The automatic watch - you should definitely know this!

There is almost no other topic on which we receive as many questions as on the subject of automatic watches. Probably the most frequently asked question is: does only an automatic watch really run automatically? The answer to this is a clear no. An automatic watch runs as long as the so-called mainspring is tensioned. The mainspring is tensioned either by winding the watch by turning the crown or by the movement of the wearer moving the oscillating weight and thus winding the mainspring. If the mainspring is not tensioned, the automatic watch stops and must first be rewound or made to run again by movement. With a quartz watch, it runs as long as the battery supplies electrical energy to the watch. If the battery is flat, the watch stops and the battery must be replaced.

If the mainspring is tensioned (automatic watch) or the battery is full (quartz watch), then both watches run automatically, whereby automatic in this context means that nothing special has to be done to keep the watch running.

In a narrower sense, an automatic watch is a subtype of a mechanical watch. In the case of watches, mechanical means that no electrical energy source is required for the watch to run. With mechanical watches, a basic distinction is made between hand-wound models and automatic watches.

In hand-wound models, the mainspring can only be tensioned by winding the watch using the crown. In the case of automatic watches, the kinetic energy