18 Advantages 10 Major Disadvantages of Automatic Watches

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While automatic watches are a mark of luxury and bring in several cute advantages, they do have certain drawbacks. The disadvantages of automatic watches make some people believe that bypassing this lavishness or going for something more advanced – for example, a smartwatch – could be a better option.

Here is the list of 18 advantages and 10 drawbacks of automatic watches that you must consider before you buy one.

And if you want to choose from 4 types of watches, i.e., quartz, manual, automatic, and smartwatches, a thorough analysis of the 50 best watches under 500 would be very helpful.

But before you go ahead with that just acquaint yourself with the difference between an automatic and mechanical watch, which are often confused with each other.

Automatic Vs Mechanical Watches

While they resemble each other and are considered the same, there do exist some differences between mechanical and automatic watches.

They are mistaken to be the same as there is no need for a battery in either case and each relies on winding to provide itself with the energy to work. As opposed to quartz watches that function electronically via a small battery, both the mechanical/automatic watches utilize the clockwork mechanism to keep track of the passage of time.

Switching on to the differences between the two, you will learn that an automatic watch is just a type of mechanical watches. There are two major types of mechanical watches, manual and automatic.

In the manual version, the wearer needs to periodically wind the mainspring by hand to keep it operating. On the other hand, the automatic variant has a self-winding mechanism that traps energy from the natural motion of the person wearing it.

Top 18 Advantages, 10 Disadvantages of Automatic Watches for Men and Women

#	Advantages	Disadvantages
1.	Precious investment	It’s a wrist-worm!
2.	Truly inexpensive luxury	Costlier option
3.	Boosts style & confidence	May require reset
4.	Do away with reset	“Frying pan” dilemma
5.	Prevent wear & tear	Smartwatch competition
6.	A Lasting beauty	Environmental sensitivity
7.	Higher Water Resistance	May need a winder
8.	Energy efficiency	Requires regular tune-up
9.	Trap Kinetic Energy	Lower accuracy
10.	Save Money & Effort	Bigger and heavier
11.	Save Environment
12.	Lifelong timekeeping
13.	Respite from Digital Monotony
14.	Exuding Coolness of Oldness
15.	Get Rid of Tick-tick
16.	Superior to Quartz
17.	Exhibition Caseback
18.	Plethora of Functions

Top 18 Advantages of Automatic Watches for Men and Women

1. A Precious Investment

An automatic watch – equipped with an automatic winder – is one of the most precious investments among your personal luxuries.

Though you might find one at an unbelievably low price, automatic watches are certainly superior to the finest quality quartz watches.

2. A Truly Inexpensive Luxury

Heard about the prices of Rolex and Patek Philippe watch brands? Even the cheapest Rolex watches would cost you tens of thousands of dollars!

Yielding to intense competition and in the face of even better-equipped smartwatches for men, women, and kids, the automatic watches have earned the title of the truly inexpensive luxury. Often, the watches with an automatic winder can be bought at the price of an ordinary wristwatch.

Did you know? Today the apex-quality automatic self-winding water-resistant watches are available for just around $100!

3. Boosts Your Style and Confidence

I guess you had an experience with an automatically winding watch. If so, you would agree that it serves to boost your style and inspire confidence.

Wearing a technologically advanced timepiece that is also graceful and durable and comes equipped with superior functioning standards would make you both look and feel different and distinguished.

And you will feel more confident when you know that your wristwatch is durable and self-winding.

4. No More Bear the Pain to Reset Watch

It is the self-winding capability of the automatic watches which sets them apart from their cousins, the mechanical movement watches.

While manual watches require manual winding to operate, an automatic watch would get the kinetic energy from the wearer’s wrist and feed it to the drive mechanism of the machine.

In other words, a self-winding timepiece would not demand you to bear the pain of manually resetting it when it stops operating.

Such an amazing feature pushes the disadvantages of automatic watches to the background.

5. Prevent Excessive Wear and Tear

Obviously, a wristwatch lacking an automatic winder would need repeated manual re-winding. And when you do it too often, it’ll cause damage to the tiny, fragile parts of its complex infrastructure.

On the other hand, a self-winding watch harnesses the energy of the wearer’s natural motion to automatically wind the mainspring, thus eliminating the need for manual winding.

6. Long-Lasting Functionality and Aesthetics

Frequent manual work on your precious time-telling gadget is likely to spoil its beauty as well as reduce its service life. Even it may stop working and require lubrication of its parts to resume operation.

