Kinetic Technology
Q: What is Kinetic?
Q: Are Kinetic watches as accurate as normal quartz watches?
Q: So what's the advantage of a Kinetic watch over standard quartz watches?
Q: Kinetic watches seem similar to automatic mechanical watches in that they both generate power by the motion of the wrist. Plus, automatic watches don't have batteries. Does that make automatics better?
Q: How do Kinetic watches create electricity from simple arm movements?
Q: Is this Seiko's own technology?
Q: Is Kinetic technology new?
Q: What happens when the watch is off the wrist and just sitting on a dresser or in a drawer?
Q: How do you get the watch running again?
Q: How long do Kinetic watches run when off the wrist?
Q: How can the Auto Relay run for so long off the wrist?
Q: How does a Kinetic watch store the electricity it generates?
Q: Is there a way to find out when the watch is low on power?
Q: How can the Auto Relay watch maintain its charge for so long?
Q: If it takes so much power to drive the hands, how is it possible to have Kinetic chronograph models, which have twice as many hands as a normal watch?
Q: Do other watch companies make Kinetic watches?
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* Features and benefits of Seiko Kinetic watches
* Seiko Kinetic Auto Relay - features and benefits
* Kinetic Chronograph
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Q: What is Kinetic?
A: Kinetic is Seiko's name for a category of watches that differ from
standard quartz watches in that they never need a battery change. That's
because a Kinetic watch generates its own electrical power. It uses the
simple motion of the wearer's arm to create electricity to run the watch.
Q: Are Kinetic watches as accurate as normal quartz watches?
A: Yes. A Kinetic watch has the same, extremely high accuracy as a
standard quartz watch, accurate to within 15 seconds per month. Both use
a paper-thin piece of synthetic quartz crystal as an oscillator in the
watch movement. (The movement is the internal engine that powers a
watch.) The quartz oscillator receives an electrical charge from an
integrated circuit. The electricity makes the quartz oscillate, or
vibrate, 32,768 times per second, which accounts for the extreme accuracy.
Q: So what's the advantage of a Kinetic watch over standard quartz watches?
A: Kinetic represents the newest, most technologically advanced energy
generation and storage technology available for watches. It has three
major advantages over standard quartz technology.
1. For most people, the greatest advantage is convenience. The
biggest problem with standard quartz watches is that the battery
runs down every few years and the watch stops. That's a nuisance
because to get the watch running again you have to take it to a
jeweller or watch repair centre and have the battery replaced.
That never happens with a Kinetic watch. Worn regularly, a Kinetic
watch will never stop; it continually generates and stores
electricity. Consequently, it is virtually maintenance free. Since
the battery never needs to be changed, there's little need to open
the case. That eliminates problems that can occur when the case is
opened, like dust or dirt getting into the mechanism or damage to
the water-resistant seal when a battery is changed.
2. Another major advantage of Kinetic technology is that it is
environmentally friendly. Kinetic watches use clean, natural
energy - the motion of the wearer's arm - to generate electricity.
Consequently, there are no polluting watch batteries to dispose
of, as there are with standard quartz watches.
3. Finally, Kinetic is the only quartz watch technology that
generates its own electric power. Solar watches, for example,
which Seiko also manufactures, use an older technology, which
relies on an external source - the sun or artificial light - to
power the watch. Without an external light source, solar watches
can't work. Kinetic watches rely only on their own inner,
independent power source that works rain or shine.
Q: Kinetic watches seem similar to automatic mechanical watches in that
they both generate power by the motion of the wrist. Plus, automatic
watches don't have batteries. Does that make automatics better?
A: It's true that automatic watches generate their own power. Both use
arm motion to spin a rotating weight that creates energy to make the
movement work. However, an automatic mechanical watch cannot compare to
an electronic quartz watch in terms of accuracy. A mechanical watch is
powered by a mainspring (not electricity), using an oscillating balance
wheel (rather than a vibrating quartz crystal) to measure the time. In
general, a mechanical watch is accurate to within five minutes per month
versus quartz watch accuracy of +/- 15 seconds per month, so there
really is no contest!
Q: How do Kinetic watches create electricity from simple arm movements?
A: Through an engineering feat that many people consider the greatest
advance in quartz watch technology since Seiko launched the world's
first quartz in 1969.
What Seiko has done is, in effect, to install a miniature power plant in
each Kinetic watch. What the Kinetic movement does is capture natural
energy from the movements of the wearer's arm, amplify it, store it and
use it to power the timekeeping mechanism. It is a triumph of
microminiaturization. Seiko filed more than 50 patents for the Kinetic
project.
