Well-engineered watch winder
The media could not be loaded. I've been looking for an automatic watch winder for some time and I'm glad I purchased this one. Many reviews for other winders I've looked at frequently mention lack of build quality and significant noise when running. I'm an engineer, so I do immediately notice build quality first whenever I look at a product. Also, I'm a very light sleeper and am pretty sensitive to noise. This watch winder is really quiet. When I listen with my ear next to the winder, I can hear a soft motor noise and a very slight “thud” sound once a revolution. And no, it’s not my watch making that noise because I checked without my watch installed and the noise is still there. Nevertheless, when I stand more than a foot or two away, I can’t hear anything. The winder weighs in at a real hefty 3.56 pounds according to my kitchen scale and is basically a cube approximately 6.5" on a side. Doesn't sound too big, but you'll still be surprised at the amount of space it does takes up ... you'll definitely want to measure the location where you plan to place it. The bamboo laminate sidewalls are really thick ... about 5/8" ... and very rigid. The hardware holding it all together looks pretty solid. The clear acrylic cover opens smoothly on some nice hinges and has stops with transparent silicone rubber O-rings so it comes to rest silently when closed. In terms of looks, the flat aluminum body panels with flat bamboo sidewalls gives it a very minimalist and "functional/industrial" aesthetic, rather than a "sculptural/artsy" one. It definitely looks "engineered". A really nice feature of this watch winder is that whenever it runs and then comes to a stop, it always stops in the same vertical orientation. Even if when you first insert your watch and it isn't oriented correctly, just turn the control to one of the run modes and then off again immediately and it will continue to rotate until reaching the correct vertical orientation and then stop (see my video). Or just let it run through an entire cycle, and it’ll stop back in the correct vertical orientation … so you can actually read your watch face without tilting your head. I’ve seen some reviews of other winders which don’t consistently stop with the correct watch face orientation, which I’m sure would be pretty annoying. I have a 1969 Bulova SkyStar watch. I don’t wear it very often, and it is a real pain to reset the day-of-week and date indicator after the watch has stopped for more than a day. But I’ve been using this winder for about 3 weeks continuously without removing my watch and my Bulova is still running! And whenever I look at it during pauses, sure enough the watch face is correctly oriented. One thing to note. There are no indicators around the control knob to let you know what mode you are in. Maybe they’ll add markers in a future upgrade. But as of this review, you have to count “clicks” as you rotate the knob to determine the mode. The 4 modes are explained in the manual, but basically, they determine the duration of each run cycle and how long the winder pauses between each cycle. 3 of the 4 modes alternate rotation direction from one cycle to the next. The 4th mode first runs in one direction and then immediately in the reverse direction within each run cycle, and then the pause. At least that’s what the manual indicates … I haven’t tested that one yet. There is a recessed blue LED to indicate off/on which is a little hard to see ... very sensitive to your line-of-sight viewing angle. The light is off when the winder is in the off mode. When in any of the run modes, the light is on steady when the winder is actually rotating, and it blinks on/off about every 3 seconds to let you know when the winder is just paused between cycles. Bottom line ... my Bulova is pretty happy with the winder … so I’m happy. I highly recommend the Watch Winder Smith. Read more