It's All About Timing

Every now and then Frederique Constant comes out with something surprising, intriguing and downright useful. 

Courtesy of Frederique Constant

This is their latest offering - not a watch, not a smart watch, but something that will certainly keep you better informed about your watches!

There have been a few different attempts to create a rate measuring device for the "hobbyist", and they have had varying levels of success/acceptance.  They have been a bit bulky, some have debated the accuracy of the measurements, etc.  I can hear the "Pointdexters" right now arguing about frequencies, etc.,  and how only their slide-rules, calculations and tea leaves will give an accurate reading ; )

Courtesy of Frederique Constant

And if you are a one or two watch kinda' guy or girl, then this is probably not for you.  But if I am honest, I see a HUGE group of people that this could be of great use for.  From the small store that offers pre-owned watches, to the collector going to get togethers where they might wish to trade or buy a watch from a fellow collector. I myself could get great benefit from this when doing reviews of watches. 

Here is the release in full from the folks in Geneva -

Accuracy

The hallmark of a great timepiece is accuracy. A measure of accuracy is a measure of value. Each mechanical timepiece has a tiny Balance Wheel that acts as a pendulum. Every oscillation back and forth should take exactly one second. But if the Balance Wheel mechanism is off by just a matter of a few degrees, the accuracy of the watch will suffer.

Measure

To start measuring the heartbeat of the timepiece, the ingenious Analytics Clip must be placed on the watch and the user must launch the SwissConnect Analytics App, available for iOS and Android. Within seconds, Frederique Constant Analytics measures the accuracy of the watch. It measures the precision of mechanical watches, with an accuracy of at least ±0.2s/day.

Visualize results

An oscilloscope shows the audio waveform in real time. The result is plotted in a chart, which can be saved for later reference.
Also, Analytics can record and save a long-time measurement, e.g. for 12 hours, to analyze the long-time performance of your watch. 

Multiple watches

Frederique Constant Analytics supports a wide range of frequencies, covering almost all mechanical watches available on the market. In case the user doesn’t know the watch’s frequency, a frequency auto detect function is available on the app.

Track

Frederique Constant Analytics connects to the Cloud. When the user measures a watch, data is saved to his or her cloud account. Accuracy measurements can be tracked over time on a dashboard. Frederique Constant encourages every user to monitor their watch collection and record all measurements. This will enable them to follow their timepieces over the years and detect when each should be serviced.

Knowledge base

Frederique Constant offers a growing knowledge base on mechanical watch accuracy, maintenance and service. There are various reasons that the accuracy of a mechanical watch changes over time. Particularly the balance spring can change in strength from the micro-stresses to the metal they are made of. Moreover, watch escapements are lubricated with oils, and as those oils age, the rate of a mechanical watch changes as well.

Backup and restore

Once the user has registered his or her Private Account, the Analytics app will back up the watch’s measurements to the cloud and keep data available anywhere. The user can easily restore data if he or she switches to a new smartphone.

The Frederique Constant measuring clip will be available at Frederique Constant Authorized Retailers and through the Frederique Constant webstore at: http://frederiqueconstant.com/analytics/

The asking price is 99 Euros, and it supports both Android and iOS.

For more info -

Frederique Constant Analytics