Detailed explination of the Seiko Spring Drive movement and watches. We are authorized Seiko Spring Drive dealers. Call 1-800-486-3996 to place an order or visit www.arizonafine... for more information.
If a Patek, FP Journe, Rolex, or other Swiss watch makers used spring drive technology you'd best believe they'd be charging minimum 50K for those watches. Thank Seiko for that.
@@jerrybronham But the Swiss industry never took quartz seriously. Their position - holding 50% of worldwide watch sales, their history and hubris - saw them dismiss it as a fad and a minimal threat to their identity as the 'worlds watch maker'. They were wrong, and Seiko decimated their market in a few short years after quartz took off.
Spring drive with a continuously functioning break has been the dream for every watchmaker since watches were invented. Now the dream has finally become reality.
Live around the area, wear my watch all over, as long as you don't flash it most people won't even notice. I've seen more people in New Orleans wearing rolexes than anywhere else I've been.
Duke Of Prunes Yeah. Most of the robbers don't know Rolex from Timex, but I don't like to push it. Sometimes when I went out late in New Orleans I just wore a cheap but nice seiko I got for $15.
I agree i have a seiko 5 automatic 21jewels but also value for money with high quality and guarranty is swatch with swiss mechanical revolution starts at 2013 at swatch 30th birthday the swatch sistem 51 first generation and 2016 second generation.
I have been in the business selling watches for more then 25 years ,Seiko have always innovated and i consider them the best watch in the world .You can keep your Rolex,Tag's which are a total rip off ,and pepole stop buying those Emporio Armani's open them up and there made in Hong Kong.
i using seiko kinetic 5m42- of 40. been using it from my father to me until now for almost 15 years. if u looking for kinetic watches, I recommend to seiko. because seiko is the best quality kinetic wathces ever made.
+bennlucky7 Thanks for reassuring, I recently got three examples of discontinued SNP017 which uses 7D46 kinetic movement, and one example of also discontinued SNP069 which I found at Seiko shop in NYC on Madison Ave. The latter one is using 7D48 kinetic movement. So far I like all of them. I rotate them daily so that they don't get worn out as quickly as if I wore same watch every day. I am glad to hear that I made a good choice.
Joshi Oyabun kinetic use your motion to charge a battery, and those particular batteries degrade...solar is better, it can charge under artificial light. Kinetics are great when thrown in garbage. Lol See many kinetics at stores recently? That's why, and I prefer automatic movements bc of elegance and style, seiko 5 automatics are priced very well for a watch that ticks 5 times ea second. Battery powered watches are gross. One movement each second looks like cheap crap to me now after wearing real watches too.
Совершенство технологий доведенное до совершенства становится искусством. А не становится совершенством по тому что его быть не может. Если оно достигнуто значит поставлена точька. Хотя с каждой новой моделью кажется что это предел человеческих возможностей! Браво!
it's a bargain for what you are getting than your swiss counterpart. Non gimmicks in commercial adverts , you are buying a watch with true horological value. Just got the SBGA029 and it's feeling great with a accuracy that not many can match .
Seiko watches are every inch as good as the Swiss ones, in spite of being much cheaper. The main difference is due to the fact that wage levels in Switzerland are extremely high, so they have to sell their products dear, in order to make up for those high staff expenses.
Seiko makes wonderful watches. This Spring Drive thing looks astonishing. Though I'm a bit apprehensive to have an electric hybrid system watch, I prefer all mechanical. Seiko makes some beautiful automatic movement watches, too. Their Grand Seikos are...grand.
SEIKO can surpass the features of Swiss watches like ULYSSE NARDIN and ZENITH a century more advanced than these traditional Swiss movements. The Japanese are excellent innovators and the above video is just one proof. The Hattoris of Japan are true to their promise that "SEIKO is one step ahead of the rest." Seiko is truly ONE CENTURY more advanced than the expensive, prestigious Swiss watches.
