A lot of us may already know the answer to this but to some, the term "automatic watch" does not sound familiar at all. So what exactly is an automatic watch?
Different Types of Watches..
Before we delve into it, let's look at the different types of watches that are out there at the moment. Generally, we would put them into three different categories - battery, quartz & mechanical. The first one is obvious. They are battery powered watches which we see mainly as digital watches or even the currently trending smartwatches with LCD screens and such. They are solely powered by a battery. Some prominent examples are like Casio digital watches, G-shock variants etc.
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Quartz Watch
The second - quartz watches, are watches that also require a battery but they are equipped as well with a quartz which serves as an oscillator. This type of watches can be seen on a lot of the more affordable analog watches. One way of spotting them is to look the the second hand movement. The second hand moves with a crisp tick with each second. This type of watches can be seen in a lot of the more affordable dress watch such as Daniel Wellington, MVMT Watches and such.
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Mechanical Watch
Now comes the third one - mechanical watches. Mechanical watches are those made from the very start since the invention of clocks/watches. They consist of mechanical parts (gears, springs, oscillators) which work hand in hand to get the watch running. In the early days, these mechanical watches requires manual winding every now and then to get the watch working constantly.
So where does the term automatic comes into play?
Pretty simple. As the name says it, automatic watch is one that does not require an manual winding. Automatic watches are also known as "self-winding" watches. The reason is it makes use of the natural motion of the wearer to provide energy to keep the watch ticking. The automatic watch contains a rotor which is a free-oscillating weight that is moved when there's motion from the wearer. This rotor will then, through a series of reverser and reducing gears, wind the mainspring of the watch to keep the watch running.
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Automatic watches can be seen in a lot of collections of high ended brands. I.e. Rolex, Omega, IWC etc. Fortunately enough, there are also affordable automatic watches such as Seiko, Tissot, Timex, Citizen and such. Multiple microbrands nowadays carry automatic watches in their offered products as well.
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Because mechanical watches are such craft on their own, they are more sought after. That said, we at MILENEAL have also introduced our very own automatic watch which we hope would allow watch enthusiasts out there to own automatic watches at an affordable price!
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P.S. We'll be writing more about automatic watches! Follow for more content