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Does A Longer Power Reserve Really Matter?

Published on Sun, 10 Jul 2022 12:00:00 +0000

Power reserves: It may be a bigger number, but what does it mean for the way you wear your watch?

Synopsis

In this episode of Hodinkee Radio, host James Stacy tackles the increasingly contentious topic of power reserves in automatic watches. As watch brands have begun offering movements with 70, 80, or even more hours of power reserve compared to the traditional 38-40 hours, comments sections have filled with debates about whether these longer reserves actually matter for everyday wearers.

James is joined by Jack Forster and Danny Milton to explore whether extended power reserves provide genuine practical benefits or are primarily marketing differentiators. The trio examines the question from multiple angles: for collectors who rotate through multiple watches, for single-watch wearers, and across different price points from sub-$1,000 pieces to haute horlogerie. They discuss how the landscape has shifted with movements like the Powermatic 80, Tudor's in-house calibers, and Oris's Caliber 400, which brands use to justify higher prices and distinguish themselves from standard ETA/Sellita-equipped competitors.

The conversation reveals a consensus that for most automatic watch wearers, 40 hours is more than sufficient—a watch taken off at night and worn again in the morning never approaches that limit. Extended reserves become more relevant for hand-wound watches, watches with complications that are tedious to reset (like perpetual calendars or moon phases), or for the psychological satisfaction of owning a watch with impressive specifications. The discussion also touches on power reserve indicators on dials, with mixed feelings about their aesthetic integration and whether they create unnecessary "power reserve anxiety." Ultimately, the hosts conclude that while longer power reserves represent technical achievements and serve as data points in the purchasing decision, they may be solutions to problems that don't exist for most wearers—though they welcome listener perspectives to challenge this view.

Transcript

Speaker
James Stacy This episode of Hodinky Radio is proudly brought to you by Hodinky Insurance. It's the fastest, easiest way to insure the watches you love. Get your quote now at Hodinky.com/slash insurance. Hey, it's me, James Stacy, and today we're talking about power reserves as I've noticed a lot of comments denigrating movements with the usual 40-ish hours of maximum reserve now that several brands offer bigger numbers, 70, 80 hours, sometimes more. But for an everyday watch, or even a watch you might not be wearing that often, does it even matter? Isn't 40 hours way more than enough for an automatic movement? When does a longer power reserve actually benefit you, the wearer? I have my own opinions, but I asked Jack and Danny to join me to help balance out the perspective. So grab your 7s26 Seiko and give it a good shake and bake. Because who knows, maybe it'll even last the whole episode. Jack, Danny, you guys feeling wound up and uh fully energized? I'm midwind. Midwind, yeah
Jack Forster , I feel that for sure. I don't have a personal power reserve indicator, so God knows where I'm at. I could I
James Stacy could stop in five minutes, I could stop in two days. Mine is mine is the number of coffee cups that slowly surround me. So what do you guys think? It's kind of an interesting topic 'cause it's something that I I I just feel like I'm missing I'm missing the boat on a little bit. Um when it comes to something like a sports watch, I've never once thought about how long the power reserve is. Like if the watch doesn't wind uh effectively enough, I guess it could stop when I'm sleeping or sitting really still at my desk all day. I've had that with like a Seiko monster that probably needs a service. But otherwise, like four forty hours is plenty. If I take it off at night, we're talking best case, eight or nine hours before I put it on again. What where do you guys land on this? Let's let's start with uh casual watches because I think it changes entirely if we start talking about higher end or dressier pieces, things like
