this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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What’s a mechanical watch? Aren’t all watches mechanical apart from smartwatches?
Just in case this is a serious question.
Mechanical watch is a watch that's purely run by springs and gears without any electronic parts. Easy way to think about it is imagining a wind up toy that unwinds very slowly, and the unwinding is moving small watch hands instead of making a bunny jump. This is an old technology that was used before battery run watches became possible, and most of the luxury watches still use this old technology. Most of watch collecting hobby revolves around mechanical watches.
Aren’t those just automatic watches? I thought most people don’t have too many automatic watches in their collection?
All automatics are mechanical but not all mechanicals are automatic.
An automatic watch has a rotor that winds the watch through movement on the wrist. It's mechanical. But there are mechanical watches that are not automatic and require hand winding to power the watch, lacking the rotor that "automatically" winds the watch
When it doesn’t need a battery, then it’s commonly referred to as a mechanical watch. A further distinction is an automatic watch, when it also doesn’t require manual winding to function and uses the movement of your wrist to stay powered.
Spring Drive has entered the chat
Spring Drive is a category on its own.
Spring Drive does not have a battery, though.