How to choose a watch winder ?

Owners of automatic mechanical watches, whether collectors, hobbyists, or businessmen, will one day find themselves faced with a big problem: keeping the watch on time and being able to change the watch as often as necessary.

To do this, you need to wear a self-winding watch on a regular basis and build up enough energy in the barrel through the daily wrist movement that powers the rotor.

The goal is to avoid depletion of the movement's power reserve. After that, the watch stops working and has to be wound manually and the time reset.

When the watch is wound, it must be wound manually.

When you have one or two automatic watches, it is still simple: just wear the first watch on your wrist, leave the second and change before the fixed watch reaches its reserve limit.

But when the collection of self-winding watches starts to grow, it gets complicated. Repeated winding and resetting is tedious and can even damage parts of the watch. Indeed, twisting the crown too frequently will cause premature wear of the crown's gaskets and even degradation and breakage of the "crown tube."

There are therefore more than 3 or 4 automatic watches, so it is highly recommended to invest in a watch winder, called "Remontoir à montres" in French.

The watch winder has three main functions: to store the watch, to wind it and to keep the movement constant and evenly lubricated. Indeed, it should be remembered that a watch that has been stopped for several months can no longer be "self-lubricated", and you cannot prevent the movement from locking up and causing your watch to stop permanently until it is forced to undergo an overhaul.

The following five main criteria will help you choose the best watch winder for your watch:

Storage capacity of the winder:

You need to count the number of slots for automatic watches. Obviously, but for this kind of counting, you don't need to consider your quartz watch or other manually wound Omega Speedmaster...

If you own 4 automatic watches, you can choose 2 or 3 winding positions to keep it very compact. However, think about your future investment to plan the winder according to your series evolution.

The size of the watch winder:

This is still a crucial standard. You need to ask yourself where to put the winder. You can display it proudly in your living room, leave it in the closet or choose to store it in the safe. Get the data sheet of the winder to check the outside dimensions of its housing.

If you plan to store it in a safe, it is recommended to buy one or more single-space winders, such as the Swiss Kubik type winder. The placement of the winder and the interior design of the safe will become easier!

You can opt for a hybrid solution: if you have one very high-end automatic watch and three mid-range automatic watches, choose a single-window winder, put it in your safe, and then invest in a second multi-window winder. can proudly display it on a cabinet.

Design:

There are many brands of winders, each offering more or less well-designed or even aesthetically pleasing masterpieces, such as the "Futur" model from Temporalité de Paris.

The only question you need to ask yourself is whether you want to show off your winder or store it in a closet. If you choose the second option, you can choose a safe equipped with a watch winder

Powering method of a watch winder:

There are three power modes: battery, mains or hybrid.

Storing the winder in a safe or cabinet will inevitably require wireless battery power. If the winder is placed elsewhere, you can select cable power via the plug provided with the unit.

The wired mode, has the avnatge of never turning off and being able to use the leds that are in your watch winder to proudly display your watches

However, the battery-powered mode also has its advantages:

For example, you can easily move the winder at any time, and even take it with you when you are on vacation.
And in terms of aesthetics, the elimination of cables is a big advantage.

Brand:

So far, the number of watch winder brands has reached dozens. You will find very serious and well-known brands, such as Temporalité de Paris classic chic French Watch Winder.

Also, many Chinese brands can be purchased on online shopping sites. Nevertheless, you need to remain vigilant as the quality of the reel fluctuates greatly.

You can find low-end models with surface treatment problems and the motor is still noisy...

Whether you choose a reel from a major brand or from China, you can choose some technical options that allow you to adjust the number of turns made per day and select the rotation mode (clockwise or counterclockwise).

On the other hand, some models allow you to optimize the number of rotations based on the brand and model of the watch.