Excessive lubrication with oil would lead to oil pooling, thus shortening its lifespan. And if you prefer to keep the parts dry, this too might be detrimental to its functioning.

7. Higher Water Resistance to Withstand Swimming/Diving

Most probably, you won’t invest in an advanced watch that can’t withstand water splashes, hot water, rain, and a swimming endeavor.

And a mechanical wrist that needs to be manually wound is less likely to have high water resistance. It is partly because an externally fitted lever for winding can provide a small passageway to water or liquid to get into the internal parts.

On the contrary, an automatic watch can be made more water-resistant to withstand swimming or even deep diving activities. For example, you can get one of the most economical and top-seller automatic watches offering up to 660 feet water resistance!

8. Effectively Utilize Energy That’s Usually Wasted Away

Naturally, the arms and all the other parts of the body are almost always in motion. When you move, the potential energy that you extract from the food gets converted into kinetic energy. But this kinetic energy usually gets wasted, without getting converted into any other form and, subsequent, utilization.

But you can put this energy into use by wearing an automatic watch. Your watch will trap this kinetic energy, convert it into potential energy in the mainspring which will then be utilized to run the watch.

9. Trap Energy That’s at the Verge of Wasting Away

Let’s begin with quartz, one of the three major types of watches movement technology. In this case, the watch needs to be powered by a small battery. So, you need an external source of electrical energy and have no option to save it.

A mechanical movement watch, on the other hand, can run and give you accurate time without requiring a battery. But it still requires kinetic energy input in the form of manual winding.

Finally, it is the automatic watch that does away with any deliberate energy input. It only cashes in on the energy that’s being wasted away.

Simply put, it traps the energy that has gone beyond your control and will ultimately get wasted (though it is never destroyed).

10. Save Both Money and Effort

When your wristwatch can run on its own without the need of a battery, it inevitably means you are saving money. However, a manual mechanical watch requires some effort on your part, i.e. you need to manually wind it after regular intervals. If you forget to give it a wind-by-hand input, it will stop working.

And when it comes to an automatic watch, you can both save money and effort. Though energy is fed into it, you do not need to make any deliberate effort in this regard.

11. Save Energy and Environment

An automatic watch not just feeds on waste energy and makes it reusable but also it proves to be an eco-friendly gadget.

Let’s explain it by taking the example of an electric motor. When you run a fan, the electric motor fitted inside it gets heat. That is, when electrical energy is converted into kinetic energy, a significant amount of it may be wasted away in the form of heat.

The same thing happens in a quartz watch. So, wearing a quartz watch means you are adding heat into your environment and contributing to global warming which is one of the most serious issues in today’s world.

12. A Permanent, Lifelong Solution to Your Time Measurement

As an automatic watch does not need any power source and manual effort to provide it with energy, it can prove to be a permanent, lifelong solution to your time measurement requirements.

When you are mindful of this truth, you might be ready to compromise on some disadvantages of automatic watches.

 13. A Respite from Digital Monotony

You are living in a digitalized world where the Internet of Things (IoT) is going to further change your lifestyle and the world around you. Everything from smartphone and smartwatch to television, car, plane and spaceship stands digitalized.

Invented more than a century ago when there was no electricity, the self-winding mechanical watches (also called automatic watches) serves as a breath of fresh air in the age of electricity-run devices. Also, you can rightly call it a respite from the digitalized monotony.

And you might agree to the claim that automatic wristwatches help you to de-stress yourself after several hours of working on your personal computer.

In other words, when you keep accumulating stresses from electronic gadgets in your daily lives, you need to interact with things that are different, and an automatic watch is one of such things.

Here’s one more fact begging your attention. As one of the greatest advantages of automatic watches, they will come to your rescue in an apocalyptic situation where all the digital and electric stuffs stop working.

14. Exuding the Serenity and Coolness of Being Old

You may also count it as one of the benefits of automatic watches that they exude the serenity and coolness of being old, and thus gold. Though they are processor to quartz watches which emerged in the 1960s, the appeal of automatic watches has not dwindled.

They are even successfully competing with the technology-filled smartwatches from the world’s top-ranking tech giants like Apple.

15. Get Rid of Jerky Tick-tick – Advantages and Disadvantages of Automatic Watches

The fluid, noiseless operation is something as appealing as other advantages of the automatic watches.

