Magnet and mechanical watch

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Hello y’all,

Are magnets strong enough to mess with mechanical wrist watch?

Anyone got one implanted on the wrist/forearm near the watch?

Thanks for sharing,
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I mean… probably? But it might not be something you’d notice on a daily basis. For example, if the watch had an accuracy of plus or minus 1 second over the course of a year, a magnet implant might cause that drift to be more severe. Maybe a few seconds per year or maybe even a few minutes per year. Hard to say though what the impact could be because it would be so dependent on the mechanics of the watch and proximity and field strength and all these variables but yeah I’m sure that technically speaking there is some impact… I just don’t know if it’s relevant.

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To be fair, I doubt that the magnet would cause anything more than all the background influences out there do already.
Incidentally, you may be surprised to know that watches lose a heck of a lot more time than that – depending on the type, you could see a loss of a second per day.

There is an excellent amount of background information on quartz versus mechanical versus whatever else, in this video. touches on magnetism as well

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Depends on the watch, or specifically, the hair spring of the watch. Most modern watches have some level of magnetic resistance. Nivachron and silicium are really good at this.

Vintage watches on the other hand are not as resilient when it comes to magnetism.

I’m probably going to get a magnet or two later on and the only watch that worries me is from the late 50s.

An insanely good mechanical watch can be within one second a day, but the COSC certification only requires an accuracy within -4 to +6 seconds a day and that’s for the very top of the line. In the case of most mechanical watches, the accuracy will be within +/- 30s a day.

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Magnetising your balls migh cause you issues :smirk:

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I just gotta say it would be a very expensive watch to only have 1 second of drift over the course of a year. Typical is more like a few minutes a year. Heck, an old GPS timeserver has a holdover drift of maybe a few seconds a year.

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And by mechanical I should have said automatic/selfwinding (I like tech and good mechanics :sweat_smile:) … So we’re talking about ±10 to 15 sec/day is pretty standard.

So maybe on the inside of the wrist would be better as it’s a bit further away?