COSC vs Rolex Certification

[Rashid.bk]

Originally Posted by tyler1980

you have to admit, they have a lot of made up and catchy words for things. Its not 904L anymore, its "Oystersteel"

This of course helps to distinguish a bracelet from Oysterflex

True...I like Rolex lingo though. Superlative and Perpetual are cool, Datejust makes sense...but to name a few, oystersteel, oysterflex, and roleser are ludicrous....but those are just names and I agree, made up. Every brand has this to some extent though. Try to figure out engine size by the numbers on the back of a BMW or MB like the old days...
However, using the now rebranded "oystersteel" as an example, yes stupid name, but it is a different steel, marketing? according to TRF'ers it is. All I can say is in my experience it's soft as hell compared to 316.
When you take away the name and just analyze the product or design like the Chronergy escapement, in my humble assessment based on research and experience is that to me it isn't all just marketing or else I wouldn't give them tens of thousands of dollars for a bs watch that is just "explained" well in literature.

We are at a point with the mechanical movement that there isn't anything earth shattering you can invent or evolve where we can see an evolutionary leap in horology. George Daniels came close with the co-axial but people also throw that into the "marketing" bin.
Apple gave us the same phone for essentially ten years and every year it was THE MOOOOST ADVANCED iPhone yet. People stampede to buy it and it wasn't until last years iPhone X that they finally really gave us a new phone, which included "new" things like wireless charging, oled displays etc...things other brands had been using for years..
It's at the point where the cell phone has evolved to the point where a phone just looks like this full screen glass rectangle with a great camera that does these set of things. They all do it now...there's not much else we can really do at the moment. And that is a tech(touchscreen+phone+camera+media device) that is only thirteen years old maybe.

The watch has been around for centuries and the shape on the wrist for already over a century...Seiko made a slight jump with spring drive though mechanical puritans don't wholly accept it, but there isn't that much more we can evolve in a wrist watch.
At this point it's left to tiny improvements in materials, precision, reliability and reworking the existing tech for efficiency and longevity is all we can hope for. That is what Rolex seem to be doing. Although many hate things like ceramic bezels, absence of laquear or enamel dials, no glass case backs, and same decades old aesthetic. For me, I admittedly love everything Rolex from day one until now.
ymmv but it seems to lead your money same place mine is going.

As for the topic, I like the extra step of certifying the cased watch. Sure it's in-house, but they back it with three extra years and a tighter accuracy rate, which Padi will beat to death that anyone can do, but Rolex is essentially "doing" it on every watch now. That says a lot...to risk a bunch of accuracy nerds with timing apps coming in complaining wanting warranty work because there watch isn't as advertised.