watches movement
Last Updated: November 8, 2024By

Share This Post

Watchmaking has long been a unique craft, blending a mixture of art with precision and finesse. As most collectors of watches will attest, there’s a timeless elegance of watches, and the advancements in watchmaking technology have been equally astounding. Automatic watch movement (“self-winding watches”) was a significant enhancement. The wearer no longer had to wind their watches to keep accurate time. Instead, the person’s wrist movement while wearing the watch would keep the watch ticking. Anyone who owns a traditional wind-up watch knows how much of a pain it can be to keep winding it, so it is no stretch to say that automatic watch movements were a revolutionary breakthrough in watchmaking.

Here’s everything you need to know about automatic watch movements, including how to keep your watch ticking, even if you don’t wear it for a while.

Automatic Watch Movement: What Is Automatic Movement in a Watch?

The science behind an automatic watch mechanism is incredibly ingenious and remarkably simple. It is so simple that Abraham-Louis Perrelet invented the first self-winding watch movement around 1770, over 250 years ago.

How do automatic watches work? Surprisingly, the way Perrelet’s watch worked was simple. The watch would have a swinging weight on it. As the wearer walked with the watch, this weight would move, too, thereby winding the watch.

However, it is worth noting that Perrelet’s design likely had the weight pivoting at the movement’s side, mimicking the winding motion. The first design with the rotor that you’ll find in modern watches was attributable to Hubert Sarton, who crafted the design in 1778. As such, while Perrelet had the idea first, Sarton’s design was closer to what you’ll find today and wasn’t invented until about a year later.

Fascinatingly, while Perrelet’s watches sold well, he also sold some of them to Abraham-Louis Breguet, maker of the famous Breguet watches, who made some tweaks and tried selling them with little luck.

Nowadays, there are many watch mechanisms. An automatic watch movement belongs to the mechanical watch movement family, where stored energy turns gears to tell time. Other popular watch movement types include quartz, which uses an electronic oscillator and a quartz crystal to tell time.

Why Is This Type of Watch So Valuable?

This type of watch has proven to be the dominant watch type, especially in the luxury watch market, due to its simplicity. Daily movements wind the watch up by simply wearing it. As such, it never stops working. There’s no winding required and no battery to worry about dying. As long as you wear the watch, it will tell the time.

Given the ingenuity of this watch style, it likely comes as no surprise that significant watch manufacturers, like Rolex, Seiko, Tissot, and more, manufacture automatic watch movements. There’s no universal best watch movement, but many big names in watchmaking produce excellent ones.

These types of watches also have an added benefit: collectability. Many watch enthusiasts appreciate the mechanical complexity involved with these watches and the craftsmanship required to create something with such elegance. Furthermore, an automatic watch movement has a smooth sweeping motion on the second hand. Quartz watches cannot replicate this.

Indeed, for most collectors and enthusiasts, an automatic watch movement is superior to manual winding or requiring batteries.

What Are the Downsides?

Nothing in life is perfect, and automatic watches are no exception to this rule. While they have significant benefits, they have one obvious downside: they require the owner to wear them with some regularity.

When you wear the watch, your wrist movement will create energy that goes into a power reserve. This power reserve has a limited duration. The watch will die if it stays idle longer than this power reserve lasts. The owner will then need to wind the watch to get it ticking again manually, and then they’ll also need to adjust the date and time all over again. Once the owner winds the watch, they must keep wearing it to maintain the movement of the automatic watch.

A watch’s power reserve depends highly on the automatic watch components and how much energy the manufacturer decides to store. Luxury watches can have more significant power reserves. However, watches from even a reasonably well-known luxury brand like Rolex have power reserves of 60-70 hours. All it takes is the owner to take it off their wrist for a long weekend or vacation, and they’ll come home to find it dead.

This problem gets exacerbated for watch collectors who may own 10s or 100s of watches. Then it becomes physically impossible to wear each watch enough to keep them all ticking – unless you want to wear five watches on each arm and keep rotating them out!

It is worth noting that this one issue is the only significant downside to keeping the movement automatic. Automatic watches require servicing to ensure all the parts work as expected. Still, even then, the servicing intervals are so infrequent (maybe once every 5-10 years) that they are not a hindrance. It’s much easier to have the watch serviced every few years than to keep replacing a battery or manually winding it.

Quality watch winders

A Mozsly Watch Winder Can Eliminate This Downside

Since it’s only the physical movement the watch needs to keep it running, many collectors and watch enthusiasts get watch winders to keep their pieces working even if they aren’t using them for extended periods. Watch winders are simple, conceptually, but they vary significantly in quality. In essence, these winders move the watch, physically replicating the motion of wearing it.

With the watch movement continuously going, the watch never dies and is available to wear whenever you want!

Quality watch winders feature high-quality materials, a watch pillow to prevent any scratches or nicks, and a quiet motor that allows multiple winders to run simultaneously, even if those winders are in the same room. They shouldn’t interfere with your sleep or otherwise disturb you.

If you always want to see your watch working, you’ll benefit significantly from one of our Mozsly watch winders.

Automatic Watch Movement: A Giant Historical Leap

When Perrelet invented the first automatic watch movement, he may not have known how important the notion of a “self-winding” watch would prove to be. It’s such a simple concept – use the wearer’s movement to power the watch – yet it alleviated a considerable burden. No longer would people have to deal with dead or dying watches. The watch would tell the time accurately as long as the wearer put it on daily or semi-daily.

Of course, for watch collectors, these precision pieces have timeless elegance and craftsmanship, but it’s also often challenging to wear them with enough regularity to keep them going. That’s why we at Mozsly invented some of the best watch winders on the market. We are watch enthusiasts who use the best materials and high-quality motors and designs in all our winders. If interested, check out a Mozsly watch winder. You’ll see how they can help you preserve and protect your watches so you and future generations can wear them.

Related Post's

Featured Video

For privacy reasons YouTube needs your permission to be loaded. For more details, please see our Privacy Policy.

Provide an email subscription feature for users to sign up for updates.

Follow the world of watches and cigars for exclusive content!
By subscribing to our newsletter, you will be the first to receive notifications of our latest articles, popular posts and special events.

Leave A Comment