While the jerky tick-tick action of the Quartz timepieces could be annoying and interfere with your sleep if you wear it during the night, an automatic watch offers a viable solution that nuisance.

Thanks to the escapement and balance wheel technology, the second hand of an automatic watch has got a smooth and fluid operation.

However, if you dig deeper into the working mechanism of automatic and quartz watches, you will find that it is basically the same. The only difference lies in the rate at which the second hand moves.

That is, the second hand in automatic watches beats six times in a second, and you can observe these jumps through a closer look.

Here it is also noteworthy that the advanced automatic watches have got a higher rate of 8 or more jumps per second. Though this technology can also be incorporated into quartz watches, it would cause faster depletion of the battery as higher amount of electricity is needed to fuel more beats per second.

It would be unfair on my part if I skip to mention the fact that there do exist – though rarely – the quarts watches that generate the sweeping second hand action. An example is that of the Bulova Men’s 96B175 Precisionist Stainless Steel Watch whose second hand jumps as many as 16 times per second to ensure utmost sweeping movement.

Here you might argue that sweeping movement should be regarded as one of the advantages of the automatic watches. You are right but you should note that provision of this technology in quartz timepieces is usually a rare phenomenon.

 16. Superior to Their Quartz Counterparts in Terms of Elegance

Just collect the best pieces from quartz, smart and mechanical watches (including automatic ones) in a row for aesthetic comparison, you will find that the automatic ones are the most beautiful.

Though nothing could be said for certain, the aesthetic superiority might be partly attributed to their process of manufacturing.

Interestingly, the superior grade and higher priced automatic timepieces are assembled by hand. It also results in better design and ornamentation. Such watches are available in both the gents and ladies categories.

17. Exhibition Caseback – Feast Your Eyes on How It Actually Works

Exhibition caseback – a feature which is absent even in the highest end quartz timepieces – show how the moving pieces of steel render huge attraction to these little mechanical watches.

In this way you can feast your eyes on the elegant mechanical components moving around. Such a pleasant spectacle stirs the imaginative faculty of not only the geniuses but also the laymen.

18. A Plethora of Functions Packed into Its Small Body

While it sounds hard to imagine that small moving pieces of steel would do something more than telling time, they actually do wonders.

In addition to keeping and indicating the time (through melodious ringing sounds), an automatic watch also includes the features of day/date, perpetual calendar, stopwatch/chronograph, moon watch and so on.

Though such functionalities would also be available with a quartz watch, it would lack in awesomeness.

10 Less-Known Disadvantages of Automatic Watches

Though advantages overweigh the disadvantages of automatic watches, you still need to know their drawbacks before marking a purchase.

1. It’s Just Like a Wrist-worm!

How often do you wear your automatic wristwatch?

If you only wear a watch a few hours a day, an automatic watch may not be a good choice for you.

As you know, an automatic watch harnesses the kinetic energy of the natural motion of your arm to automatically wind the mainspring for continuous working.

It inevitably means, your watch will stop working if you put it aside for a long time. For example, some people like to wear a watch while they are at the workplace.

If during this time, it is unable to store enough potential energy in its mainspring, it will stop working and won’t give you accurate time when you occasionally read it.

Though the advanced automatic watches can store enough energy to power the watch for 24 to 48 hours, continuously keeping it idle for a couple of days will cause it to pause working unless energy is re-fed to it.

2. You Need to Spend More for the Same Aesthetics

If manually winding your wristwatch isn’t a big hassle, you can save a significant amount on your advanced manual version of a mechanical watch.

Both the automatic and manually winding mechanical watches may exude the same grace and employ the same clockwork mechanism to measure time. And this is the reason that these non-quartz watches are often mistaken for each other.

But, equipped with advanced self-winding technology, an automatic wristwatch significantly higher than its manual counterpart.

3. You’ll Still Need to Wind/Reset Time

You can’t totally do away with all the hassle.

It’s conditionally true automatic watches do not require manual winding or time resetting. That is, if you don’t wear your watch daily and keep it idle for a day or two, the stored energy will get used up and it will cease to work.

To restore its energy and put it to work again, you may need to manually wind it. And the hassle isn’t over yet. A pause in its operation means it will lag and give inaccurate time. In other words, you need to reset the time after it resumes its operation.

