Hi-beat describes a watch movement whose balance swings at 36,000 vibrations per hour, or ten beats each second. That is faster than most watches today, which beat six or eight times a second. Precision watches use faster balances because the movement of the wrist disturbs them less.
How fast is a hi-beat movement?
The balance is the part of a watch that swings back and forth at a steady rate. Each swing counts as a beat. A hi-beat balance makes 36,000 vibrations an hour, which works out at ten each second. Before the 1970s, watches usually beat five times a second. Most watches today beat six or eight times a second. Only a small number reach ten.
Why does a faster beat help?
A watch on the wrist is moved about all day. Those movements can knock the balance off its steady rhythm. A balance that swings faster is disturbed less, so precision watches use faster balances. Seiko’s Lord Marvel 36000 of 1967, Japan’s first hi-beat watch, was made for better accuracy. Its balance beat ten times a second, when most watches of the time beat five or six times.
Where it comes from
Longines says it made a high-beat wristwatch movement in 1959, as an observatory chronometer. Girard-Perregaux showed its high-frequency movement at the 1966 Basel Fair. The movement then won the Neuchâtel Observatory Centenary Prize. In 1968 Longines put a high-frequency movement into the Ultra-Chron Diver. The brand calls it the first dive watch to have one.
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