Sat 11 Aug 2007
It’s been a couple years now since the Seiko Spring drive has been unveiled, and there are many ardent followers of the brand. Seiko’s higher end line Credor is much sought after by collectors as well. Having seen the Spring Drive in person I can attest to it’s appeal… the watches are VERY well made easily the equal of more expensive Swiss watches.
In case you are unfamiliar with it, the Spring Drive is a revolutionary new movement from Seiko with many special characteristics that I’ll be talking about.
What makes the Spring Drive Special?
Having seen the literature on the Spring drive on their website, I could not find anything that really told me what made it special at first glance. There were some videos and such but I wanted to find a one liner that said “Springs Drive is a revolution because…” But I just got some marketing talk about how it moves the way time really moves or something.
Looking deeper and watching the videos, it explains that there is no escapement like a typical mechanical watch. Oh? That’s very interesting. Everything in the watch moves in one direction, unlike an escapement which bounces back and forth under the strength of a mainspring. It has some sort of magnetic component inside and of the 280 components, 4 of them are electrical, so this is not an entirely mechanical watch as far as I can tell. That is unfortunate.
The movement has a 72hr power reserve and the rotor winds about 30% faster than traditional rotors due to the efficiency of the mechanism.
My personal concern lies in whether a company like Seiko will ever mass market this technology and make it very affordable, thus devaluing the Spring Drive? Obviously the Spring Drive will not displace the Kinetic in the market place as the Kinetic offers much more electronic features which are desireable to a large market segment.
Still, the beauty of the timepeice is evident, and the perfect sweep of the second hand, unlike that of traditional mechanical watch movements which tends to be a bit choppy, is a very nice feature. Enough to convince buyers to part with $4000+? Perhaps. For the time being, Spring Drive is here to stay. I should hope so, seeing as Seiko claims that this is the culmination of 28 years of advancement in their own movement design!
A video:
December 21st, 2008 at 7:53 am
it;s cost about 7.000 $ and it’s alot for me.i want this watch for me and i don’t have the money because i don’t work because before before like today,5 years i crached and i was in coma for 4,5months and i learn to walk and speak.i have only 500 euris and i want alot for a christmas gift.let me know if you can sell it to me
December 26th, 2008 at 5:31 am
i just bought a springdrive gmt with leather band.after a few weeks i can tell u all that this is the best in my collection.i also have an IWC and ROLEX,but now i only wear the seiko.it feels better and stronger
January 15th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
Why is it “unfortunate” that the Spring Drive contains electrical parts? That is the entire point of the movement! It doesn’t use quartz timing entirely, as in a cheap but accurate watch. It doesn’t use the elegant, strictly mechanical complications that were largely perfected generations ago, and are grossly inaccurate and needy by modern standards. It uses a combination of the two; retaining the elegance of the mechanical movement, yet vastly improving the accuracy.
It doesn’t seem as if you understand how the movement works . . . the quartz element and the brake is there to regulate how quickly the mainspring unwinds. It’s toward the end of the video you linked. I fail to see how being able to enjoy the elegance of a mechanically-based movement with relatively pristine accuracy (1 sec/day spec, 1-2 sec/week reported) is “unfortunate”.
January 16th, 2009 at 12:05 am
The reason why you fail to see this is because you are closed minded and can’t see how there are people with other likes and dislikes. I can understand that many people love the spring drive. I can also understand that many people love quartz watches. Different strokes for different folks. I stopped trying to convince other people to see everything my way a long time ago.. I suppose you will reach that point at some point in your life as well.
For me that the Spring Drive is not completely mechanical is unfortunate because I like a watch that is completely mechanical. It is not all about accuracy. Obviously it is the entire point of the movement… Just as the entire point of most thing is the reason they are made the way they are. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.
Just my opinion.. and its my blog, so I don’t see why I can’t say what I want. Good day to you, sir!
