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Is one technique higher than the other, or just a matter of preference? On the one hand, kinetic energy generation needs movement, whereas, a lightweight-powered watch, such as a Citizen Eco-Drive model, is obviously more passive, and therefore requires fewer moving parts.

Fewer components is always better in terms of long-term reliability, but in the case of a watch it’s seemingly additional of a moot purpose since analog watches are already composed of a zillion elements, so what real distinction will a few additional make.

Some background on how both these power systems operate is possible so as before drilling down to deciding that is best. Clearly, this discussion has nothing to try to to with watches requiring daily winding either.

Seiko pioneered the self-winding watch back in 1980. They came up with a approach to translate the motion of the wearers arm movements into the mechanical energy necessary to wind the watches mainspring. The fancy word kinetic merely means that motion-generated mechanical energy.

The way they are doing it is by letting arm motion swing this rather odd-formed rotor, weighted heavily on one side, around a winding mechanism that, with the use of specialized reversed gearing, will solely move in one direction. The result is a wound mainspring.

This in itself can keep the watch wound as long as it’s worn and so receiving kinetic energy input. But, when left off the arm for daily or 2, it would stop. This is particularly germane since I’m specializing in dive watches, that might or may not be worn as a regular everyday watch.

To unravel this problem, Seiko added a battery to store the excess kinetic energy. Now, assuming the battery is totally charged, the watch will lie still for years and still not need winding.

Rather than kinetic energy, Citizen developed a method to utilize light as an influence source. And it doesn’t should be sunlight – any lightweight supply can do fine.

On the faces of their Eco-Drive watches, Citizen places little solar cells that remodel light-weight into electrical energy. This energy is then collected and stored in energy cells, sort of a battery, that will supply power for extended periods, even while not light.

Again, since were talking about dive watches, this is often notably useful for somebody who only uses the await diving, versus carrying it everyday. By storing up energy for later use, these watches may be left idle for extended periods, and still show the proper time.

Of course, many new models, both kinetic and solar, have a hibernation mode where after sensing no movement for an extended period, the hands and dial functions stop moving to save energy. However the quartz movement continues to keep the right time, so that once the watch is moved once more, they sense that and reset to current.

Battery technology has come back quite a ways too, so it’s gotten to the purpose where this storage cell or battery, would last past the lifetime of the wearer. Which means the battery would never need replacing, making these watches super environmentally friendly.

So that is best? Well, if the watch is worn with any amount of regularity, it appears to not very matter. Either energy source will work fine. You can also see that either type watch will be left idle for varied times starting from months to years, and continue to stay correct time.

I suppose if one left the Citizen solar watch in a very drawer long enough, it might finally stop from lack of light, however then so would a Seiko kinetic watch from lack of movement.
At the top of the day, it’s kind of illogical to shop for any watch and leave lying around for years, thus the answer should be that both energy generation techniques work well, and it merely becomes a matter of non-public preference.

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