Movement
The mechanisms that power a watch: automatic, quartz, Eco-Drive and related concepts.
- Automatic Watch
- An automatic watch is a mechanical watch that winds itself from the movement of your wrist. A rotor inside swings as you move and tightens the mainspring, so it needs no battery. Worn every day it keeps running; left off for a few days it stops and has to be rewound.
- Eco-Drive
- Eco-Drive is Citizen's light-powered quartz technology. A cell behind the dial converts any light into energy, so the watch never needs a battery change and, fully charged, keeps running for months in the dark.
- Hacking (Second Stop)
- Hacking is the feature whereby the seconds hand stops the moment you pull the crown out, letting you set the watch to another timepiece right down to the second. Not every mechanical movement offers it.
- Power Reserve
- Power reserve is how long a fully wound mechanical watch keeps running off the wrist. On most automatics it is around 40 hours; some movements reach 70 hours and more.
- Quartz Watch
- A quartz watch tells the time using a quartz crystal that a battery makes vibrate. It is far more accurate than a mechanical watch and needs next to no maintenance, drifting just a few seconds a year and running for years on a battery, or on light.