The Breitling Watch Source Forums

I have no idea whether it's achievable or not, purely in technical terms. As a layperson, I'd accept the argument that it would be difficult, but not necessarily impossible. More realistically, though, I don't see a +/- 1 second/year quartz wristwatch coming about, as there really is no practical need for one. Radio-controlled atomic wristwatches already exist, so right now you can buy a watch that, in its way, is as accurate as the most accurate time-keeping devices on the planet. It's doubtful a quartz movement could ever beat that, so at best it would be playing catch-up. I understand the difference is the quartz movement would be keeping its own time, rather than being reliant on a signal to set itself, but the market segment that would need a watch accurate to within 1 second per year that is also not signal dependent has to be miniscule. I'm sure the techno-geek faction would appreciate it, but I don't know that they would constitute a viable market, such that we'll see such a movement come about.

I usually get the time from GPS, and I'd rather not have to depend on it because if I wanted to use GPS for navigation I wouldn't need an accurate timepiece.

Just like people who have cell phones don't even need wristwatches. Just out of curiosity, how's your internet connectivity? Websites like time.gov give you up-to-the-millisecond readings of the atomic clock in Colorado. (Depending on where in the world you are, I presume there are websites that link to the world's other atomic clocks.) The better ones also track your connection time and let you know the margin of error due to transmission delay. With my connection, I'm usually able to get within 0.3 to 0.2 seconds of the actual time. If you had a thermo-compensated quartz watch, and set it by a similar website even once a month, you would almost always have a perfectly accurate watch on your wrist. About the only way I see this not working well would be if you're out in the wilds for months at a time, without a GPS device or internet access, and are using celestial navigation to find your way around. If so, what can I tell you? You're a manlier man than I.