Danny Milton that. I mean, I absolutely never really thought about it. Ever. Uh because my understanding before I was even knowledgeable about watches to begin with and just wearing automatic watches as sort of a you know, a casual guy as I as it were. I I understood the the concept of a perpetual motion and and how th there is not the actual need to wind a watch. So it the the whole notion of power reserve was something that I learned as I learned more about watches. And I think for for me, when you have a long power reserve, a 72 hour power reserve, an 80 hour power reserve, yeah, it's great. It's very cool to be able to tell somebody, this is what everyone always says, you can take your watch off on a Friday and pick it back up on a Monday or whatever like the you know, the the saying is now. But I very rarely am taking a watch off on a Friday and putting that same w watch back on on a Monday. Um so it just never really has affected me in any meaningful way. And how about you, J
Jack Forster ack? Where do you land on this? There's so many places where the conversation could start. I mean, one place at the conversation could start is talking about the situation of a person who has multiple watches and who's, you know, quote unquote an enthusiast or at least verging on an enthusiast, and somebody who really does just wear one watch um every day um and maybe they have a second watch that they wear on the weekends and and you know in a situation like that like i mean i personally don't wear the same watch every day take it off on a friday and put it back on on a monday, you know, take it off with relief on a Friday, j you know, in the way that I take off my suit, which I never wore anyway, and then put it back on loosen the tie. Loosen the tie. Take off the watch. And then Monday, you know, you get up, you put on your suit, and you look empty-eyed into the uh time again. Yeah, I guess in a situation like that, sure, having a watch that you you know, that will run for a couple of days without without it being on your wrist is cool. Practically speaking, if you have more than one watch, chances are, you know, I mean if you have s dozens, you know, the way that some of the people on this call might you you take off a watch, you might not you might not wear it for um you know, a month or two months. Um w or you might be, you know, going through a run with a particular watch where you're just wearing it every day because it's floating your boat, you know, particularly well. And in both cases it doesn't really matter what the power reserve of the watch is because if you're not wearing it on a regular basis and it's too gonna be two months, three months before you pick it up again, who cares what the power reserve is? Right. And if you're wearing it every day, especially if it's an automatic, who cares what the power reserve is because you're wearing it every day. And if the automatic winding system's in good nick, it's just gonna, you know, it's it's gonna stay wound. Yeah. Um I guess you could argue that if you had a hand wound watch, you would need to wind it slightly less often if it had a longer power reserve. But that's a complaint I absolutely get, right? Well, but like most ever I mean, most everyday wear watches, you know, most watches, hand wound watches you're gonna wind pretty much first thing in the morning anyway. Um you know, cause presum
James Stacy ably you know Like as like a little ritual sort of thing? Yeah. Pick it up, give it a few wines, put it on. And I guess if you have a power reserve then it's even less of an issue because it's not like it's gonna stop and you're gonna be surprised. Like you might with say an old dress watch or something like that. But yeah, it it's a funny thing 'cause I I the thing that I compare it to is kinda like the water resistance thing. Like you there's a certain point where all the water resistance is enough. Right. You know, like 200 is way more than any of us need, right? Um I mean, maybe maybe there's one, two people in the audience uh that that are really high-end tech divers that that you could make the claim to need more. But I do wonder how much of this is because the the sort of landscape of movements have changed in the last decade? Right? Because you have um Edda, Edda can almost be seen like because of swatch, edda can almost be seen in two different verticals. The stuff that they give to swatch brands, which now runs at a lower rate. So uh Jack, you can explain this better than me, but conceivably it's going to be a less precise watch over it over the duration of its power reserve. But the power reserve is longer because it's using less power. Well, the the specific case you're you're you're thinking of, I think, is the PowerMatic 80, right?