January 17th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Oh, you can say whatever you want . . . just don’t be surprised if, when you post it on a network of tubes that tens of . . . people might look at, one of them may take a look at your opinion and point out a few reasons why it’s bullshit. Not wrong (no such thing as a wrong opinion, it’s yours!), or even misinformed, just bullshit.
The Navitimer has a slide rule on its bezel. Oh, how unfortunate. See what a non sequitur that is?
January 17th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Haha, you are a funny fellow. No need to start using coarse language. Isn’t that unnecessary and rude?
I never asked you to agree with my opinion, just respect it, just as I respect yours. If you don’t like the Navitimer Slide Rule, that’s cool.. don’t buy it. Buy a Seiko Spring Drive. Enjoy it. Its a nice watch. Just not for me. Not sure how an opinion is BS.. don’t really follow that (talk about non sequitur).
I don’t see how it’s illogical either.. if you love everything about the Navitimer, and hate the slide rule bezel, then that would make the slide rule bezel an unfortunate feature of the watch FOR YOU.
If you feel that completely mechanical watches are a dated concept, don’t buy ’em. No skin off my back – really.
Just because you don’t agree with someone’s opinion doesn’t make it BS. If you want to spread the good word of the Spring Drive, start your own blog and talk about them day and night. I really wouldn’t feel the need to go there and tell you how BS you are LOL.
February 5th, 2009 at 3:41 am
i have only 10000 euros and i want the watch with bracelet alla metal plz inform me
April 16th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
.. a breitling is just a modified swatch, not sure why you would bother even trying to hint at bashing a Seiko, when it realistically is in the same league when you put all the yuppy nonsense aside from the appeal of a swatchgroup timepiece. Anyhow I own an Omega (swatch yes I know) and a Seiko automatic. Both are very good watches and I like them equally even though the Seiko was substantially cheaper.
April 16th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Actually, an Omega is a modified Swatch, a Breitling is a REBRANDED swatch. Except for the new B01 movement, which is built and conceived in-house.
I think Seikos are great. In fact, Grand Seikos are beautiful watches with very nice and accurate movements.
I never hinted at bashing a Seiko. All I said was that it was unfortunate that the Seiko Spring Drive is not entirely mechanical. I would have loved to see a perfect sweep second on a totally mechanical watch, is that wrong? I don’t see how this is hinting at bashing at all. I think Seiko makes a great watch, and I’ve said that before.
It’s funny how you sensitive fellows come on here, all offended and make a post trying to offend me. Thing is.. I’m not offended.. say whatever you want about Breitling, I won’t try and convince you otherwise.. if you like Breitling, I’ll chat with you about them.. if you don’t, that’s fine too. One thing you’ll find about me is I don’t try and change people’s opinions.
May 26th, 2009 at 7:50 am
You certainly could build a Spring Drive which was completely mechanical, just by removing the electronic parts. Of course, it would then be horribly inaccurate, like any other purely mechanical watch – which was the point of the Spring Drive exercise, no? I had a Rolex Sub for about fifteen years, got fed up with the (relatively) poor timekeeping, and bought an Omega Seamaster Pro with quartz movement. After about four years, I missed the ‘feel’ of the mechanical movement and bought an IWC Aquatimer. I now have half a dozen fine quality mechanical watches by IWC, Omega (3 of them), Officine Panerai and Zenith, but when I need to know the actual time, I check my Casio Waveceptor which I use when setting the mechanical beasts. The Seiko Spring Drive is very attractive to me because you get the best of both worlds – a purely mechanical watch movement (oh yes, it is!) which is *regulated* by a quartz oscillator. It helps that the casework is also as beautufully made as anything else on the market.
July 15th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Inteeresting debate. I have spent the last year with an Omega Seamaster Pro. I don’t dive, it was for the engineering. The fact that the wathc has a mechanical movement is still a thing of wonder to me. It has kept pretty good time. I had to change for BST, but other than that it seems to have looke after itself.