4. Out of Frying Pan into the Fire – One of the Least Noticed Disadvantages of Automatic Watches

Why do you prefer an automatic watch over its manual variant? To save you from the duty of winding it, right?

Just think, would your automatic keep running if you don’t wear it daily?

Mostly such disadvantages of automatic watches go either unnoticed or at least they are overlooked.

While trying to escape the trouble of manually winding your mechanical watch, you get into a bigger trouble, i.e. wear your timepiece daily or it will stop working.

A manual watch demands a few seconds to wind-by-hand, and it will keep doing its job for many hours without bothering you in the least.

On the other hand, an automatic watch makes you duty-bound to wear it all the time for its smooth, uninterrupted working.

Here it won’t be an exaggeration to say that while escaping a part-time job, you find yourself trapped in a full-time job.

5. Can’t Compete with Smartwatches for Sophisticated Functionalities

Today’s smartwatches are far superior to traditional automatic watches. In this regard, one of the most obvious disadvantages of automatic watches is that they cannot serve as your health and fitness companions.

The tech-enrichment of modern smartwatches is simply mind-boggling. They not only inform and guide you about your health and fitness, but also they are equipped with technologies like GPS, wireless charging, and IoT (Internet of things).

You can’t enjoy such post-modern luxuries in the automatic watches.

6. Sensitivity to Environment – One of the Inherent Disadvantages of Automatic Watches

As you know, a self-winding watch gets energy from the natural motion of your arm. As your arm lies in the environment of your watches, you can say that it traps the kinetic energy from its surroundings.

Put in easy words, your automatic watch is sensitive to changes in the environment. And this sensitivity can prove to be one of the greatest disadvantages of automatic watches.

For example, excessive shaking, violent weather, high altitude, low or zero-gravity environment, and space travel may affect its working.

7. May Need a Watch Winder – Additional Cost and Weight

If you cannot wear your automatic watch all the time and often leave it for a long duration, it will run short of energy and will cease to operate. When you pick it the next time you need to read time, you will have to shake it to put it to work and also reset the time.

The only way to avoid this hassle and inconvenience is to get a watch winder which would incur some additional costs. Also, it may add to the weight of your watch and make it bulky.

8. May Require a Regular Tune-up – One of the Painful Disadvantages of Automatic Watches

It has been noticed that automatic watches tend to be less accurate than their manual counterparts and quartz movement watches.

An effective solution to the loss of its accuracy is a regular tune-up. But it would look like a serious nuisance to those who want to enjoy a totally hassle-free timekeeping experience. And busy people who are more concerned with accuracy would call it one o the severe disadvantages of automatic watches.

9. Lower Accuracy – May Lose/Gain FIVE Seconds a Day

You would agree to list lower accuracy among the biggest disadvantages of automatic watches for gents, ladies, and kids.

Surprisingly (or unfortunately, whatever you call it), even the most accurate and costly automatic watches that are powered with COSC chronometer technology tend to lose or gain 4 to 5 seconds in 24 hours.

And their ordinary counterparts may lose/gain as many as 15 to 20 seconds in a day!

But don’t panic. Given the fact that there are 86,400 seconds in a day, the loophole in accuracy isn’t that much significant. Your automatic watch is still 99.97% accurate!

However, if you compare that accuracy with that of the electricity-powered quartz watches, the latter appear to be much superior as they only lose a few seconds in 30 days.

The easiest way to cope with the lower accuracy of automatic watches is to reconfirm its time with that of your smartphone every few days.

10. Usually Bigger and Bulkier Than Quartz and Smart Watches

Thanks to a huge array of moving steel parts, the automatic watches for men happen to be bigger and bulkier than counterparts from the quartz and smart watches families.

It is primarily the energy source that contributes to the size of volume of the watches. Use of a small battery (instead of mainspring) and wires (instead of gears) enables the quartz watch manufacturers to keep it smaller and lighter.

On the other hand, the presence of mainspring and gears is the major cause behind the bulk and bigness of the self-winding mechanical watches.

Additional complications/functionalities like chronograph also go on adding to the bulk of your watch.

However, bigness is not a bane but a boon – it renders the touch of solidity and manly feel and enables your timepiece to withstand more violence before it breaks down.

Conclusion

As you might have noticed the advantages overweigh the disadvantages of automatic watches. While you might already know about their benefits, learning about their drawbacks can prevent you from making a wrong decision.