Jack Forster Which is a uh Right, the ones where they've tune them down from four hertz. Right. So you take an ATA twenty eight twenty-four which runs the twenty-eight thousand eight hundred VPH and you you you tune it down to twenty-one six and you've got an eighty-hour power reserve. Um there may be other things going on in there as well. I think it's a larger uh spring as well. Larger, yeah, larger main spring. But you know, the the the f all other things being equal, the frequency of a watch correlates uh pretty directly with its rate
James Stacy stability, except you know, all things are never equal. You know, the the standard for many years has been let's call it thirty eight hours, right? And we see that in edda in in the edas that are sold to all sorts of companies and Salidas that are sold to all sorts of companies. And then in the last few years, we've seen in-house movements from Kennisi Tudor, we've seen Le Jou Peret, we've seen uh the PowerMatic stuff and the CO7 stuff extend that 60, 70, 80 hours. And I I I do kind of wonder if hopefully people would will get into the comments because I don't want to discredit a commenter whose power reserve actually matters to the way that they appreciate their watch. Right. Um it's just like it's it's it's like so it it is in there with water resistance. Like if I see watch that has a certain amount of water resistance and a screwdown crown, I stopped thinking about it. And I think the only stuff where where I find the difference is if you have a watch that can't be hand uh hand wound, so like a 7S26 Seiko, where you gotta shake them, or on a a vintage watch that's hand wound, and I just simply have no idea when it's gonna stop. Right. Right. So you you kind of absent-mindedly give it a few wines every now and then when you look down at it, which is kind of a pleasurable thing as well. Do you think it's fair to draw a line between movements that have become commoditized under a thousand dollars and then pointing towards these these better quote unquote better movements, higher spec movements, half in-house, mostly in-house movements, um, kind of pushing towards one of of the kind prestige plays in high-end watchmaking where you have a huge power reserve. Do you think that that it's a it's kind of a a downswell of marketing? How many airbags a car has? That sort of thing. But that used to be a thing, right? First airbag was
Danny Milton in an S class. I mean, I do I I do wonder who who it's who it's for. Like this this this question always comes up for me is like who, what buyer, what consumer is it for? And it's the whole idea of like when I look down at my any of my watches, vintage watch in particular, and let's say it's running fast, running slow, and I think potentially the power reserve's not great, it's not keeping good time or it's stopped. I generally just shrug and go, automatic watches. You know, like this is kind of like the charm of them. They're not going to be the most accurate things in the world. I'll wind it up. I'll shake it up. It's fine. So I wonder if if it's people who are used to uh quartz movements, which obviously like power reserve is as long as the battery lasts. Just go, yeah. And because I I've had moments where I've had Or even Eco Drives. Sure. I've had an old time X that I pulled out of a drawer after a year and I I marvel. I'm like, oh whoa, that's keeping great time still. It's just been sitting in this drawer. You know, it's c
James Stacy razy. The thing that hits me is simply that this is these are comments on Hodinky articles for kind of niche watches. You know, I covered that vertex, which is an expensive micro brand. That's how I would call them, but it's a beautifully made watch, but you're not paying that money for a movement. Kind of like you aren't with a Braymont, right? Braymont will do some stuff to the movement. Maybe the they'll protect it from magnetism or shock or depending on the watch. This would be one thing if my if my dad was worried about or or or a friend of mine who doesn't know watches was really worried about the power reserve. This is something that's coming up like in in like knowledgeable watch conversations on niche watches. So it must mean something. Well you know this is something that came up in in the article that
Jack Forster we published not that long ago on the helium escape valve like and and this relates to water resistance as well. Like nobody needs two hundred meters water resistance un I mean unless arguably they're, you know, actively air diving or or technical di or breathing technical gas mix mixtures, but it's nice to have the spec. And uh you know, while you were talking about cars, I was thinking about the megapixel wars that camera manufacturers went I mean, sure, if you're gonna blow something up, you're gonna take you're gonna take a picture and you want to blow it up to the size of a billboard, then yeah, you need a phase one, but you know the average consumer, you know, certainly doesn't need um a sensor with that high a pixel density. And um as far as power reserve is concerned, you know, the standard for wristwatches for decades and decades and decades was 36 to 40 hours. You know, everybody just kind of lived with it and then, you know, self-winding watches started to really proliferate after the second world War and it became even less important. I mean it was possible to have watches, wrist watches with very long power reserves, you know, earlier on than you know than people might suspect. I mean, Cartier did an eight-day tank uh starting in 1931, I belie