I have a number of other watches, two Seiko’s, one battery quartz, which I have had for a long time, but is on its last legs, the other a Kinetic; a Citizen Eco-Drive and even a Soviet Era Russian automatic watch.
In the end the ‘arts and crafts’ beauty of the mechanical movement is just special.
I have never owned a Breitling. Sort of run out of money, children, wives, property and bicycles!!! 🙂 All that I have heard suggests that I would enjoy it if I did.
July 29th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
Both watches are just fabulous!
September 4th, 2009 at 7:34 am
Over the years I have had several Seikos and still have a quartz diver’s that I have had for nearly 30 years. It still keeps perfect time and is nearly indestructible. I have a Rolex sub that I wear daily because I like the feel and the mechanical movement. My mechanical Seiko is nice but can’t compare to the sub. I may have to look more seriously at the Spring Drive GMT, though. The accuracy and the mechanical features are a winning combination, IMHO!
November 21st, 2009 at 10:25 pm
i see a lot of people dont seem to understand what goes on inside the watch, you need an electrical nerd to tell you. the mainspring will mainly run the watch but some of that power is converted into electricity which makes it quartz accurate. this watch is probably the most accurate watch a man, or woman, can get!!! the technology is simple yet complicated like most things. basically, its like edisons power maker which generates a measly few volts which runs the quartz. i am 16 and i know this kind of stuff.
i wear a Relic Skeleton Automatic which is my beat up high-class looking watch. it would sell for $130+ but i got it for $30. i know i will never own anything like a breitling or a seiko spring drive for that matter. my first watch was a vintage Hamilton mechanical wristwatch which i got for $8 at a local store and no problems with it. i then had an Elgin which is amazing. i have a westclox vintage and soon to own a dollar Westclox Dax. if you have not noticed i like old watches. sadly as i type this i am wearing my cheapo armitron instalite which i got for $15. i also like cheap. i look through the junky watch piles at antique shows and thats how i get my watches (i am usually looking for radium).
December 29th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
The beauty of the Spring Drive is that it is a mechanical movement that is powered by a spring. The electronic components replace the escapement on a traditional movement and serve only to regulate the speed at which the watch runs… and all power comes from the mainspring.
It’s a simpler, more efficient and inherently more rugged and reliable design, and should run for decades without requiring anywhere near the maintenance of the typical mechanical chronometer… and is considerably more accurate to boot.
Is a Breitling SQ as accurate? With a 3-yr battery life?
Bet on this: the Spring Drive will be the basis for high end mechanical chronometers when Seiko’s patents expire.
December 30th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Well.. the Breitling SQ is accurate to 10 Seconds a Year or thereabouts, while the Spring Drive is accurate to about 1 second a day, so yes, the SQ is more accurate, but the Spring Drive is more desirable to me than an SQ. I’m not slamming the Spring Drive… I just wish it was able to do everything it does without a battery.
December 30th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Just to add my $0.02; there is no battery in a Spring Drive. The Tri-regulator regulates the three types of enegry used (kinetic/potential, electric and elecromagnetic). There’s an in-depth overview in the free online PDF archive over at WatchTime.com (or was it InternationalWatch, can’t remember now) that I highly recommend reading. As an engineer I’m truly amazed at the japanease genius, skill, persistence (30 yrs or so!) and innovative minds, more so than for my fellow europeans. IMHO.
January 6th, 2010 at 11:43 pm
Very elegant watches. Perfect for a businessman look IMO.
