Power reserve

I would prefer not to have 80+ hours of power reserve. I rotate through several watches every week. By the time I get around to wearing a watch again, it will be stopped. A long power reserve just means more wear and tear as it sits running in the box for days.

Me, personally, I enjoy the longer power reserves simply because it gives me the peace of mind, along with giving me a routine to follow with each of my watches to let me wind them up all at once and feel the satisfaction of seeing all my pieces running nice and fluidly.

Power reserve doesn't mean much to me since I switch up watches daily, if not several times per day.

To achieve a long PR, watchmakers can employ various strategies, including dual mainsprings.

If I had some crazy complicated perpetual calendar situation, then the power reserve would save me the effort of waking up my live-in watch setting butler to set the date properly. So that would be nice.

There are times where I wear a "nice watch" during the week, and then switch to something more tough for yard work weekends. It is pretty luxurious to set the watch down Friday and pick it up Monday and it is still set to the correct time.

That said, I have never really considered this an important spec when considering/fantasizing about potential watch purchases. It is totally a nice to have thing, not super big deal. When I am rotating them more often, like you do, it really doesn't make a difference.

What I WOULD like is a power reserve on the back of the dial for manual wind watches. Let me know if I need to fuel it up, or not. That would be far more useful, IMO. Not a big fan of them on the front of the dial, personally.

Pardon me for threadjacking with a relevant question, but say a watch has a 70 hour power reserve. Does that mean that it'll get wound fully (you know, most of the way) with a day's wear, or will that take about twice as long as a 28 hour power reserve would? Absent more efficient winding, I don't see the point either. I'm excluding that ridiculous watch that required a little power drill to wind.

More power reserve costs money. So really it's a selling point. You gonna use all that horsepower every time? No, but you get street cred for carrying it around, cuz techy science be pimpin.

Don't know, but also depends on your lifestyle. If you're single for instance.........

Power reserve is really more a marketing point than a practical advantage. Based on interviews, what happened is that ETA saw their patents expire. So Sellita and others started selling their own copies. So they had to come up with something, a revised design, that would be a selling point. Especially after Swatch bought them out. So they lowered the beat rate and touted a longer power reserve.

And of course, the same mania with 'in-house' movements. They offer little advantage over ETA and much more downsides. But it was a marketing ploy that worked.

I think there’s a correlation between long power reserve and accuracy. Something about torque delivery variation. I’m no watchmaker so keep the pitchfork in the shed. 😁

There should be an automatic fitness watch with a 30 second power reserve; you gotta keep pumping those arms to keep it going.

Personally 2 days is more than enough for me. (Then again I'm not to bothered about 4 vs 3 hz either so I'm neutral on powermatic 80 models)

If it's an automatic it makes no difference to me. If manual it has to last the day. I'd take HBR every time.

I agree. It’s the ability to provide a extended reserve is often a sign of complication and quality. Having three barrels having a 8 day reserve is a example. Same thing with the pitch forks.

Btw I wear at least 2 watches a day

I agree with you, I don't have a ton of watches, and no perpetual calendars. So winding and date setting every day is not a big deal for me. That being said, I have 2 watches now that have 80 hour power reserves, and some times it's really nice to pick one up 2 days later, and not have to worry about it. Nice feature, but by no means critical.

Screw down crowns wear out, so the less times I have unscrew/screw down the crown to set the time, the better.

All I know is that I love the grab-and-go convenience of putting away a watch on a Friday afternoon, wearing an alternate watch for the weekend, picking up the other watch on Monday morning and it’s still running at better than COSC accuracy. Having a 2 or 3-day PR and maintaining accuracy at a higher beat rate is not a requirement, but is highly desirable in my book. As some have said, I’m not a fan of lowering the beat rate.

I once bought a television with the expensive picture in picture option and never once used that feature to watch two shows. My yearning for a decent power reserve is similarly as logical.

I could care less.

Order of priority for me...

Bezel/complication functionality and/or Legibility

Shock Resistance

Good seals

Case size

Color/Aesthetic

Power Reserve

I rotate between my watches, wearing maybe two multiple days in a row. I’m okay with 40-50hr power reserve.

Completely agree with you. I usually wear 3 or 4 different watches a week so a 50+ hour power reserve means several of them are running at any one time in the watch box, wearing themselves out. I would be happy with a 12 hour power reserve.

I prefer 4hz over any length of PR, smoother seconds hand. I change watches every day so I am always resetting my automatics. For accuracy, I’ll use my #grandseiko 9F quartz 😉

I reckon it's a pleasure to use the crown of a watch but I also like putting one down for 3 days and picking it up to find its still running.

The thing to remember about extended PR's (and I I feel this way about watch winders too) is the extra wear and tear.

If I change my watch each day and it tics away for an additional 24 / 36hrs inside a box, the cumulative running time - compounded by the other watches in my collection doing the same - is certainly a factor of servicing costs. But if it was all about what's logical I wouldn't wear mechanical watches at all - so I like a long PR.

I think that you are absolutely correct. Extended power reserve doesn't make any sense once you think about it.

I had the same misgivings a few weeks ago and wrote a post about why I think that the whole concept of power reserve is absurd and exist just for the sake of making YT reviews and comparisons that have no relationship whatsoever to the reality.

The “weekend friendly” automatic, or why I don’t really get the idea behind extended power reserve.

Geek time, off the top of my head:😝

5Hz watch = 884,,000 beats per day, or 315, 360,000 per year.

4Hz: 691,200 & 252,288,000.

3hz 518,400 & 189,216,000

Amazes me how watches survive!

As a point of interest, Just read (Hodinkee 2021) that the Swatch group reduced the Eta 2824 from 4Hz to 3 Hz to give it an 80 PR.

I my opinion🙄😋 that strikes me as a sales tactic and following the herd.

Well written.

Yup. I change watches so often a long power reserve is pretty meaningless. 😂

Hey, I have a Swatch Sistem 51 with a power reserve of 15 minutes!

I think the main spring disconnected in the barrel so as long as it getting input, i.e., wearing it, it's fine. Take it off and let it sit.... 😂

BTW, it did not run like that when I got it. Not trying to dis Sistem 51.

Lol. I had an automatic watch one time with a Miyota movement that had a similar issue. I’m guessing that once I had it on for a while and it wound the main spring to a certain tension, something would slip and it would spin the rotor backwards very rapidly and shake the whole watch. Almost like a buzzing cell phone. I would have to manually wind it up a little to keep it running. Then a few hours later it would happen again.