James Stacy ve. Maybe small seconds? Yeah. Well you want a big power reserve if there's a complication, you don't want to have to reset a moon phase, uh a QP. Well that's a point. I do want I do wonder Jack, do you know the difference like how long the power reserve on a 3570 speedy would be with or without the chronograph running. Because it's not like half. The chronograph doesn't eat up that much um power, to my understanding. Aaron Powell No, I mean it's the
Jack Forster the the chronograph is a particularly um funny situation because what's actually happening is you you get the same number of turns What actually happens is that switching on the chronograph adds extra friction. Some drag into the system. Yeah. So what will happen is the watch will stop soon. But turning the chronograph on and then turning it off, just using it the way you would normally use a chronograph, doesn't affect the power res
James Stacy erve. Yeah, that makes sense to me uh in in in my very you know stupid engine non engineering brain. I just think, you know, just
Jack Forster jumping just jumping back uh you know a little bit, I mean the the whole idea of like a high end watch like the Cartier uh eight-day tank, you know, again from this from the 1930s, or later, you know, the paddock 10 day turbion. It's great to have the spec, right? Like everybody likes the spec. And you know, all other things being equal, we would like our watches, you know, to have the spec. Th the long power reserve on a hand wound watch d I guess does different things for you than a long power reserve on an automatic watch. But f you know, purely from a sort of like rate stability, accuracy, and practicality and use perspective. I don't know how much more practically speaking um uh you get out of a 70
James Stacy hour spec than a 40 hour spec. Yeah, I I don't disagree. I'm I'm just curious because it's something that feels new and and I think it might just be a response to, like I said earlier, how the sort of landscape around movements has changed. Right. Um, where you have brands that need to differentiate themselves. Like consider like an Oris, right? A brand that's been using ETA and Selita for years to a very high effect, and to come out with the four hundred, they probably sat at a whiteboard. I'm just gonna guess they sat at a whiteboard and they said, How do we make this something that somebody would pay more for? Some of these numbers have to be higher. And five days is a is a lot higher. Yeah. You want to feel like if
Jack Forster you know, if you're paying more for a quote unquote in house movement or a semi in house ish semi in house ish movement like the Kennisi calibers um that uh Tudor uses and that Brightling uses sometimes. Uh then yeah, I mean it it justifies uh a h uh a higher price is justifiable in the consumer mind if there's a better spec. Yeah. Right. Yeah, more money, more spec. Yeah. Just the fact of being in-house kind of doesn't do it for you anymore. Um it's like in-house and then what?
James Stacy Jack, you in our notes you put a a whole handful of watches that have like really remarkable long power reserves. Yeah, yeah. And and I think this is I think this helps illustrate a little bit of the point where there's a certain there's a prestige, whether it's needed or not, almost doesn't matter because you know, like Ben says, you don't need any of these things. Right. Right. That's that's the most reductive argument. Exactly. Yeah, because it's it's it defeats itself. But you know, you've got some of these that have seven days plus uh and then of course we we get into stuff like uh like the uh Jacob stuff and the Hublow. Why don't you give us a little rundown on if you really want power reserve where you can put your bucks. I mean it gets pr
Jack Forster etty crazy. The I the first long power ultra-long power reserve watch that I can ever remember seeing, well, 2001, the Ulyssin R Dan Free came out, that was a seven-day watch, and uh with a main spring barrel that with a main spring that filled the entire watch case. The original IWCP pilot 2002, that was a seven-day power reserve. And then the very first time I met um Jacob at his boutique was to see the Quentin Turbion that was in 2007 and that's a 31 day watch. Same year the Longa 31 comes out, also a 31-day watch with remontoire. There were eight-day pocket watches uh made, but you know, in the wristwatch realm, there's the there's the well there's the eight-day tank, which was very rare, but you know, at the top of the heap is the Yublola Ferrari, which is a watch that I don't personally think is successful aesthetically, but you know, you It's barely a watch. No. I mean it's it it's a it's a collection of springs for your wrist. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's I mean it's uh you know fifty days though. I mean that's a that's um one of the funny things about watches is that you can take any particular spec and you can fetishize it, right? And it becomes um it becomes something you pursue, you know, just for its own sake, right? You know, you can fetish depth ratings, you can fetishize power reserves
