Hi, I recently bought a new Omega 300 42mm and I have a question regarding the power reserve. I have manually would the watch and set it aside to check the power reserve and it was in spec > 55 hrs. If I fully wind the watch manually and wear it for a week 24 hrs/ day then set it aside the power reserve depletes in less than 24 hrs. I'm not spending my time doing star jumps or jumping jacks but I do wear the watch to exercise on an elliptical trainer (30 minutes daily) and daily gym routine. I can see from the rotar swing that the rotar does not move as freely when the watch is fully manually wound which I understand is normal as the spring is tighter. What is a reasonable expectation for the automatic winder? Is it ever possible to keep the watch at full power by wearing 24/7 or is this simply impossible as once the winder crosses a threshold normal physical activity cannot fully wind it.

 

It should reach full wind while it’s being worn, so either you are not active enough or there is a problem with the watch.

 

Thanks for the reply Archer. I would like to test the watch this week. Would you consider a 5km walk followed by 30 minutes on an elliptical trainer then 1 hr of weights training at the gym vigorous enough to fully wind the watch? If so I will do that the set it aside and see how long the power reserve lasts. The watch was purchased in December 2019 from DFS Singapore airport and has the 8800 movement.

This is my first high end watch and I live I Bali so returning the watch to a dealer is not a simple matter. My nearest service centre would be Singapore so I'd like to be certain before I commit to having it checked. Is it normal to take it direct to a service centre or to the retailer in Singapore where I purchased it?

 

So I exercised for about 3hrs, gym circuit training (elliptical trainer and power walk warm down) while wearing the watch then took it off to check the power reserve. The watch stopped after 32 hrs. Does anyone think that's reasonable or should I take the watch back to be checked.

 

I should add I had been wearing the watch for several days (fully manually wound initially)before the exercise test.

 

I've had my Seamaster 300m 42mm for about a month now and I have not noticed anything like what you're describing. I would have it checked out.

 

Why don't you wind it manually and let it run down on the desk. When testing power reserve, I set mine to five after midnight on the first then check when it stops. Once it does, advance it to the next midnight, counting hours. Subtract the counted hours from (date - 1) * 24.

While there certainly may be something wrong with the automatic, I've seen problems with certain exercise patterns, notably that walking five plus miles may result in my watch stopping the next morning. The same watch runs fine on my wrist for weeks on end. This doesn't happen often and normally with ETA 2824-2 based watches, but I've seen it many times. I have no idea why.

If it gets a full run from manually winding it and it doesn't stop from normal usage, it still doesn't guarantee its working correctly, but lends credence to it. Keep in mind that you have a five-year warranty.

 

Thanks for the reply, I think I'll do that.