I Want a Grand Seiko!! im 19 and i saved 10 gs for three years from a minimum wage job and bought a Rolex GMT master 2.. i just saw the spring drive video off of the seiko website...and i have to say I AM IMPRESSED...even my $10,000 Rolex Ticks 8 beats per second but the $5,000 Grand Seiko with spring drive is actually SMOOTH...Im still happy with my Rolex but the next watch im gonna start saving for is definantly the GS that watch is amazing!!! WOW its gonna take me one year and a half LOL
I have only owned Seiko watches, have never had a problem with any of them. The only watch company who makes EVERYTHING in house. An independent jeweller friend of my father's told him there is no better movement made at any price. One of my Seiko's is 40 years old, still looks great and keeps almost perfect time. ( loses a few seconds a month ).
Well thats you being lucky as hell. Most standart seiko movements are shite in terms of accuracy. İts basically a gamble you either get single digit accuracy or 15-20 seconds a day .Yes they are in hause and reliable but most of them are pretty low quality when compared to the swiss. However grand seiko on the other they make beatifully finished movements with incredible accuracy. Even more accurate than cosc standarts . In summary ı believe theh seikos are overrated as hell however grand seikos are on another level .Grand seiko rules.Over all seiko is a great brand however their regular watches could use some upgrade to thier movements.I am strictly talking about mechanical movements by the way . Quartz are accurate as hell regardless their brand anyway.
@@dietersdawgs Well if you consider Tag Heuer as a high end swiss brand then you may be right. And even if we assume that every single watch brand in the world used seiko movements . That still does nıt change the fact that their overall accuracy is shit. My mechanical seikos all have at least +10 seconds a day. This not a problem for me. not even a little bit cause they used to be very cheap when ı got them. However when seiko bumped their prices and started to ask 500+ dollars for their mechanical watches well that ı cannot justify. They are good but only when they are reasonably priced.
So Seiko put a quartz watch inside instead of the fork+balance wheel to pace the wheel train: impressive ! Seiko is always cutting edge technology provider.
swiss watch makers(SWM) doesnt only have complicated watch with many parts, but also complicated problem with so many excuses and run away from with fighting head to head with japanese watch maker. seiko still making traditional automatic watch, and priced under this latest automatic watch. that's how they see traditional automatic watch nowadays one of the reason why swiss watch maker stay with traditional automatic, at most tourbilon, is by competing in improving automatic watch more than this is just like saying, "yes seiko, your automatic watch technology is better". that would make other traditional watch price falls..... the best automatic watch ever in human history....
Not knocking Seiko for what they have done in watch accuracy and affordability, I do have to say that I owned a watch years ago that kept excellent time. It was quartz movement and maybe lost a half second in a day. It was a $29.95 Timex. I would set my Rolex to it.
Well yeah, but you could buy a 5 dollar plastic one and have similar performance. Both a tux and a tank top are clothing, but you wouldn't wear the latter to dinner with the queen.
The SpringDrive may be a revolution, but I'm not too sure how many ppl would appreciate this (at this cost) from a 'normal' manufacturer like Seiko. Now if Breitling, Longines or a Rolex, things would be a different story
People seem to miss the whole point of this ingenious technology - it is still a purely "mechanically" powered watch with a quartz oscillator only used to get the reference signal.
i totally agree with you. however all my watches are Swiss ... some Swiss Watches are a total rip off. for example you find a simple Unitas 6489 in a Panerai that sells for 1000s of $ . and this VERY SAME Mvmnt in a non-popular Brand sells for a few Hundres $. !! my next Watch will DEFINITELY be a Seiko ANANTA Spring .Drive..
@AlessandroVolta1 "some Seiko parts are coming from Hong Kong and possibly Thialand " Of course, Seiko has factories in several locations in Asia. Low end Seikos are made all over the place. Every watch co. does this, including Rolex....it makes business sense to save where possible. But this video is about the high end Seikos, like Spring Drives, Grand Seikos.....these babies are Japan only parts and many are hand-assembled.
I have a Seiko shogun and Rolex Sea-Dweller. My Rolex is gathering dust in my draw. I prefer the Seiko all day long. The seiko is actually more accurate even though I spent 700 $ getting the Rolex serviced.
I like how the Soviets came at this in the completely wrong direction with the uncommon 3055 calibre using a battery for power reserve but still using a balance wheel for regulation. Interestingly the prices of a working 3055 Soviet watch are quite high but despite their Soviet heritage are deemed super reliable if a little fragile. Me I likes me Seiko's all automatic and 7009ish, just cannot beat a 7009 "5".
