Men's Watches-Automatic

[BJS]

Since the 1960's I have always used a gent's -Seiko wrist watch and always been totally happy with them The 2-3 watch's I've had during that period were known as a Automatic type. Is that now what they call Kinetic type. Thanks for any help. Any other automatic type of a different brand recommended would be welcome.

[BlueToffee]

My Casio wave ceptor has been fantastic. Runs off solar power and the time is corrected each morning, usually around 2 o'clock, by satellite. Highly recommended.

[BlueToffee]

Should have added, you can get either digital or analogue, and you have pin point accuracy of time, all the time, so no excuse for being late for that meeting!

[BJS]

I should have said being in my latter 70's am not looking for a expensive watch.

[BlueToffee]

BJS, you can get a digital one from Amazon for as little as £33.

[BJS]

Will now have to ask what is the difference between Analogue and Digital

[SlackAlice]

Analogue = Hands, Seconds, Hours and Minutes

Digital = Numerals, either 12hr or 24hr format

[kinell]

Kinetic is where your wrist movement generates a small amount of electricity which keeps a battery charged to run the watch.
Automatics are where the wrist action 'tumbles' the mechanism and keeps the spring wound up to run the watch, instead of winding.

[Zacs-Master]

There are no batteries in true kinetic watches. They have oscillating weights that are turned by constant movement from the wrist. The constant movement turns into a magnetic charge in the watch and then into electricity. There are no batteries needed, and the wearer should not have to wind the watch to keep it going.

[Zeuhl]

/There are no batteries needed/

Surely there must be some form of energy storage otherwise the watch would stop as soon as it is taken off or if the wearer keeps their arm very still.

[Tilly2]

I have a Citizen Eco Drive watch that uses solar power. I love it.

[sandyRoe]

Does the movement of the wrist wind a spring?

[Zeuhl]

/Does the movement of the wrist wind a spring? /

It does in an Automatic sandy

but not in a Kinetic - zacs was suggesting they had 'no batteries'

[Zacs-Master]

'The heart of the Kinetic system is the rotor. A tiny thing, just 2.66 mm in diameter and 0.4 mm thick, the rotor (technically, a samarium cobalt microrotor) spins at astonishing speed - 10,000 to 100,000 revolutions per minute, five times faster than a racing car engine.
The wearer's arm movement causes an oscillating weight to rotate. Gear trains transfer this movement to the rotor, whose spinning generates voltage across a coil block. That's electricity. The electrical current is stored in a tiny component called the ESU ('electrical storage unit') and is released when needed to power the watch.
Electricity stored in the ESU powers the watch even when it is not worn.'
I suppose you could call the ESu a battery but, techically, you'd be wrong.

[Fitzer]

Some confusing responses, a mechanical watch which is wound by an oscillating weight is known as an automatic, the weight simply winds the mainspring. Seiko introduced a brand called Kinetic where the weight essentially turned a tiny generator to charge a capacitor to run a quartz watch, modern ones now have a lithium ion battery instead of the capacitor but the battery should never need changing, other manufacturers have similar models. Seiko still sell very well priced automatic watches alongside their quartz offerings, look for their '5' range, but to be honest any decent quartz watch will outperform a mechanical for accuracy and I say that as the owner of many mechanical watches.

[Zeuhl]

zacs

/I suppose you could call the ESu a battery but, techically, you'd be wrong./

How specifically would that be wrong?

'electrical storage unit' looks to me to be invented marketing jargon; to make a small battery seem like something less mundane and more high tech for the assumed gullible consumer.

unless you can link to a technical description of what the difference is between an 'electrical storage unit' and a 'battery'?

[Fitzer]

Taken from a respected watch forum discussing Seiko changing from capacitor to Li-Ion
"Going with Seiko’s long-running and expensive "battery-less watch" marketing campaign, the company prefers not to use the term "battery" when referring to the LiOn cell. I presume after the millions the company had spent on promoting the Kinetic as a watch that required no batteries, they probably didn’t want the public to get confused.
Probably someone in marketing came up with a brilliant idea and thus the technical sounding name Kinetic Electricity Storage Unit (or Kinetic E.S.U. for short) was born. Kinetic E.S.U. can refer to the old style capacitor or the newer LiOn rechargeable cell." :-)

[Zacs-Master]

Zeuhl - How about you finding one which proves that they are one and the same?
Anyway, seiko have indeed now started to use batteries in their kinetic watches as the capacitors failed, so I was fundamentally wrong in any case, not just on a pedantic point.

[Zeuhl]

zacs

here we go - from 'HowStuff Works'

Apparently batteries and Capacitors are 'a little like each other'

But you're right, they are technically different

///In a way, a capacitor is a little like a battery. Although they work in completely different ways, capacitors and batteries both store electrical energy. If you have read How Batteries Work, then you know that a battery has two terminals. Inside the battery, chemical reactions produce electrons on one terminal and absorb electrons on the other terminal. A capacitor is much simpler than a battery, as it can't produce new electrons -- it only stores them.///

[Zacs-Master]

Well done Zeuhl (he wrote, in a rather patronising way).

[Zeuhl]

^ LOL

I don't mind admitting when I'm wrong; it's so rare .... :-)