How Does Watches Working ?

There are two basic elements in a watch - the power source and the movement.

Power Source

The power source is what allows the watch to run, whether the watch is powered by light, a battery or by the watch owner winding a knob crown out of the side. If the power source is not functioning, if the battery is dead perhaps, or the watch hasn't been wound, then the watch stops.

Light powered watches have a receptor located just beneath the dial. The receptor absorbs light streaming in and converts it into energy to run the watch. The energy is stored in a permanent battery to ensure that the watch works at night and in dark places.

Movement

The movement is the name for the inner workings of the watch, the part that actually keeps time. Movements generally are divided into two categories: automatic and quartz.

Automatic Watches

In aiming to understand how watches work, we'll need to look at automatic watches. These watches contain automatic movements, which have been existed for centuries in clocks before they were adapted to watches. When the watch is wound, it winds up a spring, which provides the energy needed to operate the inner workings that keep time.

An escapement keeps the time, while the gears connect the escapement to the hands of the watch in the display. There are also automatic, or self-winding, watches on the market which will work without a battery and without being wound by hand. Self-winding watches are designed to wind the spring from the natural movement of your wrist. While the watch is being worn it continues to wind, and when it is removed it has enough energy stored to work for a while, sometimes for a few days, sometimes even months, depending on the watch.

Quartz Watches

Quartz watches first arrived on the scene in the seventies and quickly became popular. Quartz watches do not need to be wound because they receive their power from batteries or sometimes from light. They use tiny quartz crystals to keep time. The battery inside the watch causes the quartz to begin vibrating. This is converted into digital pulses that operate the circuitry in the watch.

Atomic Watches

A relatively new development is the atomic watch, which uses radio signals to synchronize the watch with an atomic clock kept elsewhere to ensure accuracy. These watches typically use quartz movements.