March 4th, 2010 at 10:56 am
The OP does not know what he is talking about. He thinks that the Spring drive has a battery in it. LOL 🙂 Get you facts cleared buddy before going and making a statement like “unfortunate” in public even if it your own blog. Seiko is pioneer in all kinds of technologies when it comes to watchmaking and the latest spring drive is no exception. Swiss watchmakers can just wish to do the amount of research and dedication the Japs have shown over the centuries. The source of energy in the spring drive comes from the mainspring and not “battery”. They have beautifully couple the mechanical energy to generate magnetoelectric regular again derived from machanical energy coming from the same mainspring resulting in a incredible accuracy. What didnt anyone else think of it and it took Seiko to figure it out (as always):) And by the way I wear a Rolex Daytona as my daily wear and I dont have any Seiko yet but the spring drive is on my wish list.
March 4th, 2010 at 11:09 am
Thanks for the correction, buddy. You are absolutely correct. I don’t know what I’m talking about.. I will do more research next time before posting in my blog. Thank you for the wake up call.
June 7th, 2010 at 1:48 am
This web-log posting is still getting play, after nearly three years! How interesting.
Starting point: If I truly wanted accuracy over any other factor, then I’d wear a Chinese-made US$100 quartz crystal wrist-watch which featured a digital LED read-out and daily via-radio sychronisations with an atomic clock. No moving mechanical parts to break (or service).
The Seiko Spring Drive’s primary attraction for me is the innovation factor. (Seiko’s done a wonderful job promoting the concept.) Whilst the innovation truly is unique and bold, I’d be shocked if it made more than a few ripples amongst the hoi polloi. A few thousands will be snapped up each year by the cognoscenti–and thus provide enough income to keep the range viably marketable–but being a Japanese brand (albeit the premium one) severely limits its potential.
It’s a shame and a sin, that if this innovation had been pioneered by an upscale Swiss brand, the pieces would be priced at anywhere between US$8,000 each to US$20,000 each. Arguably, it benefits horology fanatics, that the innovation initially is being utilised by the Japanese, rather than the Swiss. The former historically have had a considerably keener ability to adapt burgeoning technologies to new uses. (I agree with one of the previous posters, with regards to the Seiko Spring Drive movement’s innovative element potentially being adopted by the Swiss watch-makers. However, this will only happen, if two things happen. Firstly, consumers would have to signal that COSC standards were too low. Secondly, Swiss watch-makers would have to concede that their product could be made better by an innovation from outside.)
The extent to which I was initially put-off by the notion of having the quartz regulation is more than offset by the notion of the electro-magnetic glide wheel brake, which is mind-boggling. Would I spend US$6,000, myself, on a Seiko Spring Drive? If I could be assured of factory service, then yes–absolutely so. I require factory service.
With regard to Breitling: Didn’t Breitling only just begin in-house manufacture of movements, with its B01 Movement, in 2009? Although all of the Internet postings lauded it as “revolutionary”–isn’t that rather hopeful, and doesn’t it rather smack of the self-congratulatory? Breitling’s reputation is that of a fashion house, at best–and certainly not that of a watch-maker. (To me, style-wise, most Breitlings are in the very same league as most Tag Heuers, which, at best, are only marginally above most Seikos [any of which can be bought at a fraction of the price of any of either of those two other brands].) How does a firm even have the nerve to claim such things, when it’s been using modified ETA and Valjoux movements, for decades? I mean, how many Breitlings still have batteries? I’ve seen US$250 mechanical wrist-watches that are easily as appropriately-styled for actual aviators’ usages. Besides, even vintage Glycine Airman pieces are inexpensive.
I’ll stick with Rolex. Their tool watches are as good as a wrist-watches can be (for US$10,000 and under). When I’m willing to spend more, I’ll look at a Jaeger-LeCoultre, or a Patek Philippe.
June 7th, 2010 at 8:23 am
And Rolex appreciates your business!
December 11th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Between the general aesthetics of a tag heuer breitling and seiko which do you think is best (pls dont be biased)
December 11th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
I prefer Breitling overall, but both Seiko and Tag have some very nice looking pieces.
