I have seen quite a few complaints on automatic watches online pertaining to the watch stopping at inopportune times. The owners often admit they live a sedentary lifestyle. I was wondering, how sedentary do you have to be to not wind your automatic watch?
I did a little research and my automatic watches, which use a Seiko 7S26 movement, take about 3200 swings to fully wind. This sounds like a lot, but for every stride you take, it swings the watch 2 times, so you have to walk 1,600 steps a day to keep it fully wound. 1,600 steps is really not a heck of a lot. Anything below 5,000 and you are considered sedentary. So, we are talking about less than half of this. An average person takes 2,000 steps to cover a mile. So, if your automatic watch stops, you are walking less than 4/5 of a mile a day. Also remember, you don’t need to walk to wind an automatic watch. Just moving your arm around winds it as well. So not only are you not walking, you are not even moving your arm around while you are sitting.
Now, why would watch companies design a watch that stops occasionally? Well, turns out nearly all of our ‘modern’ automatics were designed in the 1950’s. The modern movements are just refinements of older designs. I would venture a guess people in the 1950’s walked and moved around more than people in the ’00s. So, yet another example of how Americans have degraded into useless couch potatoes/cube dwellers. You can’t even move your arm enough to keep a watch wound.
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