James Stacy , anti magnetism. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Thinness. Right. Speaking just a f uh a few hours after Richard Mill decided to go nuts with a you know, essentially a credit card of a watch for your wrist. Yeah. Yeah. I I think it's a fascinating thing. Jack, do you remember um I don't think we were in the same meeting together. This would have been before we were working together, but I want to say the LaFerrari, the first version, MPO5, 2014 or 2015 at Basel. Um I can't remember s uh precisely, but do you remember being in that meeting when you're like, Well how do you wind that many little tiny incredibly tight springs? And they go, Oh, with an included drill. Yeah. It's like it was it was like I guess granted you only have to do it about once every two months, but still still that it's it is a it is a crazy thing and like you kind of have to respect them just for trying, I guess, for getting out there and doing it. Yeah. Like is, this something that matters at all to you when you look at a watch? You let's say if you're spending a thousand dollars on a watch, does the power reserve matter? Because a at a grand, you could get a at a twenty eight twenty-four or you could just squeak your way into a six R 35 from Seiko, which doesn't keep as good a time. I own many of both, but has a much longer power reserve. I think it's 65 hours. Seiko has 65 hours of power reserve, James. The six R 35. Let me just double check. The one that's in the S P one four three. I think it's actually seventy hours a twenty one six. Yeah, Jack's right. Seventy hours. So not sixty five seventy. So let's say you've got a thousand dollars to spend, you could go by or we could get a PowerMatic eighty in there. So you could go to eighty as well for about a thousand bucks. I think you could be maybe a little bit more, but um around a thousand fifteen hundred dollars. You could have your pick between an Ada that you know and and is easy or something like uh like the Seiko or a Power Matic at that money does it matter or or it would depend on all the other features of the
Danny Milton watch? The moment you asked the question, the power reserve went out the window for me. It just doesn't it's not comp like I I'm not even able to to join this hypothetical using power reserve as the reason why I would buy either watch. So that might even answer your question. I I it's it's not something that is gonna sway me either way. I I and I think maybe it's similar to you. I think I'm maybe I'm missing the boat on on what it is that's making power reserve so attractive for a buyer at
James Stacy this price point. Aaron Powell And then let's say we push up into a different power reserve. Now now you're spending five five thousand dollars. Maybe it's a tutor, maybe it's a a brightling. Again, does it make any difference? I'm just I'm wondering what the where the line is for you guys. Like is it at $10 or $12,000 with a with a Rolex? Because I I genuinely don't know what the what the power reserve is on my explorer too. It's never come up
Jack Forster . The new BrightLink Super Oceans got dragged uh a bit in the comments um for having a low power reserve, but my impression was what they were really getting criticized for was not using uh a Canisi caliber in these watches rather than the power reser Which is perceived as a cost cut um to the to the to the end audience. Right. Right. And you know, the um sort of attaching yourself to the power reserve specifically as a a spec where you feel like you're you're not getting value for your money because you have a watch with a 38 hour power reserve instead of a watch with a 70 hour power reserve. That's a pretty easy thing to latch on to. But I'm not necessarily I mean there's a lot of other things that go into figuring out whether a watch is quote unquote worth it. I mean it's a highly personal decision. And you know the new super the new super oceans have um ceramic bezels, they've got a very, you know, idiosyncratic dial design. I mean the dial furniture, I haven't seen one in person, but the dial furniture looks really good. The hands look great, the dial markers look great. Um there's and there's costs associated with making high quality dials, there's costs associated with making high quality hands. So you know the spec for those in terms of power reserve might not be the thing that makes you decide that you want one. You might look at it and think to yourself, well, that's a cool watch and you look closer at it and you you say to yourself, well, it looks really well made. Again, I haven't handled one, but like from a sort of practical and consumer standpoint, okay, so it's got a 38 power reserve. So it's a little expensive if the only thing you look at is the movement. Um if you look at the watch taken as a whole, though, uh it starts to make a little bit more sense. And uh 38-hour power reserve by itself, I could I would bet that the number of people who actually walk into a Brightling boutique look at a superocean automatic and say to themselves, wow, that's a really cool looking watch, I'd love to have one. You know, they're not going to find out that it has a 38-power reserve and say
James Stacy Aaron Powell Yeah. I think in some ways this is like Maven level feedback. People who read every spec and kind of catalog them in their mind. And this is the beauty of of the of an audience as dialed in, which is why I wanted to have this discussion. It starts to make a lot more sense to me when you start dealing at that price point, just that subluxury, say uh $4,000 to $6,000, $7,000, whereas suddenly every feature of the watch has to be competitive and you have to like the way it looks. So you start filtering first by the stuff that you think is pretty or or or would work on your wrists and is the right size. And then you start to factor like, but this is 40 hours and it's 120 on the aurus, and the aurus is $400 less or $800 less. And I think at that point you've got you have a group of people that are so educated at what they're what they're into that they they have to factor for all these things even if the power reserve or in my case look I I like watches with lots of water resistance and I don't use them. Yeah. Like if if you could guarantee me fifty fifty meters, that would be plenty for any watch I would ever own, right?
