More than just good looks: The beating heart of a mechanical wristwatch is its movement

When we talk about wristwatches, the primary thing we focus on is how the watch looks. Which is fair, because that’s the primary reason why one buys a watch—we can tell the time easily and accurately by looking at our phone! Nowadays, other factors also come into play, like how finely crafted or ruggedly built the watch is, depending on one’s use for it: wearing it with a suit or bashing it about every day.

As a result of such preoccupations, the one thing that doesn’t get as much attention from the average watch buyer is what ticks under the hood of the timepiece—the watch movement. And yet, truth be told, it is in this department that the real magic lies.

After all, whether it is a quartz or a mechanical watch, the movement constitutes the beating heart of the timepiece. And yet, I have been as guilty as anyone else of not focusing on movements often enough. Looking through the archives of this column, I discovered that the last time I had written about watch movements was five years ago! I believe a refresher is in order.

First of all, the most utilitarian movement of all is the quartz movement. These are the workhorses of the watch world, ticking along nondescriptly within millions (billions?) of watches all over the world. Ever since Seiko upended the watch industry in 1969 with the world’s first ever quartz watch, the Astron, the global dominance of the battery-powered vibrating quartz crystal is pretty much complete. And while there are all kinds of quartz movements—from highly accurate artisanal ones to mass-produced bargain basement ones—nearly all of them are good at one thing: precise timekeeping.

And it is in this area that they beat their main competitors, mechanical movements, hands down. But what quartz movements achieve in utilitarian simplicity, they lose in terms of pure watchmaking, and that is the sole province of mechanical watches.

Mechanical watch movements have been around for hundreds of years now, dating back to the 17th century, and accurate movements since 1760, when the English clockmaker John Harrison created the marine chronometer to help ships cross the open seas using celestial navigation. In terms of components and the physics of it all, mechanical movements haven’t changed a whole lot in these centuries, though they have certainly become more accurate, especially with the use of cutting edge modern metals and alloys used in their construction.

At its heart, a mechanical movement consists of a mainspring, that you wind by rotating the crown. The power thus generated is released incrementally by lever escapement through the wheel train—which is a set of gears—and when the wheel train turns at various speeds, the movement then becomes capable of telling the hour, minutes and seconds.

The axle of each wheel rest in synthetic jewel bearings, and these friction-less jewels are capable of keeping the movement working for decades at a time, with occasional servicing. Apart from these, four bridges hold the balance wheel, the barrel, the wheel train and the pallet fork, and the whole thing is mounted on a plate.

Depending on the complexity of the movement, it might comprise hundreds of tiny moving parts, which is a marvel of both physics as well as human ingenuity and craftsmanship. Even when mass produced in a factory, each mechanical movement is a precious thing. Which is why, at the higher end of luxury watchmaking, where each movement is finished by hand, such watches are both produced in small batches and extremely expensive.

Over the decades, watch and movement manufacturers have found a way to use the basic mechanical movement to create ever more complicated watches like chronographs, minute repeaters, GMTs, alarms watches and perpetual calendars. And as the quality of precision tools increase, as do materials, mechanical watchmaking gets even more refined and precise, though it comes at a price.

But here’s the thing: you don’t have to break the bank in order to wear a mechanical wristwatch. Whether it is from Japanese manufactures like Seiko, Citizen and Casio, or Swiss ones like Tissot and Hamilton, one can get high quality watches for anywhere between ₹15,000- ₹80,000. These may not be the most accurate, but even with tolerances like plus/minus 20-30 seconds per day, they are good enough for everyday use.

The fun part is that many mechanical (or automatic, which is basically a mechanical movement with a self-winding rotor) watches have open case backs, so you can observe how the mechanism works. To me, watching a movement in action—no matter how cheap—is a always fascinating. To do so, and to interact with the watch by winding it every few days, provides a haven of slow solace that is not to be sniffed at in these frantic, unsure times.

These days, most people don’t really need a watch to tell the time. Between smartphones and smartwatches, the space for a dedicated timepiece on the wrist has been squeezed out quite a lot. However, not needing a watch doesn’t mean that people from all walks of life don’t still opt for one. I don’t have any data to back up this anecdotal point, but I see many more people opting to wear actual watches these days, than even a few years ago.

I think that the simplicity of a wristwatch, which doesn’t overwhelm you with information—not to mention notifications—while telling the time, and sometimes the day and date, can’t be beaten. And if you choose to wear a mechanical watch in 2026, then congratulations, you are an aesthete!

Handwound is a monthly column on watches and watchmaking.