What exactly is an automatic watch?

What is an automatic watch?

Before that, we will distinguish the three notions that you can meet when you buy a watch.
This watch can be a quartz watch, a mechanical watch, or an automatic watch.

 

What is a quartz watch?

It is simply a watch that runs on a battery, in fact, an electronic watch.

You know well about this type of watch:


We can usually determine whether a watch with hands is a quartz watch or an automatic watch by observing the movement of the second hand, which moves once a second. Unlike the hand of an automatic watch, which moves continuously.

 

What is a mechanical watch?

A mechanical watch does not run on a battery but is made up of 100% mechanical components. It has to be wounded manually to make it work by using the winder.


This operation stretches a spring that will constitute the autonomy of the watch until it is completely relaxed and stops working.
Unless you wind it up in the meantime and restore the power reserve to the watch.

 

What is then the difference with an automatic watch?

It is simple (to explain but much less to conceive).

An automatic watch is a mechanical watch to which a rotor is connected, usually at the back of the mechanism.



This rotor turns according to the orientation of the watch. For example, if you turn your wrist, if you go up, down, in short, all the movements you make every day.
Each time this rotor turns, it winds up the spring we talked about for the mechanical watch so that you don't have to wind it up yourself.
This of course, if you wear the watch regularly.
The autonomy of an automatic watch varies according to the quality of the mechanism and is generally between 36h and 50h.
If you wear your automatic watch every day, you will never need to wind it.
An automatic watch costs significantly more than a quartz watch, because it is made up of 100% mechanical components that can be manufactured and assembled by hand. This gives them a much higher value than an assembly of electronic components.


This is why some mechanical or automatic watches can reach astronomical prices.