The heart of the Kinetic system is the rotor. A tiny thing, just 2.66 mm
in diameter and 0.4 mm thick, the rotor (technically, a samarium cobalt
microrotor) spins at astonishing speed - 10,000 to 100,000 revolutions
per minute, five times faster than a racing car engine.
The wearer's arm movement causes an oscillating weight to rotate. Gear
trains transfer this movement to the rotor, whose spinning generates
voltage across a coil block. That's electricity. The electrical current
is stored in a tiny component called the ESU ('electrical storage unit')
and is released when needed to power the watch.
Electricity stored in the ESU powers the watch even when it is not worn.
Q: Is this Seiko's own technology?
A: Yes. It was developed by Seiko Epson Corporation, the primary
watch-manufacturing arm of the giant Seiko Group, Japan's largest watch
conglomerate.
Q: Is Kinetic technology new?
A: No. Seiko unveiled its first watches employing the technology in
1988. It started using the Kinetic name in 1992.
Early on Seiko engineers realized that the biggest problem with quartz
watches was the battery. A watch that suddenly stops because its battery
dies is a nuisance. Seiko Epson created a special team to tackle the
problem of developing an alternative energy source for quartz watches as
early as 1982.
It took them six years to perfect the automatic generating system. They
had to deal with a myriad of issues: how to protect the rotor from
shock, how to store the electricity needed to power the watch, how to
stabilize the voltage, and so on.
The first Kinetic technology watches contained a movement called 7M
which powered the watch for about 75 hours, or three days, when off the
wrist. Over the years, Seiko continued to perfect Kinetic technology,
improving on the 7M with new Kinetic calibres (the 5M, 3M, 1M, 9T and so
forth). Kinetic technology has evolved towards smaller movements,
generating greater electricity, storing more of it for longer periods.
Q: What happens when the watch is off the wrist and just sitting on a
dresser or in a drawer?
A: Then the oscillating weight stops and no electricity is generated.
The watch continues to run on the energy in the Energy Storage Unit.
When that energy is depleted, the watch stops.
Q: How do you get the watch running again?
A: You recharge it. It's a simple process. You gently swing the watch
from side to side in a small arc. As you swing the watch, the
oscillating weight in the storage unit rotates; it may make a small
sound as it does.
When the second hand begins to move in 1-second intervals, the watch has
stored at least three hours of power and is ready to be set and worn.
Normal arm motion will gradually generate a full charge. By wearing the
watch consistently, you will never have to recharge it, since it
recharges itself.
Q: How long do Kinetic watches run when off the wrist?
A: It varies depending on the model. Fully charged, standard Kinetic
watches run for six months off the wrist. The Sportura Kinetic
Chronograph watch Seiko launched a few years ago uses more energy, but
even it runs for a month on a single full charge. The new Arctura
Kinetic Chronograph runs for five months. Kinetic Auto Relay watches
continue to tell time for an astonishing four years off the wrist.
Q: How can the Auto Relay run for so long off the wrist?
A: The Kinetic Auto Relay watch has a patented Power Save Function,
which puts it into a 'sleep mode' in order to save energy. If the watch
is stationary for 72 hours, it automatically kicks in to a 'power save
mode', which prevents excess energy consumption if the watch is unused
for a long period.
In that mode, the hands stop moving but the watch's inner circuits
constantly keep track of the time for as long as the watch is
stationary, literally for years. If the watch is fully charged when it
becomes stationary, it will continue to track the time for four years.
If you pick up the watch and shake it once or twice at any time within
the four-year period, the watch 'wakes up' and the watch's hands are
reactivated. The shaking motion triggers a Time Relay function, in which
the watch's timekeeping 'brain', which has been continually keeping
time, relays the exact time automatically to the hands, hence the name
Auto Relay.
The hour and minute hands, driven by a high-speed step motor, spin
around until they display the exact current time. The second hand,
driven by its own separate step motor, does the same thing. The watch
recognises A.M. and P.M., so that it returns to the exact current time,
even if it has been in the 'sleep mode' for years. Day-date adjustments,
however, must be made manually.
The Auto Relay watch also has a 'manual power save' mode. This enables
the wearer to activate the Power Save Function instantly and not have to
wait 72 hours for the watch to put itself into the power save mode
automatically. The wearer activates the 'manual power save' mode simply
by pulling the crown out one step from its regular position. With that,
the watch goes to sleep on the spot.
Q: How does a Kinetic watch store the electricity it generates?
A: Kinetic watches store energy in a Kinetic Electricity Storage System
that is unique to Seiko. The explanation of how it works is a bit
complicated, unless you are an electrical engineer. Here it is, in a
nutshell:
The system consists of a Kinetic Energy Storage Unit (ESU), a
controlling IC (integrated circuit), and four micro-capacitors. All
Seiko Kinetic calibres use this system, which incorporates numerous
examples of patented technology developed by Seiko.
