Many posters here said that this is useful because keeping a watch would is necessary to maintain the delicate mechanical movement. This is false. The best way to keep a movement in good shape is to let it wind down and keep it some place cool and dry (and dark, to preserve the dial). I have worked on 100 year old watches that still ran despite having sat in a shoebox for decades. If the watch runs, it will wear down the parts–wear on the automatic winder is common and is related directly to how much the watch moves whether worn or in a winder. As for the arguments that the oil needs to be moved around, that applies to cars, but not watches. The volume of oil in a watch is miniscule and is kept in place by capillary action. Movement neither helps nor hurts.

These winders are useful for “complicated” watches with things like perpetual calendars (they know the month and day) or moonphase. They are hard to set, so keeping them running if you’re not wearing them for a few days is very convenient.

But using a winder will wear down the watch faster than letting it sit.

Andy-

As for not wearing the watch enough to keep it wound, who would wear a $7K watch every day? Washing the dishes, mowing the lawn, etc. You don’t wear a pearl necklace to aerobics class, right? Same idea.

Do I consider having multiple watches clutter, not really, all my watches get worn in rotation and depending on occasion and when you consider that all 12 can be stored in a display box that measures 356 x d: 210 x h: 86 mm and a winder 102 x dia: 102 x d: 140 mm. Ok well maybe the winder takes up a little more space than I would like…

So you buy an expensive device to wind up an expensive watch that you can’t be bothered to wear or take care of your self?

Unless you’re missing both of your thumbs this is as useless as a watch you don’t use. “I appreciate this fine timepiece so much that I can’t be bothered to wind it up”.

I do have to chuckle though about how this looks to anyone outside watch geekdom. The display / winder is a bit much. And I certainly understand those of you who have decided to go without watches altogether.

In our digiital, throw-away age though, I do enjoy having a little remnant of the ingenuity that went into things that were built to last; that took real craftsmanship to create and that, properly maintained, can be passed on to your kids (like in pulp fiction)

Keeping a manual wind watch powered is much more complicated and the one* product (by orbita) that I am aware does this is many times more expensive

* http://www.orbita.ch/e_produkte_details.asp?id=5

Still, I’d rather have a fine watch I can pass down to my kids than a disposable cell phone.

@infmom, watches usually advance the date if you wind the clock back and forth between 11pm and 1am. That should save on wear and tear.

This might help:

http://www.watchcases.com/shop.....nders.html

“The 2.0 Module simulates wearing a watch, allowing it to wind and unwind.”

The one you have linked is apparently the 1.5 Module, but I’m guessing it works in the same fashion.

Regardless of how it operates, it is certainly a unitasker.

I don’t understand why a person would own so many watches that he couldn’t wear the same one enough to keep it wound in the first place. That sounds like clutter for sure.

But to each his own, I suppose. We all seem to have some clutter somewhere in our lives that we could do without.

Anyway, this thing turns back and forth. Only the round portion that holds the watch turns. Pretty standard design.

I think that many of Unclutterer’s fine readers would agree with me when I say that there’s a big difference between a watch winder and items like the strawberry huller, the s’more machine, and, my personal favorite, the spinning ice cream cone.

Watch winders are for watch lovers. So, if a fine timepiece isn’t your thing, I guess I could see why this would be a unitasker wednesday post. In my personal opinion, a watch winder that keeps the movement constant in a fine, expensive timepiece is okay in my book. A larger watch winder that keeps ten watches in movement? (btw, they do exist) Well, that’s a bit much. One very, very nice watch is something I am a supporter of. Even if I could just check the time on a computer, my iPhone, or by asking someone on the street.

When the time comes that my personal finances are in check and I have all my ducks in order, I plan on purchasing a beautiful rose gold Panerai. So you will, in fact, see one of these in my room…next to, in the spirit of everything Unclutterer, nothing.

Really though, as other people have mentioned, if you are a collector then these are required (kinda like a wine refrigerator).