September 10th, 2013 at 4:33 am
A battery operated quartz watch once let me down on my way to a public exam…from then on, a ROLEX Sea-Dweller has always been my primary timepiece ever since, for the past 30 years. It never missed a beat. Never required any servicing…It is not a common event in life to find something that simply just works for over 3 decades, like the Rolex, without making any fuss. The reliability of the Rolex 3135 movement housed in one of the most robust Oyster casing offered me one of the best option in what I can expect from a reliable mechanical watch that consistently performs without exception.
When the Spring Drive technology first appeared, it caught my attention, because as theoretically low-maintenace the kinetic drive movements are, their built-in rechargeable Li battery will fail one day, when I am least expecting…something I deem not acceptable, especially based on my past traumatic experience with unreliable watches…
The Spring Drive movement presented a viable option to me due to its hybrid mechanical movement combined with quartz accuracy, without the use of battery / capacitor that can potentially fail or require replacement. However, I still have an unanswered question in the back of my mind regarding how reliable and robust this technology is…
In 2009, with SpaceWalk model successfully completing its space mission and testified Spring Drive’s superlative reliability during the >50 hours of EVA, operating flawlessly under extreme temperature range, there is no question in my mind, Spring Drive is trustworthy. Yet, wouldn’t it be great if SEIKO can make most of the SpaceWalk design features available to one of its mainstream designs? This eventually happened, but not for another 4 years in the making.
Then finally in 2013, with the introduction of the PROSPEX Miura Everest Landmaster SBDB007, I am totally convinced! It may have taken me over 30 years, after my initial procurement of the ROLEX Sea-Dweller, to find it a worthy (backup) successor. But I am very happy to report that this Spring Drive is every bit as good as I can imagine it to be…and more.
I have to count myself very lucky because I managed to secure the last copy of the SBDB007 from City-Chain in HK…with only 5 of the 300 limited edition copies arriving in HK, two of those to City-Chain.
SEIKO is quite modest in claim the Spring Drive’s accuracy of +/-15 secs/month. The SBDB007 has been on my wrist for 2 weeks now. And I have synchronised its time to an atomic clock when I first set the time. It has yet to miss a second after 2 weeks of operation, which pretty impressive in terms of accuracy.
The diamond-coated full Titanium construct is also a real joy to wear — very light-weight (despite the large size, it is 10g lighter than the Sea-Dweller), yet surprisingly scratch-resistant. I particularly appreciate the multicoated sapphire crystal…it is so reflection free…certainly an improvement over the already highly legible Sea-Dweller dial. The auto winder is also astonishingly efficient, compared to my Rolex. It doesn’t take much wrist movement before it is fully wound. I particularly appreciate the 72-hours power reserve display…something which I wished Rolex would include in their design…
The Sea-Dweller may have been my best robust mechanical wrist watch option in the 80’s; but the Spring Drive Miura Everest Landmaster certainly now presented a viable option, which in many ways operates as good as, if not better, than my trusty Rolex Sea Dweller.
September 10th, 2013 at 10:01 am
That’s a great story, thanks for sharing! I too have slowly converted to the Seiko Spring Drive camp. I only own one, but I do like it a lot.
September 12th, 2013 at 10:49 pm
I recently acquired a new Grand Seiko Spring Drive GMT SBGE001 and I am very please with its performance. I have had it for 3 and a half months and it has only gained one second over that time with the respect to the atomic clock I set it to. I travel quite a bit and i am pleased to see that the setting to different time zones is extremely easy and does not interfere with or disrupts the accuracy
mentioned above. Some people scoff at the fact that the watch is rated at 20 atmospheres. I strongly believe that unless my watch falls off my wrist in the deep ocean, the watch will never see any depth close to 20 atmospheres. if you are looking for an exceptional travel watch take a look at this one.
September 13th, 2013 at 10:21 am
Thanks for sharing. I agree – 20ATM is plenty of water resistance. There are many watches out there like the Breitling Navitimers that are only good to 3ATM, and have plenty of followers.