A collector recently asked whether tickIQ might magnetize their watch. It's a question we've heard before, and a fair one: the app requires placing your watch directly next to an iPhone to measure its accuracy. Before we could answer, they turned their wrist to show us: a 1960s Omega Seamaster, the caseback engraved with their father's initials. They'd inherited it two years ago. Wore it every day.
The question wasn't really about magnetic thresholds. It was about whether they could trust us with something irreplaceable.
Magnets are everywhere now. MagSafe chargers, iPad covers, laptop lids, handbag closures. The modern iPhone is practically a magnetic device that also happens to make phone calls. So when an app asks you to bring your mechanical watch close to one, the concern is understandable.
We had the same concern when we built tickIQ. We're collectors ourselves, and we weren't going to ship an app that might harm the things we love. So before writing a single line of code, we bought a gaussmeter and measured the magnetic field where the watch would sit. The readings were far below any threshold that could magnetize even a delicate vintage movement. But "we checked, it's fine" doesn't feel like enough when someone's asking about their father's Seamaster. So we decided to document our findings properly.
The Short Answer
No. tickIQ will not magnetize your watch.
The magnetic field along the bottom edge of an iPhone, where tickIQ positions your watch, measures just 2-6 Gauss. The ISO 764 standard for antimagnetic watches uses 60 Gauss as its threshold. That's a tenfold safety margin.
If you want to understand why, read on.
What Magnetization Actually Does
The hairspring is the heart of any mechanical watch. It's that impossibly thin coil of metal, attached to the balance wheel, that stores and releases energy as the balance swings back and forth. In a 28,800 bph movement, the hairspring completes four full coil-and-uncoil cycles per second.
When a hairspring becomes magnetized, adjacent coils attract or repel each other, shortening the spring's working length. A shorter spring oscillates faster. The watch runs fast. A magnetized watch might gain a minute or two per day; a severely magnetized one can gain minutes per hour. (Watchmaker Ashton Tracy has a good technical explanation if you want to go deeper.)
The watch case itself isn't a concern. Standard case materials are non-magnetic: 316L stainless steel is austenitic and doesn't hold magnetism; 904L (used by Rolex) is the same; titanium doesn't retain magnetism; gold and platinum don't retain magnetism. It's the hairspring that matters.
If your watch has a silicon balance spring, Rolex's Parachrom hairspring, or similar antimagnetic technology, this conversation is largely academic. Those materials are essentially immune to magnetic fields. But we'll assume you're wearing something with a traditional metal hairspring, since that's what matters for vintage pieces and most watches out there.
The Measurement
We used an AEGTEST 8035 gaussmeter with a telescopic hall effect probe, accurate to within 5%. We tested under worst-case conditions: the probe pressed directly against a naked iPhone, no case. We measured the bottom edge where tickIQ positions the watch, and the MagSafe ring on the back for comparison.
The area that matters most: the bottom edge. This is where tickIQ positions your watch during measurement. No magnets here, just entry points for sound and power.
Along the bottom edge, the field ranged from 0.3 to 6 Gauss. The variation comes from internal components beneath the surface, but even the highest reading is a tenth of the ISO 764 threshold.
The MagSafe ring on the back is a different story: we measured up to 580 Gauss, nearly ten times the ISO 764 threshold. This is the part of the phone to avoid.
tickIQ works by listening to your watch tick. That means positioning it near the iPhone's microphone, which sits at the bottom edge. When we mapped the phone's magnetic field, we found something fortunate: that same spot is magnetically quiet, far from the MagSafe array on the back. The place we needed to put your watch turned out to be the safest place it could go.
In Context
Numbers mean more with comparison. So we measured a few other things collectors encounter:
| Source | Field Strength | vs. 60G Threshold |
|---|---|---|
| tickIQ measurement position | 2–6 Gauss | 10–30× below |
| MacBook Pro (where your wrist rests) | 17 Gauss | 3.5× below |
| iPad Magic Keyboard | 798 Gauss | 13× above |
| Magnetic phone car mount | 924 Gauss | 15× above |
| Apple AirTag | 516 Gauss | 9× above |
Here's the thing worth noting: if you wear your watch on your left wrist while typing on a MacBook Pro, it sits in a 17 Gauss field the entire time you're working. That's three times stronger than tickIQ's measurement position, and the exposure isn't thirty seconds. It's hours. Every day. The watch you're careful to protect during a tickIQ measurement is soaking in a stronger field while you read this article. Meanwhile, your iPad keyboard, car mount, and even the AirTag on your keychain all exceed the ISO 764 threshold. The real magnetic threats aren't where people think they are.
Why It's Even Lower in Practice
Those measurements represent worst-case conditions: probe touching a naked iPhone. In actual use, several factors push exposure lower still.
Magnetic fields decay with the cube of distance. Double the distance, the field drops to one-eighth. Triple it, one-twenty-seventh. The decay is dramatic, and it's working in your favor.
When measuring with tickIQ, the phone hovers over the dial side of your watch. The hairspring is buried beneath the crystal, the dial, and the movement's architecture, perhaps 4 to 8 millimeters from the phone's surface. Add a phone case and you're further still. At that distance, even our worst-case 6 Gauss reading drops to a fraction of a Gauss at the hairspring itself.
For perspective: Earth's magnetic field runs around 0.5 Gauss, and your watch is immersed in it continuously, every moment of every day, from the moment it was assembled. A tickIQ measurement exposes your watch to a few Gauss for less than thirty seconds. That's a rounding error.
Questions
Will my watch get magnetized over time from repeated measurements?
Your watch already lives in magnetic fields. Earth's field is about 0.5 Gauss, constant and everywhere. If you wear your watch while typing on a MacBook Pro, it sits in 17 Gauss for hours at a time. A tickIQ measurement exposes it to a few Gauss for less than thirty seconds. Even daily measurements for years wouldn't approach what your watch experiences in a single afternoon of desk work.
What if I accidentally place my watch on the back of the phone?
MagSafe measures nearly 600 Gauss, about ten times the ISO 764 threshold. Brief accidental contact isn't cause for alarm, but don't leave your watch resting there. And if your watch ever does get magnetized, from any source, it's easily reversed. A $15 demagnetizer or any watchmaker can fix it in seconds.
Why should I trust your measurements?
You don't have to. Everything here is replicable. Gaussmeters cost less than $100. We're publishing enough detail that anyone can verify our findings themselves. If you have questions, we're at support@b23.ai.
Conclusion
Used as directed, tickIQ won't magnetize your watch. The data is unambiguous: the magnetic field at the iPhone's bottom edge measures 2-6 Gauss, a full ten times below the 60 Gauss ISO 764 threshold for antimagnetic watches.
When that collector asked about their father's Seamaster, we understood the real question: have you thought carefully about this?
We have. That's why tickIQ positions watches at the bottom edge of the phone, far from MagSafe. It's why we published this investigation with full methodology. And across tens of thousands of watches measured with tickIQ, not a single user has reported magnetization.
We're watch people. We wouldn't have shipped it otherwise.
P.S. While tickIQ won't magnetize your watch, it can help detect if something else has. Those real magnetic threats we mentioned (iPad keyboards, car mounts, even AirTags) are everywhere. tickIQ monitors your measurements over time and flags the telltale patterns: sudden rate changes, dropping amplitude, erratic readings across sessions. Measure consistently, and if your watch does get magnetized, tickIQ helps you catch it early.