# Accuracy In Radio-Controlled Watches



## Guest (Aug 24, 2011)

Has anyone else found that between synchronizations the quartz movements in their waveceptor (or similar radio-controlled) watches are less accurate than the quartz movements in non-radio-controlled watches in a comparable price-bracket?

I only noticed this when I spent some time in a country where my waveceptors struggled to pick up a signal, and would sometimes go weeks between synchronisations.

Left to their own devices, the waveceptors would drift noticeably further than my other watches which had standard quartz movements.

I wondered if this was a deliberate ploy on the part of Casio so that owners of radio controlled watches would see a noticeable time adjustment with each sync, and thus feel that the waveceptor technology was doing more good than if the watch was inherently more accurate.

Still that's not the only theory I came up with... ...I considered for example that Casio might have found that there's a trade-off between efficiency and accuracy, so that by making a watch which was slightly less accurate the power consumption could be considerably reduced. In a situation where the watch re-syncs with a radio signal on a daily basis this reduction in accuracy could be compensated for, leading to an increase in efficiency with no noticeable impact on accuracy so long as the user stayed in range of one of the atomic transmitters.

Thoughts?


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## dobra (Aug 20, 2009)

Interesting thoughts! Just grabbed my Waveceptor Tough Solar out of the box, and it sprang to life (having been in the dark for a month or so), and it is 25 seconds fast.... Not sure, but the signal here will be at 0200 hrs?

Mike


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## Deco (Feb 15, 2011)

I had noticed this - I presumed it was because they could use a cheaper movement/module in their watches on the basis that any drift would be corrected daily.

Dec


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## bpc (Jul 20, 2011)

Hmm, that's interesting. My Wave Ceptors sit on a window sill in the US, so I've never noticed extreme time gain or loss. My GW-5600J spent a week with me over in a radio-signal-free part of the world last month, but I didn't think to check the accuracy when I got back.


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## dobra (Aug 20, 2009)

My Casio is a WVA-440U, and it has occurred to me that with the lack of charge due to being in the dark, the watch could have stopped?

Interesting.....

Mike


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## Davey P (Sep 9, 2010)

I've got a couple of radio controlled watches, one is a solar G-Shock GW-6900 and the other is a recently acquired Lorus digital. Just out of interest I "woke up" the G-Shock from it's sleeping state (the display goes off to save power if it's not moved for a while, but the timekeeping still runs as normal) and both watches were perfectly synchronised when the G-Shock display came back on. Witchcraft! I assume the G-Shock still picks up the radio signal every night, even though the display is switched off.

I think from memory Casio states an accuracy within 15 secs per month for "normal" bog standard G-Shocks, and probably an accuracy of 1 sec in 10,000,000 years for their Wavecepters :lol:


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## normdiaz (May 5, 2004)

Davey P said:


> I think from memory Casio states an accuracy within 15 secs per month for "normal" bog standard G-Shocks, and probably an accuracy of 1 sec in 10,000,000 years for their Wavecepters :lol:


I searched and searched but couldn't come up with a legitimate reason for not living with accuracy of +/- 15 seconds per month. :rockon:


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## Roamer Man (May 25, 2011)

Om_nom_nom_Watches! said:


> ..Left to their own devices, the waveceptors would drift noticeably further than my other watches which had standard quartz movements.


I don't possess one, but I do have such a wall clock and noticed it can be a second or so out occassionally (but then it only cost Â£8 in Homebase!).

So, what do you call 'noticeably', out of interest?


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## dobra (Aug 20, 2009)

Having left my Waveceptor on the window cill for 24 hours, it is now spot. Cecked against a radio clock and another radio watch....

Mike


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## Guest (Aug 28, 2011)

Roamer Man said:


> So, what do you call 'noticeably', out of interest?


Yeah fair question...

I mean that when not being synced with a time signal each night, the waveceptors drift by one to two seconds a day, whereas my non-atomic quartz seiko seems to take a week to drift that much. Not a huge issue, but still I was surprised that there was even that difference.


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## webvan (Apr 6, 2010)

Definitely noticed that on my Casio GWM5600-BC with a good second gained in 24 hours, not something I've ever seen on another quartz watch. Maybe they just don't spend any time choosing the Quartz and/or calibrating it since they know it will fix itself automatically.

I wonder if high-end RC watches by Citizen or Seiko have that problem too?


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## MerlinShepherd (Sep 18, 2011)

I think it's all gimmickry and marketing crap.

My two favourite watches are automatics, one is a 1964 Omega, the other a 1977 Seiko. The Omega which I've had for decades is not perfectly accurate, but putting it right by a minute every few days has NEVER made me miss a plane, bus or train. I've never got to work late because of it's inaccuracy. I think they both look beautiful enough as have such gorgeous build qualities to allow them some leeway.

It all boils down to a taste issue I guess. I am attracted to the sheer funkiness of the G-Shocks, but I think the vintage watches ooze class and remind me of a period in human history and endeavour when being 0.001 second late for a business meeting was allowed!


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