How much do you care about a movement?

I don't mind a Sellita, Miyota, Seiko movement at all. It's all just marketing.

Below $3k, there’s a few movements I try to stay away from. Older miyota 8215s without hacking and stuttering seconds hand (newer 8215s don’t have these issues anymore). Seiko’s 6R35s and 6R31s (others feel the same way).

I don’t mind an ETA 2824 or 2836 and their clones, but I hate the manual winding mechanism often breaks. And the notorious helicopter rotor spin during manual winding is another issue due to old lubricants or under lubricated from factory.

I won’t get near nasty, cheap Chinese DG2813s.

Seiko’s 7S26… I don’t need to explain lol. We all know why.

For me that’s it.

All fair pts! And of course some of the better micros account for some of these issues and do their own quality control.

Living in that budget range, I have Miyotas, ETAs, and Seiko/NH movements. They’ve all been good to me so far. People will have their opinions. It’s part of the charm of social media 🤣😂

For prices above 1.5K and transparent case back - I would expect off the shelf ETAs, Sellitas, etc to be at least finished to some extent. Imo - they look too plain and dull without finishing on expensive watches where you might want to peek at movement from time to time.

I stay away from unknown cheap Chinese movements. And the older Miyota 8000 series is also just subpar.

As an avid Micro fan, the baseline is the ~NH35 which is perfect for the affordable end. Anything lower, and they are likely cutting corners.

Miyota 9000s and ETA/Sellitas are a plus in my book.

There are many movements that I would consider when looking for a watch. However, trying to look for hacking and hand-winding…

I want a reputable movement that allows a watch to be thin, beyond that I don't really worry too much about it.

I avoid Seiko movements because they tend to make watches unnecessarily thick.

A lot. My floor is the 2824 and the various clones of it. I also try to stick with top grade versions where I can as there is a significant difference.

I avoid Seikos movements (with limited exceptions) unless it is in a Seiko.

There are great 3rd party movements up and down the price spectrum. In-house doesn’t necessarily mean superior engineering or decoration in my price range.

Unless is is a Chinese mystery movement, or an in-house watch movement created by Saxon forest sprites, I don't care if the movement is an 2824 (and clones) or a NHxx variant. (There would have to be a good reason to use a Miyota movement.)

Most likely the movement will not be the deciding factor when purchasing a watch.

I have become a little more particular in the movements... I really like decoration on movements, such as blued screws etc. Even a Miyota 9 series can have some basic decorations. Some brands opt for higher level versions of swiss off the shelf movements. However I do wish all these off the shelf movements would start having longer run times.. Miyota updated the 8215 with 60 hours of power reserve released as the 8315.. why haven't they released a 60hr PR high beat movement though?!

Still talking about modern movements?

The joy of vintage is seeing what you can find in a jobber. £25 can get you something much more exciting than anything mentioned above. So… yes, I am all about movements, but not from a position of snobbery, but of value and learning.

I'd take a proven Sellita over a middling brand's attempt to build their own movement any day. If it's an in-house movement from a company that's known for building movements, awesome, but to be charged more for something that offers no advantages beyond bragging rights and only promises teething problems is a mistake I've made twice and won't make again. Add to that how pathetically few "in house" movements are anything more than white-labeled by third parties, rotor-branded "in group" movements, or the result of a watch brand buying an existing movement and pretending they invented it and it all seems a bit of a shell game.

Of course it's a different story at the highest-end of the market, but accurate, reliable, and easy-to-service movements are a problem that's already been solved and I don't see the advantage of suffering through attempts to reinvent the wheel to justify adding another few grand to the MSRP.

I’m very interested in movements on their own terms but never as a vehicle for snobbery.

I obviously can only speculate but I would say it might have something to do with that it's more difficult to make accurate. Within a given movement one can only put a mainspring of a certain size and store some fixed amount of energy. When increasing the power reserve without increasing the size of the movement, that would be costly as much needs reworking then, one must therefore decrease the regulating power. There is no other way.