There's no balance wheel, so nothing goes back and forth. So, the watch just moves forward, and a brake (regulated by the quartz crystal) in the watch slows it down to the exact speed it needs to be.
it does have a "battery" it is called a CAPACITOR .. which in all reality is a CHARGEABLE BATTERY.. the spring drive combines a MAIN SPRING with quartz.. eliminating the BATTERY (capacitor) ... and the BALANCE found in a mech watch. the spring drive is the best design to date..
if it is kept in a continuous running state, it will run perfectly much longer than if worn every now and then. i have a russian WW2 pcket watch that has never been services, and with a little help from me it's accurate and has a power reserve of 60 hours.
Before Seiko beats all swiss watch companies in the International Chronometry Competition, they have it postponed to change the format. Based on the history, Seiko came up 100+ place in the 60's and goes up to top 10 few years back. The latest models of Grand Seiko using this technology beat all high end swiss watches in any accuracy test. Patek could'nt come closer to half a second per day accuracy. Because of this technology, Seiko changes the landscape of watch making. 😂😂😂
You do realize, in all of your wisdom, that most of those Swiss brands are using mechanical movements because of tradition and luxury, and not trying to make the most accurate watches of all, right? If it's to get a watch with a quartz oscillator I might as well get a Casio or Swatch.
SEIKO SPRING DRIVE is a feat that Swiss watch manufacturers cannot emulate and probably they never thought it will come to reality. Sticking to traditional and conservative Swiss movements with highly expensive jewel bearings will someday lead to gradual extinction of exorbitant Swiss watches, considering the progressive innovations of modern timepieces powered by kinetic movement and solar energy, and with accuracy synchronized with the GPS. The Swiss watch sale is lagging behind since 2015 and this will be an ominous threat to Swiss industry.
maybe do your research? ASeiko already bankrupted loads of swiss watch companies, when they first came out with quartz. companies like omega. breitling, were neat bankruptcy. Invicta became bankrupt and used to be a weel renowned watch brand. It's trademark was bought by someone else and is trading now as a cheap watchbrand. Then they made the 7s26 movement and put it in all their seiko 5s and released them in every style of watch hammering the swiss watch makes even more. Now they have spring drive to beat rolex at their "smooth sweep".
Mechanical watches will still be a thing for many many decades, pure accuracy is not the purpose behind buying a mechanical watch, same reason someone would buy an old Jaguar E-type over the latest Bugatti. Mechanical watches have the human touch, the precise hand built nature of a tiny machine on your wrist carefully assembled from precision made parts and tiny jewels, this is the reason Spring Drive is amazing, it combines the accuracy of quartz watches with the mechanical fascination of regular automatic watches. Most of the midmarket mechanical watch brands already went extinct when the quartz revolution happened, they either adapted to cater to a luxury buyer, or switched to making quartz. Seiko dominated because it not only sold quartz, but decently priced mechanical watches as well as reaching up to the luxury watch market, unfortunately for Seiko some watch snobs like to snub Seiko whenever it releases a high end watch because they only think of Seiko as a budget watch brand, when in reality they cater to every level of buyer budget.
It's really cool. It's luxury though... Someone it's stated at of it's more convenient than say quartz... Quartz is like a two to four dollar battery every three years. This is a major service every 3-4 years. So this is about art and innovation.... There convenient about any mechanical watch... Unless money really is no object.
Did you take your watch for regular maintenance during those 40 years? I happen to have a Citizen automatic that's run for 30 years with minimal maintenance (has run for at least 15 years at a stretch without being opened up).
Actually you're wrong. Seiko makes some high end watches that easily match or even surpass the quality of many of the heralded Swiss brands. The problem is educating people of this fact. Too many people only have it in their mind that Seiko makes watches in the $100-$500 range.
Yup I agree. My friends Rolex loses more time than I lose with my Bulova and that's japanese movement. My Accutron loses more than my bulova too. And that's Swiss.
If accuracy and technology are the main concern, why not get a thermocompensated quartz? I dont really understand the basis for coming up with the spring drive concept. Nice watch though.
