Watchmakers are close to getting an atomic clock on your wrist

URWERK Since the rise of electronic timekeeping in the 1970s, attempts at harnessing circuit-board precision to improve traditional watchmaking have been few and far between Seiko’s Spring Drive, launched 20 years ago, remains the most prominent example, replacing the traditional escapement with an electromagnetic regulator to manage the precise delivery of energy through the movement Piaget revealed a similar concept with its 700P movement in 2016, though it was only used for an extremely limited run of watches in its cushion-shaped Emperador line More interesting is the Electro Mechanical Control (EMC) device that high-end indie URWERK launched in 2013.

It uses a minuscule electronic unit, powered by cranking a tiny lever, to monitor the performance of the watch The unit has an optical sensor around the balance wheel, a quartz oscillator (acting as a comparative reference rather than part of the timekeeping) and a micro-computer to process differences between the two Should. Source