Automatic watches generate power with the movement of your arm, so as long as you’re wearing your watch every day, you probably won’t need to wind it. To explain, your automatic watch has a rotor (sometimes known as an oscillating weight), built into the movement. This is visible through a transparent case back in some watches. The rotor spins with the movement of your arm, generating energy, which is then transferred to the mainspring housed in the barrel. The energy stored in the barrel is known as the power reserve. The power reserve in our automatics can be anything from around 38 hours to five days if your watch houses one of the Oris Calibre 400 Series movements. One thing to note, though. If you take your watch off for a few days, it may stop when the power reserve runs down. When adjusting it and putting it back on, it will start ticking again as you turn the crown and the rotor spins. Even so, we would advise giving the crown a few clockwise turns to get it going again. So, while you don’t need to wind an automatic, you can, and it’s usually a good idea when you’re resetting your watch after a period of non-wear.
