electronic watch

An electronic watch is a portable timepiece that uses electricity to power its movement. Unlike traditional mechanical watches that rely on springs and gears, electronic watches utilize electronic components. Early electronic watches, appearing around 1953, often used a tuning fork that vibrated at a high frequency to provide motive power.1

More advanced electronic watches, particularly those developed in the late 20th century, employ quartz crystals. These watches leverage the piezoelectric effect, where a quartz crystal oscillates at a very precise frequency when an electric field is applied. This stable oscillation is then used to count time, offering high accuracy. These electronic components allowed for miniaturization, leading to features like digital readouts and integrated circuits.213