Is that not the spring drive from Seiko?
The quartz crystal is the only thing controlling the unwinding of the mainspring. There is nothing else that is controlling it, so there's no mechanical escapement. People often make this sound like the quartz movement is only fine tuning the accuracy that is already there somehow, but it's 100% responsible for the accuracy. The spring would just unwind as fast as the frictional loads of the wheel turning would allow if it wasn't for the quartz crystal.
It's a mechanically powered (spring drive) quartz movement.
Spring Drive is not a quartz movement. It’s a mechanical movement that’s regulated against a quartz crystal. There’s a brake mechanism that uses the quartz signal to control the rotational speed of the movement to maintain accuracy.
It would great if the new technological advance achieved by the hairspring/balance spring led to a recertification by NASA of the Speedmaster for space travel. That's not too much to want, is it?
Yes, that's the quartz crystal and circuit. Here's a video of a spring drive running out of power at the end of the reserve. You will see as the chronograph seconds hand crosses 12, it speeds up - that happens when the power to the quartz crystal isn't high enough to make the circuit function. The speed continues quite fast, speeding up until the hand hits the 25 mark, where there's enough current generated to cause the brake on the glide wheel to kick in again.
I can't imbed the video as it comes up as a short, but here's the link:
https://youtube.com/shorts/-hD21hnHNPA?feature=share
NFC chip to make payments. similar to SwatchPAY. Also, it can be something similar to the Apple AirTag to find objects, integrated into the watch, and thus know where it is in case of theft. can you imagine?
Now your Speedmaster is 17mm thick.
NFC chips are like a sticker of less than a millimeter. But 17mm thick, that's what some Omega's are already at. hahahahaha