Top 10 FAQs about the Advantages and Disadvantages of Automatic Watches

1. Are automatic watches reliable?

It depends on multiple factors to determine how reliable a mechanical or automatic watch can be. If your battery-free timepiece comes from a reputed brand and is equipped with high-quality tech standards, irrespective of how much you pay for it.

Often you will get an automatic watch under 500 which would gain or lose as little as just one second per week. In other words, it might develop the inaccuracy of less than a minute in a year. Such a watch would be highly reliable for ordinary use.

On the other extreme, less reliable watches would lose or gain up to two seconds a day. In that case, it can cause the inaccuracy of 6 to 12 minutes a year. Still it will serve your purpose if you can afford to reset it every week or month.

2. Are automatic watches better than battery-powered watches?

An automatic watch can be much superior to a battery-powered counterpart. It not only saves you from the hassle of frequent battery replacement but also you save money. Also, the wristwatches powered by the natural motion of your body are reliable and long-lasting.

However, they are not without some serious drawbacks. For example, they are costlier than the ordinary battery-powered timepieces and require you to wear them all the time or you will face the risk of inaccuracy.

A piece of good news for the automatic watch lover is that advanced automatic watches do not require rewinding for two to three days!

3. How long do automatic watches last?

Today’s sophisticated automatic watches can have sufficient power reserve that will make them run for 24 to 72 hours if you don’t wear them. It means if you don’t wear your watch during the night it won’t affect its timing and accuracy. This is one of the reasons the buyers usually overlook the disadvantages of automatic watches.

4. What happens if you don’t wear an automatic watch?

It all depends on the duration of keeping your wristwatch idle. If you don’t wear an automatic watch for a day or two (or three), it won’t affect its routine operation. However, if you don’t wear it for weeks or months, your mechanical watch will stop running.

Still, there is no need to worry about as there is a quick and easy solution to all this, i.e. rewinding. You can even avoid manual winding by using a watch winder.

You can get a super-quiet multi-function watch winder for an amazingly affordable price. It will take care of your watch when it is at rest.

5. Do automatic watches last forever?

It is one of the most frequently asked questions about a self-winding watch, “Does my automatic watch last forever? Theoretically, the answer to this question is ‘yes’. But the same may not be true in the practical sense. In real life, your automatic watch will keep running with accuracy for as long as you look after it.

In other words, if you stop taking care of your self-winding wristwatch, it will stop taking care of your time.

6. Should I buy a quartz or automatic watch?

While an automatic watch is usually considered a better option than its quartz counterpart, there are some additional costs attached to it. For example, a quartz watch only needs the change of battery, the mechanical one may incur huge costs in terms of mainspring replacement, regular repair, and a watch winder (to keep it running when you don’t wear it).

In addition, a self-winding watch may not compete with a quartz-powered timepiece for accuracy and insensitivity to changes in the immediate environment.

7. What are the best automatic watches?

If you are looking for an automatic watch that’s truly best, it could cost you tens of thousands of dollars. However, good quality self-winding watches are available for as low as less than two hundred dollars.

And they belong to some of the world’s most celebrated brands, including Seiko, Citizen or Invicta (perhaps the most affordable one). Meanwhile, Fossil and Timex are also the brands worth listing here.

8. What is the most accurate automatic watch?

Being sensitive to changes in its immediate environment, an automatic watch tends to lose or gain seconds over time. This makes it less accurate than a quartz-powered wristwatch.

However, if you go for expensive watch brands like Rolex and Breitling, they are usually listed among the most accurate automatic watches.

9. Is it okay to shake an automatic watch?

Yes, it will be okay to shake an automatic watch unless you don’t do so violently. Rapid and vigorous shaking may cause the watch to gain or lose seconds, thus affecting its accuracy. And extreme movements can also damage its intricate mechanical parts.

At the same time, constantly keeping it motionless would engender another problem, i.e., your automatic watch will stop running.

10. Why do automatic watches stop running?

While a mechanical or self-winding watch lacks a battery, it depends on the natural motion of your arm (more precisely the wrist) as an alternative source of energy. This kinetic energy is captured and stored in the form of potential energy in the watch’s mainspring which then powers your watch.

Logically, when you don’t wear your automatic timepiece, it loses its only source of energy and utilizes the reserve power. Once this reserve power gets depleted, it stops running. The easiest option to resume the working of your mechanical watch is to wear it and give it a few non-violent shakes.

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