Danny Milton I mean I want to throw a wrench in the game because as uh in addition to f to power reserve, where do you all land on power reserve indicators on the dial? Because for me, as someone who doesn't care about the power reserve that my watch has, I know that if if it was being measured on the dial of my watch, I would have some level of power reserve anxiety. Yeah
James Stacy , me too. It'd be like having another indicator on my phone. Exactly. Like low battery. I do like it on a handwound watch though. Sure. Especially one where it's it it it's comes down to like in my mind, it's like dates. There's dates that work really well and and don't bother me and I almost don't notice them until you need to look and see what date it is. And there's dates that never get out of their own way. And I think it's the same for power reserves. Some of them look really strange. They're kind of in a weird spot on the dial. Maybe they only represent not even ninety degrees of of travel um from from the center of the hand. And then there's others, you know, that are linear or gradients or or and and do much more fanciful things. And I think at that point you get into um you get into stuff where there's some art to the execution, which I do like.
Danny Milton Yeah, I'll tell you a watch that it bothered me on a watch that I otherwise might have purchased, you know, five years, six years ago is the Tudor North Flag. I thought that of the design of that watch, which was quirky and fun and kind of a little bit 70s, a little bit, you know, vintage meets modern, but then there was just this power reserve indicator where the nine uh numeral should have been. Uh and it just it was just something about it, you know. I tell we talk about not thinking about power reserve, but if you're gonna put it in my face on the dial, then I'm thinking about it in a way that it actually sometimes detracts from my you know enjoyment of the watch entirely.
Jack Forster I mean some people love it on uh the Grand Secos it's uh it's deal breaker for some other people. Although it's it's easy to sort of have just a general dislike of a particular watch for a particular brand and focus on one thing as a sort of ra quote unquote rational justification for disliking it. Yeah. I don't know. If I had a watch with a seven-day power reserve like uh like the big pilot, for instance, you know, or the long F 31, like I I want to have a visual you can't tell what where where a watch is in its power reserve by looking at it unless there's a power reserve indicator. So, you know, s I mean, semi logically speaking, if I've got a watch with a seven to a you know, thirty, thirty one day power reserve, I wanna see that, right? Like that's that's the the whole reason I bought the watch was because I was really, you know, excited by and connected to the idea of a long power reserve. So that's number one. The number two consideration is that at least in some situations a power reserve indicator was back in the day sort of an aid to practical timekeeping or to accurate timekeeping. And you know, this has to do with advances in mainspring technology. But you know, for a lot of the history of watchmaking, uh you would have a little too much torque at the beginning of the power reserve and not quite enough at the end of the power reserve. And that would mean that you would get you would start to see rate variations um especially towards the end of the power reserve when the when the main spring was on its last when the barrel was on its last you know rotation or two. So you would s you would see power reserve indicators on marine chronometers because you want the power curve to be more or less, you know, right in the middle, because that's where that's where you get the most reliable timekeeping. Now with modern main spring alloys, that almost doesn't matter at all. I mean the classic way to avoid uh timing errors as a result of letting a watch run down to the um you know last couple of turns of the main spring barrel is something called a multis cross stopworks. So basically the watch doesn't keep running when there's not enough power reserve to give you um good rate stability. It just it just stops. You know, I mean, which is it's but it it always that always felt to me like a little bit of a mechanical temper tantrum, right? Like if I can't have absolutely perfect