The Kinetic Electricity Storage System monitors constantly
fluctuating voltage every two seconds. Using four micro-capacitors,
the ESU regulates and supplies extremely stable electrical pressure.
For example, when the stored energy level is low, the electricity
inside the ESU is distributed among three micro-capacitors. An
additional micro-capacitor consolidates the voltage in these three
capacitors and delivers a voltage boost sufficient to power the
quartz movement. On the other hand, when the supply of energy is too
great, this system blocks the excess energy and prevents overcharging.
In 2000, Seiko replaced the outside capacitor in the ESU with a
rechargeable lithium ion cell. This cell, sometimes called a
'secondary battery', enabled the ESU to store more energy for a
longer period of time. It also eliminated some capacitor related
issues in some Kinetic models in the mid and late 1990s.
Q: Is there a way to find out when the watch is low on power?
A: Yes. When the power runs down to a very low level in a Kinetic watch,
the second hand begins to move at two-second intervals instead of the
normal one-second interval. This indicates that the watch has only a few
hours' worth of power remaining and needs recharging.
Some Kinetic models have a power reserve indicator on the dial. To check
how long the watch can operate on its current charge, wait until the
second hand reaches the 12 o'clock position and push the button located
at 2 o'clock on the watch case. The second hand moves along the scale
and stops at the number of hours of power remaining. The second hand
automatically resumes normal operation in 30 seconds or less.
Q: How can the Auto Relay watch maintain its charge for so long?
A: The key is the ability to put the hands 'to sleep'. In a Kinetic
watch, the actual timekeeping function uses only 15% of the watch's
energy. The other 85% is used to drive the hands. By devising a way to
put the watch into a sleep mode and continue to tell time without using
the hands to display it, Seiko's engineers were able to eliminate the
biggest drain on the ESU (energy storage unit).
The result is that the watch uses all of its energy strictly for
timekeeping. By eliminating power drain from the hands, the engineers
were able to extend the timekeeping function for an extraordinarily long
period.
Q: If it takes so much power to drive the hands, how is it possible to
have Kinetic chronograph models, which have twice as many hands as a
normal watch?
A: The introduction of Seiko Kinetic chronographs marked a major leap in
Kinetic technology. It was made possible by a Kinetic movement developed
in 1998 by Seiko engineers, Calibre 9T82A, which generates three times
more electricity than any previous Kinetic movement. This extra electric
power made a Kinetic chronograph (or stopwatch) possible. Calibre 9T82
is able to drive four chronograph hands in addition to the three hands
for actual time.
Seiko introduced the first Kinetic chronograph in 1999 in a limited
edition of 1,000 pieces. It featured an unusual dashboard-like dial with
four independent dials. The actual time dial had three hands (hours,
minutes and seconds). That dial was surrounded by three subdials for the
chronograph time: one for hours and minutes up to 12 hours, one for
seconds, and one for 1/10 seconds. Considering that it has to power
motors for seven hands on four different dials, the power-generating
capacity of the 9T82 calibre is remarkable. Even if the chronograph
functions are used for three hours each day, a fully charged Kinetic
chronograph has enough power to run for a month without any further charge.
Regular production of the Kinetic chronograph began in 2000.
Subsequently Seiko issued a Kinetic chronograph with the same dashboard
design in a tonneau-shaped case in its Sportura collection.
Seiko's new Arctura Kinetic chronograph, unveiled in 2003, contains a
new chronograph movement, Calibre 7L22, with a much larger power reserve
than 9T82. Fully charged the 7L runs for five months off the wrist, a
major advance over the 9T's one month.
Q: Do other watch companies make Kinetic watches?
A: Very few watch companies are capable of producing quartz watch
movements that generate their own electric power. Seiko was the first to
do it and is the leader in the field, manufacturing more motion-powered
quartz movements than any other watch company.
After Seiko introduced its Kinetic technology, two other watch producers
followed with quartz watch movements that generate their own electricity
via arm motion. However, these movements do not contain Seiko's
extremely sophisticated proprietary Kinetic technology.
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* Features and benefits of Seiko Kinetic watches
o Feature
Every Kinetic watch has a Seiko quartz movement.
Benefit
Seiko quartz accuracy to within +/- 15 seconds a month.
o Feature
Seiko Kinetic watches are powered by a quartz movement which is
charged by the movement of the wearer's body. The energy generated
is stored in a rechargeable battery.
Benefit
You will never need to change a battery again, avoiding the
additional cost of a replacement battery and, if it's a water
resistant model, reseal.
All the time the watch is worn or remains charged you will never
suffer the inconvenience of it stopping.
