Stopwatch clock in modern times

Firstly the domestic clocks had obtained a housing to protect them from dust and hence from abrasion. The shape of the watch was now the particular taste and fashion of the time and was not infrequently took the function of the timing behind the jewelry of the outer form.

Secondly, it was possible to reduce the timer stopwatch clock by new inventions, other materials and better tools and on. By the use of brass for the gears, these could be made much smaller. The door locks are already known spring was taken as energy storage for the movement and made it in, regardless of the installation location. The oldest surviving clock with spring drive is from around 1430, Peter Henlein of Nuremberg built around 1504 this spring drive in conjunction with a restlessness among the first in a clock and was able to reduce it as pocket size. 
The clock was not only independent of the installation site, they could also be worn while continuously display the time. From the mid-17th Century, the first pocket watches were produced with verge escapement. Many important watchmakers in England, France and Germany produced the highest quality pieces and competed in their continuous improvement. In America, we followed a different path, where we took off in the early 19th Century with industrial mass production to the production of very low-cost pocket watches.

The development of the clock that is divided into two main types of clocks, the stationary and portable Large clock watch movements, were asked to later fundamentally different requirements.
Jost Burgi: Mechanical celestial globe made in 1594 in Kassel, now the Swiss National Museum in Zurich
John Harrison's chronometer H5

As typical examples of the Renaissance many clocks table clocks are received. They are characterized by plants with verge escapement and balance wheel, barrel with power transmission over gut strings and screws, wheels of fire-gilt brass or copper base plates made of brass and molded pillars. 

Some of them have an hour or quarter hour strike on bell and clock. The housing have a basic geometric shape are pierced gilt brass or bronze and in filigree work. Rare specimens have astronomical viewing or imaginative figurative point.
Even before the introduction of the pendulum was built sporadically already watches minute hand. From the 16th Century pieces of Jost Burgi known that even had dials for second hand, even if the accuracy of the watch such an exact time measurement allowed only from about 1700.
On the brink of winning the Baroque representation of characters and the creative variety of watch cases become increasingly important (example: Carteluhr). 

Especially from the German centers of Augsburg and Nuremberg from 1600 at the latest are many beautiful designs with cases in animal shapes and made of precious metals such as silver and gold. The mechanical precision of timing came in meaning behind the fascination with the machine, with its wonderful features.

With the introduction of the pendulum as a regulator was a revolutionary discovery, which laid the foundation for the scientific chronometer and construction of precision clocks. 

Galileo Galilei, brilliant scientist and pioneer of the Copernican world view, described in 1583 the pendulum laws and discovered the isochronism. He devised a mechanism with free escapement and pendulum, but he could not finish his lifetime. 1656 the Dutch astronomer, mathematician and physicist Christiaan Huygens developed independently by Galileo and had the same idea of ​​Salomon Coster make the first pendulum clock.

 A short time later, in 1680, was developed by William Clement, the anchor escapement for clocks. The mechanical clock came therefore to a yet unknown precision of a few seconds on average deviation per day. As a result, the regulator of many old watches were replaced with spherical and minute hands are generally introduced.

Foci of watchmaking were in the time to the Netherlands and England, especially London there. The basic features of the main Dutch watches types Haagse Klok, Stoelklok and the Frisian clocks can be directly attributed to the built by Salomon Coster clocks. In England with the introduction of the anchor escapement created the first case clocks, called Grandfather Clocks, which were combined with the bracket clocks become synonymous with English Clocks. 

The Pendulum as a medium, a table or a wall bracket as alternate end pendulum developed in France (Blois and Paris) with various body styles and regional forms, and later also in Switzerland (Neuchatel and Geneva). In Germany, the importance of the pendulum long misunderstood and so lost the German centers of Augsburg and Nuremberg and its leadership fell behind.

Between 1720 and 1780 in England were called coach watches, oversized watches with shock and occasionally play works as a travel clock very popular. They were later replaced by the Carriage Clock and the French Pendule d'Officier.

A flourishing however competitive trade with the colonies of European powers in overseas placed the highest demands on the maritime industry. For safe navigation, precision timekeeping was essential importance. Finding a solution to the length problem, ie the determination of the longitude on the open sea, lasted despite ausgelobter for huge prize money to more than 150 years. The problem was finally solved in 1759 by John Harrison with the construction of its marine chronometers.