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Thermally Powered Mechanical Wristwatch

Posted by michael on from the crack-open-the-piggy-bank dept.

Raghu Mani writes "Theremally powered quartz wristwatches - which use minor temperature variations to generate electricity - have been around for a few years. Now here is something a lot more radical - a thermally powered mechanical watch. Invented by an American - Steven Phillips - it uses small temperature variations to wind the mainspring of the watch. A patent has been awarded for this - check out this link. A small article on the technology can be found here and the guy's own website is budapestwatchco.com. I doubt if any of us will be buying one of those watches anytime soon, though - just check out those prices ;-)."

4 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. A good patent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Clever stuff like this DESERVES patents, not one click shopping and silly little algorythms.

    Luckily I live in a country with a sane patent system!

    1. Re:A good patent by Rubbersoul · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So do you think that we could save the patent system by maybe having things review by a committee made up of people in the related field? I am just curious as to how people think we could rework a broke (In my opinion system) to make it respectable again.

      --
      man .sig
      No manual entry for .sig.
  2. Prices aren't so out of line by shoppa · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The prices asked (a few $10000) aren't too far out of line for what is essentially a custom-built watch. I don't think that the self-winding technology is setting the price, just the low production quantities.

    For comparison, the Pulsar, the first digital watch the on the market, cost $2100. A couple years later digital watches were under $20 from Texas Instruments, and just a couple of years after that TI was out of the watch business because they couldn't compete against $4 imports.

    This isn't saying that self-winding watches will take off in the same way; it's just comparing the prices of mass-production stuff versus very low rate production.

  3. Re:I'll stick with my Dad's by Crazy+Diamond · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yes they do. At 8 times per second that comes to 28800 ticks per hour. All mechanical watches "sweep" with some slower than 28800vph, and some faster.

    If you have a Rolex you should be able to actually see the ticks and if you put it up to your ear, you can hear and actually count the 8 ticks per second.