Which watches are more accurate quartz or self-winding?
According to this site http://www.chronocentric.com/watches/accuracy.shtml the accuracy of a typical quartz watch is about 5 times better than the accuracy of a typical mechanical watch. Self-winding watches are mechanical, and I can’t see that the self-winding feature would improve its accuracy. (One could argue that the mainspring is held at a more constant level of tension, but then the balance wheel & escapement already overcomes the varying tension of a manually-wound spring.) There are also quartz watches, such as Seiko Kinetic, that are electrically powered by much the same mechanism that re-tightens the spring of a self-winding mechanical watch — an off-balance weight that swivels around a pivot as you move your arm.
