate electrical current through a circuit board, so there’s not much ‘clicking’ or feeling of mechanical engagement.
TL;DR: Watch nerds love the ‘sweep’ of a mechanical watch hand, and they also love the ‘click’ of manually engaging a system of levers and gears. So watch nerds generally don’t like quartz chronographs.
Enter Seiko.
Seiko engineers listened to the gripes of watch enthusiasts, and then built the VK Mechaquartz movement.
The works of this hybrid movement contain both a battery, a quartz module, and also some of the gears and levers of a traditional mechanical chronograph movement. As one might imagine, the gears and levers are powered by the battery, allowing the main chronograph seconds counter to ‘sweep’ like a mechanical chronograph; in fact, because it is a mechanical chronograph.
It’s just running on battery power, not spring-loaded power.
But the gearing and sweeping action is similar to a traditional chronograph, and at the end of the day it’s basically the same thing. This setup even allows the VK movement’s hands to return instantly to zero after you hit the bottom reset button. This allows for near-instantaneous timing of multiple events. Traditional quartz chronos have to sort of ‘re-wind’ the marker hands, leaving a couple seconds where the chronograph is basically inoperable.
So a VK quartz chronograph is a hybrid; it has a big second-hand sweep like a mechanical chronograph (complete with ‘quick to zero’ function) but it has the high accuracy, lower cost, and smaller parts count of a quartz watch. The cherry on top here for enthusiasts (again) goes to watches without ‘running small seconds’ hands; then the visual ‘tick’ is eliminated while all the benefits stay in play. You even get the satisfying ‘click’ of levers and gears engaging when you push a button.
This makes the Seiko VK chronograph movement perfect for watch nerds, especially those on a budget. Basically, it’s the looks, feel, and tactility of high-mech with the accuracy, reliability, and low cost of high tech. Hence why so many startup watch companies run towards this movement for their chronographs; it’s an elegant and next-gen solution.
Seriously, it’s almost like EVERY chronograph on Kickstarter uses this machine at its core. And why not? The VK was not the first mecha-quartz chrono; far from it. Jaeger LeCoultre even built some for IWCs and for their own watches. But the Seiko VK is bombproof, elegant, and cheap. And Seiko has no problem selling it to whomever wants to buy.
Here’s a few of our favorites:
Autodromo Prototipo
One of the first big Kickstarter success stories, the Autodromo boys make absolutely great stuff. Their case finishing and overall industrial design puts even many large watch companies to shame. Their first big chrono drop featured a VK-powered machine at its heart.
Corniche Hybrid
This thing kinda looks like a Patek in a good way. So many big brands can’t make clean-looking watches even when they try, so these guys get a pass for putting a fancy-sounding name on a quartz watch.
Newmark 6BB RAF Chronograph
As the name suggests, this is a re-issue or retro drop or however you wanna call it. The return of a famous military watch used by the British Royal Air Forces. An absolutely faithful reproduction, very well done.
Seiko SSB033 Chronograph
Okay, take all the superlatives we said in this article, and then add the magic watch-nerd phrase ‘in-house.’ Because that’s what this is. A mecha-quartz watch designed and developed and produced in that way. Props to Seiko, the real OGs in this situation and in many others when it comes to watchmaking.
Undone Chronograph (one of many styles)
Undone are out of Hong Kong, and really revolutionized the watch industry a few years ago when they debuted a solid business concept; fully customizable watches. They have a few models, but once a buyer picks one, you can customize almost any facet of the piece. You can even print on the dial! Their chronographs are VK-powered, and have lots of great options available.
