Power Reserves Don't Matter!?

I’ve seen people say that a lot on here but I agree, PR is a very useful feature.

My IWC has a 120 hour PR while all my others are around 42H. I can cycle through 4 watches in 4 days and the IWC will still be ticking on the morning of day 5.

TBH if I’m rushing out the door and it’s the only one still ticking in my watchbox it makes me way more inclined to pick that one for the day.

I also have one in my watch box that is always ticking ... Tudor BB Pro and it's power reserve is around 70 hours. I am often surprised that it is still running in the box. It is awesome.

The other ones with low power reserves ... well it is what it is. I toss it in the winder just before wearing it and then adjust it's time. I have a day/date which takes more adjustment before leaving the house so if I am in a rush that one stays home.

I always put my watches into watch winder so 38hrs is good for me, but if watches has longer power reserves then it would be better 😬

Power reserve wouldn't be a selling point for me. I switch through watches enough that they'd be dead no matter what and even if it had an extended power reserve I'd be setting it to the second when I put it on anyway.

I guess it depends on your perspective. I enjoy winding my watches, and I've only got a few, so the amount of power reserve doesn't really affect me. And it's no great burden to set the time and date on most of them... But, I'd always rather have more power reserve than less. It adds to the enjoyment of the watch, to let it almost but not quite run out, then put it on again.

It doesn't matter. If you really care just buy a quartz.

Doesn't really matter the way I rotate. I randomly pick a watch each day and rarely wear the same one back to back. I wind and reset every time I pick a watch to wear.

It depends on how many watches you own, and how often you rotate them. For me, more than 38-40 hours is pointless, as I often go a week or more between wearing any one watch.

I said 12 but I agree that 6 is more realistic unfortunately.

If you wear a different watch every day & have 3 or more watches, it's true.

Most of my watches (Oris, Sinn, CW) have a Sellita movement with a 38 hour PR. It’s not really a problem but it’s about time Sellita improved upon this when,for instance, Swatch group normally have much longer PR. I appreciate the increased PR of my Longines Hydroconquest and Spirit.

It takes less than a minute to set your watch before you wear it. Power reserve indeed does not matter.

48 hours is plenty for me since i rotate through my watches daily and they will wind down no matter if its 2 day or 5 day power reserve. I can see a long power reserve as a great convenience for a 3 watch collection or less. Or those that actually have weekend and weekday watches. You could always invest in a winder 😄

I use a watch winder so I doesn't matter at all. It might as well be a 2 hour power reserve

I'm not in the "I don't care" bucket, rather I'll take it off is there but it won't dissuade me from buying one with a short PR, nor will I value highly one with a long PR.

I’ve been a big fan of the 80hr reserve on my Hamiltons. I’ll rotate my watches every few days or so, so it’s nice to see that one always going when I want to pick it up. Whereas my Seikos and others are always dead by the time I pick them back up, and I don’t even have a large collection (5-6). I think it just depends on the person’s collection and habits of wear. You can always keep the lower PRs on a winder and the larger in the box, but again, it depends on how frequently you rotate.

Depends how you wear watches. I can't recall wearing any of my automatics for more than a day at a time, and not re-wearing them for at least a week, so power reserves mean very little to me. Others will have different mileage, but my scenario isn't unique either.

Whatever the right answer is, if you forced my hand in picking between two identical watches differing only with either a high or low power reserve, I will pick the one with a higher reserve 100% of the time.

He is right.

I don’t think this can be reduced to one being better than the other. It all depends on the situation and sometimes shorter is better.

If someone switches between watches every day in a 10 watch collection, it’s just more wear on the movement without any benefit to the owner. (Wear the watch for 16 hours, then it runs for another 70 hours off the wrist before stopping anyway).

However, if there is a watch that someone will put down for 2 days at a time and come back to, the power reserve does make a difference. Small collections and Monday to Friday “work” watches make more sense to have longer reserves.

Well, everybody has an opinion, right or wrong. 😂

For me power reserve makes no difference but obviously everyone is different so just buy what makes sense for you. General rule is, your opinion matters not anyone else's.

Extra power reserve is a longer, stronger spring which will translate to more pressure on the escapement for faster wear. The gear train will not see the difference. I think shorter PR will improve longevity.

It's useful but as long as you get over 24hrs it's fine by me.

I'm not that concerned with power reserve. Especially having numerous watches in the collection. There is this connection I feel when I put on one of my mechanical or automatic after its been sitting. Changing the time winding it and your journey together begins. I have quartz that I can just slap on in a pinch..

It doesn't matter if you got one watch and it doesn't matter if you got many. But it's very useful if you got a couple of watches. So for most people it doesn't really matter 😊

I agree I always set and wind my watches before changing them unless it’s a quartz I reacently wore my speedy pro for three months straight and it was a pleasure to wind it daily it became na enjoyable part of my daily routine

Watches are something I fidget with constantly, so being able to give one a wind everyday day or two is no burden

A longer reserve is better, and I wish my Aquaracer was longer than 38 hours, but I don’t think it is such a deal breaker.

I think it simply depends on what kind of watch wearer you are. I tend to wear one watch most of the time and swap something else in for a day or less, usually for a specific activity. That makes the usual 40ish hours typically sufficient. I know a lot of people on here have much more varied watch wearing schedules, and that would certainly boost the significance of PR. No right answer to this one in general, although "bigger number better" is valid here, I think.

There is probably something to be said for having a one day break, say 10pm Saturday to 8am Monday, where 34 hours of downtime is getting into the region of a 38hr power reserve where time keeping begins to suffer a bit. I think this is essentially why the 38ish hour reserve was gravitated towards, to bridge that gap, but a few more hours would bridge it a little better.