This can be done several ways, eg with a smaller balance (like how large PR is acheived in the Baumatic or IWCs lower end movement) or lower beat rate (like the Powermatic 80). Either way, less regulating power means smaller perturbations to the system have greater effects, at least in theory (much like a pendulum with a heavy weight would be less affected by wind compared to one with light weight of both a re swinging at the same amplitude). The cheapo movements have super weak tolerances which are likely easier to meet.

I think you are onto something. A watch is more than a movement. Not just potential buyers but also watchmakers, by which I don't mean brands but literally the people working on the movements, seem to ignore that fact all too often.

That said, I think the pairing needs to be good, appropriate use. If you make a really nice and sleek watch for 1000€ don't bother putting a Seiko movement inside so that it's 13.7mm thick. Equally if making a 5000m diver for 1000€ in a 44mm wide case then perhaps don't use an ETA 7001 ultrathin but a the aforementioned Seiko even though the ETA is certainly more expensive. That's what I expect, a reasonable choice of movement for the intended use.

While my comfort zone price range pretty well excludes most “in-house” or proprietary calibers anyway, I honestly don’t think in-house is a huge selling point to me.

Honestly, one of the reasons I chose a Longines Spirit over an Oris Pilot, it that it essentially has an ETA28xx series movement, rather than an Oris Caliber, simply because getting the Oris serviced would most likely necessitate sending it to Oris, which would be expensive and inconvenient.

In a lot of the things I buy house, cars, etc… I’m always wary of falling victim to the “Ferrari Oil Change” trap. i.e. where you can strech and save up just enough to buy a big ticket item, but simply can’t cover the unexpected(and usually exorbitant) costs of owning it long-term.

Give me a well finished, solidly built watch with a Seiko NHxx, Miyota 90xx, Sellita SW2xx/3xx, or ETA28xx under the hood, and I’m 100% happy in the knowledge that any watchmaker worth their salt can service, repair or simply replace these ubiquitous movements.

Just my .02; though I may just be a tight-wad who’s missing out because of it 😆

Below 3K Miyota 9xxx, Selitta, ETA, and some Ronda. Seiko NH only for mods.

I dunno. Seiko and the miyota movements are fine after I spend thectime regulating them

I care about its quality, accuracy and ease of service. If it has an open caseback or a skeletonised movement then sure, finishing quality helps but isn't a complete deal breaker depending on how much the watch is...

This IG meme needs to be here:

I just want something reliable or able to technologically allow a case to be thinner. I don't care about in house or marketing BS. I have a ten year old citizen with an eco drive that is as accurate as my macbook pro and more accurate than all my mechanical watches. That shook me off being impressed with fancy movements in other watches.

Not as much as some people on the internet seem to think I should

The Miyota 9000 series movements are fantastic. My 9000 series movement is currently only about 2 seconds a day off of my GS and my Tag Heuer. I'd happily take a 9000 series movement over a Seiko 6R movement any day of the week.

Hahaha yep , although I'm guilty of this myself 😝

Knowing what movement is to me is more of a minimum than anything. I do want know that down the line of something happens to the watch that it should be and easy fix, but if you ask me what's the difference between two miyota movements beyond being quartz or mechanical, I wouldn't know.

BUT

IF I'm going for quartz I would be a lot happier with a solar version, not a requisite but a nice to have

I much prefer that my watch comes with an off the shelf movement that can easily be serviced by a local watchmaker or swapped, than a so-called "in-house" movement that is just a rebadged Sellita and an excuse for brands to charge you an extra $600 for a service. In my eyes in-house movements are largely a sham.

Above $2500-3000 I am looking for next tier movement attributes like being in-house or a COSC certified 3rd party movements. I am big fan of Sellita movements, and prefer Miyota over Seiko or Orient movements. ETA movements are awesome, but the trend to Powermatic80 varients is dimming my view on models within Swatch Group going that route. Basically the answer depends - but I have parameters.

That’s truly beautiful 👏