@Thereznap Not actually the same movement. Just the same base caliber. A unitas 6489 is a pretty ugly pocket watch movement, the movement in the Panerai is quite differnet in finish and timekeeping ability. I think new, a 6489 could come out in a watch with as much as 30 sec per day deviation. They wouldn't meet chronometer standards.
yes, it runs fast because the balance wheel is a little off, it's a simple adjustment, you push a little lever to the "-" position, but i recommend taking it to a specialist if you're not sure how do to it
Seiko never stopped making high end mechanical watches. They only make their best watched for the Japanese market, where they are more appreciated and respected. Google: "Grand Seiko" and you will see awesome pieces
i RESTORE AND SELL 5 -10 VINTAGE WATCHES PER WEEK. BREITLING OMEGA LONGINES ALL MAKE QUARTZ WATCHES. THEY USE BATTERY OR CAPACITOR .. THIS IS SIMPLY INGENIOUS...
@aviomaster Completely pointless comment, no matter how expensive the watch, the band's durability depends on the material. Rubber bands aren't build to last, neither are leather ones, you should know that. Different thing is if the band broke because it was faulty in someway, but you didn't express anyhing like that.
?? do you know how complicated an eta 27 is? and how they wear out? and the cost to fix? it is Uncomplicated. they eliminated the weak balance and escapement of mech eta and the battery/capacitor of quartz/eco drive! WOW! think of that when younthink ETA
thanks 4 pointing this out, I do actually own 2 eco drives, as you rightly state it has a capacitor but the need to change it is extremely infrequent. The spring drive is fine but will stop after 72 hours non wear.Eco drives easily last more than a month in darkness,during normal use they simply never stop.. I also at one point owned a casio tough solar which never stoped b4 I sold it.,. I respect your opinion, but have given very good reasons for prefering the Eco drive.
but as you see, it didn't require battery as the power is harvested from the rotating gear s powered by the stored energy in the main spring. it's like the best of two worlds.
Agreed on that. Always appreciate fine engineering. Respect the dedication it takes. I'll tell you a story. I was in Japan waiting for a flight. The assistant told me he'd return in 5 minutes to escort me to the aircraft. I could see him from where I was. He stood there, head bowed, looking at his watch, and returned after 5 minutes, to the second. This sort of timeliness and dedication to work is rare in the west, but common in Japan. For example, the U.S. car manufacturer who contracted a Japanese company to make some of their gearboxes. The company found customers were requesting Japanese gearboxes. But they were built to the same spec, how could they appear to drive more smoothly? The American car manufacturer decided to take a U.S. made and Japanese made gear box and inspect them. With the U.S. made gearbox it was possible to see the differences with the naked eye, but the Japanese version needed an electron microscope. Same specs, different culture of perfection. The story may well be apocryphal but maybe not. Spring Drive took 28 years to develop. Amazing dedication. :-) My Grandad is 93. He's owned many fine cars. He now has a Honda. He says it's the best car he's ever had.
What I can't understand is why they use a brake. Brakes simply waste energy. Why don't they attach a generator to the hand's drive wheel and get that to act as a brake? (by short circuiting the generator's output). That way, there are no friction surfaces to wear out.
For normal people? There's nothing like the spring drive technic in THE WHOLE WORLD! It's unique! swiss watches are the best BUT seiko is building watches in the same quality! Example? Look out for the "Grand Seiko"! This is best Manufacture Quality as good as swiss watches! The Problem is, Seiko is known for it's cheaper watches, so less people know that there are real great seiko-watches too!!! ;-)
fine watch, I love my seiko 5, but its a needless concept (arguably), for acuracey, length of standby time, & no need for battery replacement,Citizen Eco drives are unbeatable! arguably the perfect watch!
Is there any point in a mechanical watch apart from aesthetics? Electronics these days beats mechanical mechanisms in watches in therms of accuracy, durability, wear...
surely because the wearer puts the energy into the watch, the spring tightens using that energy. then because a force other than gravity is acting on the spring (the tension wanting to be released) it forces outwards.
It would work essentially the same in zero gravity as it would at 1 G, etc. Inertia would wind the spring via the oscillating weight, the spring would act on the movement via the gear train, and the quartz crystal would regulate the rate via the braking mechanism on the wheel. The main difference would be that without gravity to restrain it, the oscillating weight would keep spinning until its motion was decayed by friction. I haven't worked on one, but I'm assuming it has a mechanism to prevent over-winding.
