An automatic watch refers to a self-winding watch, that is, a watch that winds itself by the movement of the wearer’s wrist. Simply put, an automatic watch is necessarily a mechanical watch, while a mechanical watch is not necessarily an automatic watch.
The power of a mechanical watch comes from the spring wound in the barrel, which needs to be wound up from time to time to drive the watch to rotate, and the way of winding is manual or automatic, so mechanical watches are also divided into two kinds: automatic and manual, and the manual one is in fact the old-fashioned mechanical watch.
Automatic Mechanical Watches
The automatic movement is made by converting the kinetic energy generated by moving the arm into potential energy, which makes the mainspring tense and drives the watch. While moving the arm, the transmission system transfers energy to the escapement wheel, and the balance wheel uses this regular energy to continuously beat back and forth. With each series of beats, a series of wheels transfers energy to the hands of the watch, which then move forward on the dial. The advantage of an automatic watch, in addition to its self-winding and the technical mastery of its movement, lies in the low level of maintenance it requires. If properly cared for, an automatic mechanical watch can last for decades.
Manual Mechanical Watches
In the case of manually wound mechanical watches, the wearer has to manually wind the watch by turning the crown every day, and sometimes a special tool such as a wrench is needed to make the watch work, or else a manually wound mechanical watch that is not wound may simply stop moving. This can be said to be the disadvantage of manual mechanical watches, but for watch lovers it is also a sense of enjoyment of the ritual. As the name already suggests, manual winding draws its energy from daily manual winding and has no rotor. Unlike automatic watches, hand-wound watches do not have friction clutches, so they should be wound more carefully. As soon as you feel a slight resistance, the watch is wound and you can’t force it any harder!
