Let’s leave aside the smart watches, which are our main area of interest, and return to the real watches that shed light on these times with their hundreds of years of history. Yes, we are talking about automatic watches. We have previously mentioned the word quartz, which is found on the dials of most watches, and shared its meaning with you.
Now we are talking about mechanical watches, the arch rival of quartz. These watches, which are much more expensive than quartz ones, work with a mechanism, as we can understand from the name. In those with a transparent back cover, we see a piece that almost cannot stay in place. But what exactly is automatic about these watches? Also, why does the piece in question constantly rotate around itself?
First of all, our mechanical watches are divided into two: ‘winding’ and ‘automatic’.
Think of winding watches as that chick toy we are all familiar with.
The more we turn the handle next to it, the more energy accumulates inside the toy, and when we release it, the chick moves forward thanks to this accumulated energy. Naturally, it stops when the energy runs out and we have to set it up again.
As we turn the crown (handle on the side) where we adjust our winding watch, we tension the mainspring inside the mechanism, and this only happens to a certain extent. As we turn, energy accumulates, the gears turn, the clock works, and when the energy runs out, we have to wind the clock again. While some people say they like it because they think it has a connection with the watch, others see it as a burden.
For those who see it as a burden, the word “automatic” on the watch comes into play.
Automatic watches have a mechanism that works with gears and springs, just like winding watches. However, unlike wind-ups, when the watch runs out of power, you do not have to take it off and wind it again and again. The mechanism of these watches is designed to accumulate energy while you use your watch on a daily basis.
This is where the piece called ‘rotor’, which is the focus of our content, comes into play.
This critical piece, which some people think is just visual, basically serves as a weight for the mechanism. As it moves, it stores small amounts of energy to ensure the continuity of the clock. When these clocks stop, all you have to do is pick them up and shake them in a circular motion to start them again.
After this, you can easily use these hours during the day. Because the watch on your wrist moves while you do your daily work, the rotor also rotates and stores energy. In this way, the clock stays alive.
Both winding and automatic watches work by releasing the energy accumulated on the spring.
However, in wind-up watches, you manually stretch this spring in a spiral shape, while the rotor in automatic watches does this without any hassle through interconnected gears. In other words, this piece you see on the back of the watches stretches the spring as it rotates, and thus your watch works.
This was a big problem in the 70s and 80s.
Quartz watches, which appeared in the early years of these years, virtually wiped mechanical watches off the map because they kept time very accurately until their batteries ran out. Today, we can pull out our phone and check the time, so time tracking doesn’t seem like a big deal.
However, since it was critical for watches to keep good time at that time; In particular, Swiss watch manufacturers were competing with each other to produce the watches that kept time the longest and most accurately. Seiko, one of the most popular manufacturers, pioneered the production of watches that were more numerous, cheaper and kept better time compared to mechanical watches, with the Quartz Revolution it initiated.
From then until now; Battery-powered watches from brands such as Casio, Citizen and Seiko have become widespread. The answer of the Swiss manufacturers, who wanted to get their share of the market captured by these manufacturers, was the Swatch brand, which is relatively cheaper than luxury watches and produces – mostly – quartz watches for everyone.
Today the company; It holds luxury watch manufacturers with deep history, such as Omega, Blancpain, Tissot and Longines, under its roof. In this context, we can think of it as Volkswagen.
We have come to the end of our content with our little history lesson. You can determine the topic of our next content by stating your questions about this area in the comments section.
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