Preamble: It seems like 2026 will be the year of the Fire-Horse & the year of electronic watches and quartz-watches, esp. And so with just a few weeks in 2025 it is eventually one of the most interesting and also most important posts for this topic because it clarifies some myths about the Rolex OysterQuartz and may be an interesting overture to some delicate further posts. The two main question we can answer in this article: is Thermo- / Temperature-Compensation relevant and does the Rolex OysterQuartz has such a TC-feature or not?

A diesel-engine works without a turbo-charger (compressor) but by design its efficiency is largely dependent on the pressure of the air -- and so a turbo-charger is the single-most influential component regarding its power-output. Or to put it in a different way: Der Unterschied zwischen Sauger- und Kompressor-Diesel ist in Bezug auf seine Ausgangleistung wie der Unterschied zwischen Nacht und Tag.

Now, in quartz-watches it is the temperature-compensation (TC) that makes a very similar difference related to the watch-movements "power-output", ie. its accuracy. Reason is that while in general the piezo-effect is very stable and not influenced by position (gravity) or magnetism, it is still temperature-dependent. And one can easily imagine that: while the quartz itself is not magnetic (ie. amagnetic in a horological parallel) and its vibration-stability (ie. the accurate and exact repetition of the swing / motion) is not influenced by gravitational forces (or other mass-related forces) -- simply because the motion (movement) and the mass is irrelevant small -- it still changes its characteristics when the temperature changes: the elasticity of the crystal changes and with it its amplitude and frequency. Lengthen or shorten (ie. tune) a guitar-string to have a picture for that.

So, while two of the major disturbing-factors of mechanical watch-movements (magnetism & mass-related forces) are simply non-existent in quartz-movements, there is one common enemy for watches used outside the laboratory: temperature-variations. Indeed, not only in quartz- but also in mechanical-watches the change of the temperature is the single most-disturbing factor to reach perfect accuracy. So to find a way to compensate for differences in temperature is the unifying task for both parts of watchmaking: mechanical & electronic, *klikk.

Well, that was not complicated but nevertheless very important to understand: a turbo-charger is for a Diesel-engine what is the temperature-compensation for a (quartz-)watch-movement. And as it is so important and because Rolex made a widely celebrated quartz-movement (cal5035 & cal5055 OysterQuartz) I would like to understand what kind of temperature compensation Rolex uses for its electronic-movement... but I will keep that for a later post.

As a sneak-preview: the OysterQuartz comes with a great quartz-movement -- especially a reliable and solid one -- but it is by far not as innovative as many hail & glorify it.