James Stacy Shut it down. Right. Just shut it down. It's it's my party. I'll cry exactly what I want to. Okay, it's time for our ad break. And anyone who has ever bought themselves a nice watch and then tried to add it to an insurance policy will know just how big a hassle it can be to get your watch insured. You need receipts, an appraisal, a pile of photos, and lots of patients just to get your watch properly protected. Frankly, it sucks. So we decided to make something better. Hodinky insurance is the fastest, easiest way to insure the watches you love. Get your quote now at Hodinki.comslash insurance. We're talking about power reserves, and I think some of them are are it's it's worth it's worth listing a few that I think are quite successful while we're on the topic. I really like the gnomos way of doing it with um with the circle that rotates over the red, and so you get less and less red as you're as you lose the power reserve. It's kind of subtle and doesn't require a hand. I also remember like really enjoyed the the Jorn option, which does the sort of North Flag thing at nine, but it it's for say forty-five degrees above nine o'clock, so it goes to 10 and it goes down to eight. And it's this very symmetrical and it has its own finishing. Um and oh, and then the other one uh that jumps to mind is you guys remember the one of the caliber one one X's from Oris had a ten day. Okay, we're good. But you had the um you had the the option from oris where it was one of the like caliber one fifty fourteens one fifteens was for the propilot had a ten day and it had this like almost like a cutout in the dial that the the the power reserve hand kind of sat into and I thought always always thought that kind look ofed good. I I to be honest, I I think now that I look back on it, I don't think I've owned many watches that with power reserves. Mostly mostly automatic. And I always find it kind of weird to have the power reserve on an automatic, especially if it's a power reserve on an automatic with a casual maximum power reserve, you know? Yeah, I don't know. I mean,
Jack Forster um I think it probably it it feels intuitively like it makes a little bit more sense to have a long uh to have a power reserve indicator on a uh a hand wound watch than than an automatic. You know, just in general. But you know, again for me if it's an automatic watch with you know with a with a seven day power reserve like the big pilot watch. Um yeah, I I definitely want to have the um I definitely want to have the power reserve on the di
Danny Milton al. I think Bruguay does it kind of interestingly too with the classic line where there's a ton happening on those dials and you don't almost don't notice the power reserve indicator. So in some in some cases, I think when we're talking about a certain level of luxury to James point. There are there are you know scenarios where I'm I'm not taking a hard line. I'm not I'm not you know loving a power reserve indicator, especially if there's there's that much happening. The clas
James Stacy sique one is an interesting one 'cause those watches um are charmingly weird in the dial layout. Exactly. They're they're wild things. I think that's a uh like an area of watches that because they have their own aesthetic and it doesn't really reflect deeply like the last ten years of sort of um mid century uh taste in watches uh that they're kinda like quietly sit sit in the background but they're really they're really kind of cool on wrist. Oh yeah
Jack Forster . I mean what those what those do reflect is is Brigade's approach, you know, to dial design and dial layout. And I think it was George Daniels who said that it's very hard to design a watch with a lot of complications that doesn't end up looking like a gas meter. That's a good I mean, fair point, yeah. I I'm certainly not going to disagree with Mr. Daniels. But you know, to the to the um sort of relevant point, yeah, if you just if w the only complication you have on the dial is a power reserve, it'd better be like really nicely placed, it'd be you know, it'd better be in good proportion to the size of the dial and the position, uh and you know, stylistically it has to sort of go along with the watch and go along with the z design of the hands and the dial furniture. Once you start piling on other complications, it it feels a lot less obtrusive, but that's because it's got a lot of company. Yeah, tru
James Stacy e enough. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I you know, I I think it's it's an interesting topic. It's one that I I hope people get into the comments and try and fill in like if if we've missed a a major usage point for um a nice long power reserve on like an everyday sports watch or or a fairly casual watch in general. In many ways, I think that this is this is a way where the the watch industry has created a problem for its own audience, where they've they've started to spread out um to you know to to kind of delineate between what uses a uh off the shelf movement, what uses an a pseudo-in-house or fully in-house movement, and then the really high-end stuff. And and because the high-end stuff went into these big numbers, like Jack was talking about, 31 days, 50 days, we start to see that trickle down into the into a middle price point, which then starts to challenge where the ETA stuff and the Salita stuff has kind of always hung out and offered a good value. Now the value's kind of changed if you're if you're following those numbers, right? And I
