How much wearing per day to keep it wound?

[Cabernet]

How long do you need to wear a Rolex in a day to keep it wound?

[997.2]

Hmm a matter of minutes


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[flw]

I would guess that (as with most automatic watches) the answer would be about ten hours, on average. It depends, of course, on how active you are during the day, but to keep the mainspring fully wound, I think about ten hours per day is necessary.

[landroverking]

I don't believe with normal wear an automatic watch is ever fully wound.

[Cabernet]

what if you just want to keep it from dying for the day as it sits in rotation?

[Globule]

I honestly never think about i. I wear my GMT from getting up to bed time when I take it off. I never wind it. I am up and about during the day but I am certainly not hyper active.

[blue lion]

I wind my watch on Monday morning when I put it on and don't mess with it until 2 weeks later when I put it on again. I rotate watches every week so I wind on Mondays and forget about them.

[Cabernet]

I'm talking about Automatic Rolex (3135). I should have been specific.

[Globule]

The movement is irrelevant. The reserve is the same unless it is a new DD when the reserve is double the 3135.

[HogwldFLTR]

Mine either on my wrist or a winder so I'd never know.

[AK-Rolestar]

I've found with the 3135 movement, usually wearing your watch ~8 hours a day, should be enough to keep it wound and running on time!

[Tools]

Originally Posted by Cabernet

How long do you need to wear a Rolex in a day to keep it wound?

It has nothing to do with how long it is on your wrist, it has to do with how much activity you do.

Just like on a winder, it takes 650 "turns" to keep it at the same level of wind while on your wrist. If you are sitting around reading a book or spending all your time on TRF, your watch will eventually stop dead while you are wearing it.

[cardstock]

My brand X watch winder that came with the brand X watch winds for 8 hours per day and is off for 16 hours. It is slower rotation than on a wrist would be when active but how many of us are continuously in motion for 8 hours throughout the day. Driving in a car probably does very little winding unless you are really sporting it up through the curves on the way to the office. At the office not continuous movement for every second of the day either. I also know that a couple of days of only 6 hours of wearing a watch is not enough to keep it going and it will stop. My guess then is 8 to 10 hours of normal daily commute, walking, and desk work.

[Anthon]

I usually wear my watch for about 14 hours each day.
If I do not wear my watch for one day, the next day it will still be ticking with no winding necessary. So I'm sure that 7 or 8 hours of daily wear should be enough.

I'm not going to try to find out the minimum ammount of hours required to keep the watch ticking overninght but feel free to experiment. Tell us the result :)

[marzzz]

So to kind of reverse the question, if you wear your Rolex daily for at least 12 hours of "normal" activity, is there ever any reason to wind the watch?

[Anthon]

No.

[Tools]

Originally Posted by marzzz

So to kind of reverse the question, if you wear your Rolex daily for at least 12 hours of "normal" activity, is there ever any reason to wind the watch?

Sure, when it stops..

[9*9*3]

Originally Posted by Anthon

No.

Does the level of activity or amount of manual winding have any effect on accuracy. For example if it's fully wound will it be more accurate than if one is more sedentary or it sets for a day?

[flatmad]

I work at a desk in an office Monday to Friday, and I can keep my 3135 fully wound all the time. Even just a couple min after waking up.

I know becos when I wind it I can hear and feel the safety mechanism for over winding.

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[Cabernet]

ok, think it it a different way. If your watch was dead, and your wore it for 1 hour of "normal" activity, how long would it keep running?

[Friar]

Originally Posted by Cabernet

ok, think it it a different way. If your watch was dead, and your wore it for 1 hour of "normal" activity, how long would it keep running?

What is your "normal?" No one can answer this question, and if they could, it would be meaningless to someone else.

[smc23]

I usually wind my watches once a week. I rotate between all my watches throughout the week and to come to think of it, should i even be winding them when each one gets used and they are stored in my watch winder?

[Brian Page]

I got rid of all my watches but one - problem solved

[Old Expat Beast]

I read in some old Rolex literature somewhere (can't remember where) that six hours of normally active wear is enough.

[DCgator]

I reckon for at least 6-8 hours of continuous wear during each day.

[AzHadEnuf]

Originally Posted by Tools

It has nothing to do with how long it is on your wrist, it has to do with how much activity you do.

Just like on a winder, it takes 650 "turns" to keep it at the same level of wind while on your wrist. If you are sitting around reading a book or spending all your time on TRF, your watch will eventually stop dead while you are wearing it.

Thanks Larry, I did not know that. So it is pretty unlikely one could wind their watch from stopped, to a full power reserve, with normal daily use, no? I always hand wind my automatic and manual watches when I put them on. Just a habit after wearing a manual for decades. Oh, and it's enjoyable to wind them.

[Tools]

Originally Posted by AzHadEnuf

Thanks Larry, I did not know that. So it is pretty unlikely one could wind their watch from stopped, to a full power reserve, with normal daily use, no? I always hand wind my automatic and manual watches when I put them on. Just a habit after wearing a manual for decades. Oh, and it's enjoyable to wind them.

I would say that today it would be difficult because so much time is spent with our hands in front of us and only our thumbs moving. Based on some informal research I did a couple of years back it seems that most actually put about 20-30 hours or so on average into their watch.

All automatic watches will eventually wind down to just the amount you put into them each day. Once at that level it only takes a day or so of minimal activity to drop the reserve to where it won't last the night. This is likely why we have so many examples on TRF where after their "new" watch is a couple of weeks old it suddenly stops on them during the night or they "suddenly notice that their watch is an hour slow" and so forth.

To check how much you put into your watch, if you have been wearing it regularly for a couple of weeks, take it off without winding it, note the time, and let it run down. The number of hours it runs will give you an approximate estimate of how much you put into it (or how active you really are).

[Rock]

Being retired, I have time to think about and monitor these issues.
I monitor my watches daily and one is always on my wrist and the other always on the winder.
I manually wind them only once a month when I update them to AEST.
I have noted that they maintain pretty much the same 'error factor' - e.g. +2secs/day, throughout the month - so it's not like they gradually wind down and the error increases.
I am about 'average active' (whatever that is) and my watches are on wrist or winder for the same 10hrs/day. They have never stopped on me, nor lost more than a few seconds a day, BUT on the rare occasion that one hasn't been either being worn OR on the winder, it stops about midway through the following day.

[Andad]

Originally Posted by Globule

The movement is irrelevant. The reserve is the same unless it is a new DD when the reserve is double the 3135.

Can you give me a link to this double the 3135 reserve movement?

[Andad]

Originally Posted by landroverking

I don't believe with normal wear an automatic watch is ever fully wound.

Yes it is Jay.

An automatic watch will wind up on your wrist until the mainspring slips in the barrel.