There once was a time when a gentleman’s daily ritual involved the winding of his watch. Whether in the morning before leaving for work or in the evening after removing it for bed, it was a moment for connection and contemplation.

The rise of self-winding, or automatic, movements has all but consigned this custom to the past, as the action of our arm alone is enough to spin the rotor inside and charge the mainspring.

That’s fine, but what about when you start to build up a watch wardrobe or don’t want to wear your automatic every day? The average power reserve rarely stretches beyond 42 hours, meaning you need the patience to reset the time every time you switch watches. And what if you leave it for longer?

Well, leave a mechanical watch dormant for more than a few months and, like a car engine, the movement’s oils gravitate away and congeal. Start it up again and the unlubricated points of contact grind against each other, to disastrous effect. This is where a watch winder comes in.

Why You Need A Watch Winder

“Even a person with one automatic watch ends the day with the mainspring with less tension than it should have,” explains the CEO of watch-winder manufacture Wolf, Simon Wolf. “This ‘exercising’ of the watch in a winder is ideal and mimics the normal activity of a person.”

The need for a winder becomes even greater if you have watches with complications, such as calendars and day/date functions.

“When the power reserve runs out any of the complications that your watch has will stop and, apart from being difficult and time-consuming to have to reset the moon or day/date functions, the more complicated watches have to be handled extremely carefully. Trying to reset a complication and getting it wrong can mean damaging the watch and having to return it to the brand,” says Wolf.