You will never have to spend time searching for a jeweller to
replace a battery.
Eco-friendly watches as you will never have to throw a battery away
and replace it with another.
o Feature
Every Seiko Kinetic watch has an energy reserve button at the 2
o'clock position (this doesn't apply to Kinetic Auto Relay models).
Benefit
By pressing this button you are able to determine the energy reserve
level or the amount of time the watch will work for when it's
removed from your wrist.
o Feature
Each Kinetic watch has an instant start facility.
Benefit
The watch is powered up immediately on wearing.
* Seiko Kinetic Auto Relay - features and benefits
Kinetic Auto Relay is a new revolution in Kinetic technology with all
the same features and benefits as Kinetic watches (see previous section)
but with one important new feature.
o Feature
The advanced feature of the Kinetic Auto Relay is that after 72
hours of inactivity the watch hands 'stop'.
The watch continues to work internally. Pick up the watch at any
time up to 4 years later and give it a few shakes. The watch will
return to the exact time.
Benefit
A unique energy-saving feature which means that the power reserve
built up while wearing the watch lasts even longer.
* Kinetic Chronograph
The 9T Kinetic Chronograph, first introduced in 2000, has become a
design classic and is in strong demand all over the world. 2003 sees the
launch of a different kind of Kinetic Chronograph, the 7L calibre. 7L
will complement 9T and both calibres will continue for many years to come.
Each has its own character, its own target consumer, its own technical
characteristics and its own features. Each will live on its merits -
both will satisfy the growing demand for Kinetic Chronographs.
Why Kinetic Chronographs?
All Quartz Chronographs have a built-in difficulty; the more you use the
Chronograph, the more quickly the battery is drained. Even Seiko Quartz
Chronographs offer a battery life of only 2 years. Thus, Kinetic
Chronographs provide the solution - no battery change - no worry - just
perfect sports timing, day after day, year after year.
Why two Calibres?
The 9T calibre has a unique dial layout in which every function - date,
time of day, seconds, Chronograph minutes, Chronograph seconds, has its
own analogue display. It is designed for motor sport: like the dials in
a sports car display panel, each dial is 100% legible and distinct, and
no hand ever obscures another.
The 7L calibre is more conventional in its layout. While the time of day
dial remains entirely separate, the Chronograph seconds hand sweeps
across the whole dial. The 7L calibre is designed as an all-round sports
watch, suitable for all sports applications not just motor sport.
Because of its more conventional layout, its more automated production
and its lower number of components, 7L is more accessibly priced.
What are the differences between 7L and 9T?
Functions
7L has a Chronograph that times up to 45 minutes. 9T's Chronograph
times up to 12 hours.
Components
Because of its 4 dial construction, 9T has more components then
7L; 7L has 60% less parts.
Jewels
9T has a remarkable 38 jewels in the movement. 7L has 10.
Production method
9T is assembled 100% by hand by Seiko's most skilled engineers,
using techniques and equipment normally reserved for the
highest-grade mechanical Chronographs in Credor and Seiko. Some
parts are even hand-made.
7L is assembled partly by hand and partly by automated processes.
Because of the less complex hand-assembly process required for 7L, a
wider range of Seiko's engineers can conduct the assembly.
For these reasons, the production time required for each 7L watch is
only 50% that of each 9T.
- Polishing of the movement
Each 9T base-plate and oscillating weight is polished by hand and the
oscillating weight has a special 'wave' pattern which can only be
achieved by the most skilled craftsmen.
The 7L oscillating weight is also polished, but the process is made via
a semi-automated procedure, requiring less hand crafting, and there is
no wave pattern.
- Autonomy
When fully charged, the 9T calibre will run for one month when left
unworn. Thanks to its more classical design and to the continuous
development of Seiko's Kinetic technology, the 7L calibre has an
autonomy of 5 months.
- Summary
In summary, 9T is like a Formula One racing car - hand-built and
custom-made. 7L is like a production sports car - produced by
automation. Without the cutting edge Kinetic technology of 9T, 7L would
never have been possible.
9T is more expensive than 7L because of its hand crafting, its more
complex construction, its hand polishing and because of the longer time
required for its construction. 7L was conceived to be more accessibly
priced from the start, and this goal was achieved because of the lower
R&D costs (thanks to the pioneer 9T), less parts and more automation in
the production.
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Model: SNA414 
Once set, the calendar automatically adjusts for odd and even months including February of leap years up to February 2100. When the watch senses 24 hours of inactivity it puts itself into suspended animation (sleep mode) to conserve energy. The date continues to advance correctly while the watch is asleep. Wake it up with a few shakes of your wrist and it automatically resets itself to the correct time even if it's been asleep for up to 4 years. 
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