My Thoughts on Automatic Watches #Wristwatches #Shorts

This article is a transcript of a video that you can watch by clicking the thumbnail below. Hence, certain statements may not make sense in this text form, and watching the video instead is recommended.

Transcript

These automatic watches were a huge departure from my G-Shocks. On one hand, getting these made no sense to me as I was spoiled by those feature-full digital and ana-digital Casios. However, even without those features, paying a little more suddenly starts making sense when you appreciate how, without any electrical power, a set of moving elements shows you the time, and keeps recharging or rewinding the watch with the movement of your wrist. I can’t help but compare it to how some of us like driving cars while shifting gears manually, or running Linux on our computers, or prefer writing our own software to get the job done on those computers.

I’ve been using these automatics more than the other watches ever since I got them, not because I like them more, but to save the effort of setting the time and date when I pick them up the next time. These need manual adjustments, not only because the accuracy of either of these is way less than that of my Casios, but also because they stop working past their rated power reserve duration, which is even less than two full days.

Another consideration is that these watches are prone to losing accuracy, drifting out of sync by several tens of seconds each day. This made me realize that you cannot achieve accurate timekeeping down to the second, even if you compare it to my most inaccurate G-Shocks.

At the end of the day, it’s a great feeling to be able to wind up a watch as you go about your day, without needing to worry about draining the battery or the watch losing charge while it is stored in the dark, because practically, your body is the power source. This way, these watches become one with your body, creating a cycling dependency of which party depends on which. And when it does stop working after exhausting all the power reserve, simply picking it up in your hands gets it moving, but yes, you’ll need to set the time, date, and the day of the week again.