Jack Forster th yeah, and I think that one thing that we haven't really talked about is um you know, three to five or six thousand dollars for a watch is a lot it's a lot of money to spend on something that you don't need, right? It's a time. Um I mean, especially in this day and age, but it always has been. I mean, I remember talking to the CEO of a uh Swiss watch brand years ago who uh wanted to remind his team that they were asking people to spend a lot of money on their watches and that that it had to make sense. He and he he looked around the room and said, How many of you have uh when was the last time any of you spent six thousand dollars of your own money on a watch? And you know, and you you could have heard a pin drop. So I don't think it's unreasonable for at all for people to want the most spec that they possibly you know can get for their money. And if you're a watch enthusiast, that's one of the things you look at. You know, I mean, if it's possible to get a watch with an 80 hour power reserve um for significantly less than a watch with a 38 hour or 40 hour power reserve. You know, that's definitely not the only thing for for for sure that factors into a decision to buy a watch. But you don't want to feel as if you're getting let down by one of the specs of
James Stacy a watch that you otherwise like either.. Yeah It's a data point. You know, and there's only so many like really easily um understood data points when it comes to like how like it you know how accurate is, how deep can you take it, what um what you know, what's the power reserve, what's the rate, that sort of thing. And if they're offering more for the same or less, you can't really blame someone for having that stick in their mind as a piece of value, even if at least I uh for most cases, I don't think that it actually offers a tangible benefit to the end wear, especially if you're talking about a watch you either wear all the time or a watch you may only wear every now and then when you pull it out of the case or whatever, depending on your personal kind of outlook on watch enthusiasm. I mean, I guess the field expedient solution to the um 38 to 40 hour power reserve problem is uh is putting the watch on a winder. Yeah, that's true. Wa winders are are kind of an a a fun topic. That could be another whole episode, I think. Yeah. That's another whole episode. I've tried them and it just didn't stick. And and and it could be how this is how little I care about whether or not I have to wind a watch when I pick it up and put it on. But it's so important to some
Danny Milton folks. I I have my winder across the room. It's just unplugged. It's now just a watch bo
James Stacy x. So that's how much I care. This is another thing where we were talking I mentioned it very briefly on that that I had I've I've had people say, well if your watch has a complication that's a pain to set, it's great to have a long power reserve because then you can yes, you're not maintaining the power reserve every 40 hours or whatever. And then I guess that's the a large a large component of of the the winding set. Obviously, if we're talking an automatic QP or an automatic with a moon phase or something like that, you can leave it on there and and it will run I mean J
Danny Milton ack I have to think that with your your day date that you would prefer not to have to set that, you know, everyone's a good point too. Those are those are a good thing
Jack Forster . Yeah, yeah. I mean you you have to sort of um frame it to yourself if that's part of the fun, right? Uh you know what it for I mean the g that that that's the great thing about um using uh setting the date and and day on a non quick set day date, you know, it's like like like Forr
James Stacy est Gump said, you never know what you're gonna get. Yeah, it's true. Or you just you just have to go, oh well I'll wear it in three days when the date lines up. We'll come back I'm coming back to that. Well look guys, this has been fun. Uh it's always super fun to chat over these topics. I think this was a nice nerdy one and I I genuinely would love anyone who listened who who has some input on this, like explain to me why power reserve is super important to you or doesn't matter? Or if it's not even a question of what it brings to you once you own the watch, why does it reflect in how you pick a watch? And I'm not asking that like with any sort of tone. I just would love to know why. I'm I'm very curious. I'm not a huge movement head unless you get to a certain price point. It just doesn't matter that much to me as long as it runs and I don't notice its accuracy, it's probably fine. But I know that's not how it is for most people. So I would love some more perspectives. Uh, get into the comments if you can on uh hodinky.com. And uh hey, as always, Jack, Danny, thanks so much for being on the show. Thanks, James. Thanks for having. And if you're listening and enjoying the show, you know exactly what I'm gonna ask, send it to a friend, drop it in your favorite watch for,um put it in a WhatsApp with all your watch crew, and we can all argue uh friendly like about uh power reserves and other things. Maybe we'll do winders uh sometime soon. That could be fun as well. But until then, uh thanks so much for listening and we'll chat to you in about a week's time.