SM 60-hour power reserve is a false claim

MikeG57 · Sep 9, 2023

Just looking for some honest feedback feedback here from folks with experience with Omegas. Here’s my story….
New SM 57 (July 2023) went back to AD for suddenly stopping after ~ 34 hours (fully wound). Got another SM after 4 weeks and naturally I tested it multiple times with none exceeding 50 hours being fully wound. Typically it stops between 42-45 hours. All in all a nice watch but after researching and looking at similar post from folks a bit disappointed.

Spruce · Sep 9, 2023

From today’s 'Guardian' but you could add another Venn overlap about new watch power reserve claims

MikeG57 · Sep 9, 2023

Spruce
From today’s 'Guardian' but you could add another Venn overlap about new watch power reserve claims

MikeG57 · Sep 9, 2023

Spruce
From today’s 'Guardian' but you could add another Venn overlap about new watch power reserve claims

M'Bob · Sep 9, 2023

Spruce
From today’s 'Guardian' but you could add another Venn overlap about new watch power reserve claims

Oh, what the heck…

noelekal · Sep 9, 2023

Sixty hours meant sixty hours in the 1920s.

Both this 1928 Illinois Bunn Special and its slightly older brother a 1926 Illinois Sangamo Special will do 60-62 hours dependably.

I wind watches daily so the added reserve isn't important to me. But, if it's advertised and it's important to an owner then it would be annoying.

MikeG57 · Sep 9, 2023

noelekal
Sixty hours meant sixty hours in the 1920s.

Both this 1928 Illinois Bunn Special and its slightly older brother a 1926 Illinois Sangamo Special will do 60-62 hours dependably.

I wind watches daily so the added reserve isn't important to me. But, if it's advertised and it's important to an owner then it would be annoying.

MikeG57 · Sep 9, 2023

Thank you, that’s exactly my point.

kkt · Sep 9, 2023

Yes, Omega should prove their claim or claim only 36 hours or drop it completely. If they think nobody cares, it should be fine to stop making the claim.

It would make a difference to people who wear the watch Monday-Friday and take it off for the weekend.

YY77 · Sep 9, 2023

My Seamaster Trilogy (cal 8806) has real life PR of 62h so better than the 55h Omega states. My Speedmaster Apollo 11 (cal 3861) is 64h vs 50h.

X350 XJR · Sep 9, 2023

Taking a line from automobile marketing "your mileage may vary" end quote. 🙄

ghce · Sep 9, 2023

Seriously? Hell I would be returning it if it couldn't meet one of its most basic specs.
My Daytona has a quoted power reserve spec of 72 hours, if I take it off at the beginning of a 3 day weekend it's still ticking when I put it back on.

Pastorbottle · Sep 9, 2023

No doubt somewhere there is small print (probably in a font the size of a bee’s dick) that states something like “under ideal conditions”
These ideal conditions would involve such factors as the temperature of your refrigerator, the colour of your shirt, sunspot activity, fish in the atmosphere and proximity to poetry recitals on a Tuesday!

kohster · Sep 9, 2023

My assumption (which maybe is crazy) is that the power reserve number was meant to be for a fully wound watch that wasn't moving (obviously for an automatic watch, most motion would induce some level of winding). And if I had a watch that at least wasn't in the neighborhood (by like 10%) I'd be annoyed. One thing that I think I read though when verifying/testing power reserve time was to not solely go by the time that you see that the watch stopped, since as the power gets low the watch could possibly start running especially slow or fast (I can't remember exactly which). Dunno how solid that advice is; I'll defer to the folks with more real knowledge than what I have.

kohster · Sep 9, 2023

My 752 movement has a rated power reserve of 50 hours. The couple times I've measured it, it's been right around 49 hours or so, which I think I totally acceptable.

Foo2rama · Sep 9, 2023

How are you fully winding it?

kohster · Sep 9, 2023

I'm winding the watch until there's a decent bit of resistance. If I go past that point, there's a little bit of a click/pop and I can do a few more winds until the resistance builds up again. I was told by others on this forum that is how automatic watches are expected to work due to something called the bridle mechanism. I wound to that resistance point and then left the watch sitting alone until it stopped, with various alarms set leading up to the 48+ hour mark to check to see if it had stopped and if it was running faster or slower than normal. I didn't get to see exactly when the watch stopped, but it wasn't running hugely slower or faster leading up to it, and I'm quite confident that it stopped in that 49 hour neighborhood. Definitely never made it to 50 hours. But again, 49 seemed within acceptable parameters to me.

Dan S · Sep 9, 2023

I think you forgot to use the word "HORROR" in your thread title.

Donn Chambers · Sep 9, 2023

M MikeG57
Just looking for some honest feedback feedback here from folks with experience with Omegas. Here’s my story….
New SM 57 (July 2023) went back to AD for suddenly stopping after ~ 34 hours (fully wound). Got another SM after 4 weeks and naturally I tested it multiple times with none exceeding 50 hours being fully wound. Typically it stops between 42-45 hours. All in all a nice watch but after researching and looking at similar post from folks a bit disappointed.

Are you running the chronograph function? Because that will affect the power reserve .

Foo2rama · Sep 9, 2023

Donn Chambers
Are you running the chronograph function? Because that will affect the power reserve .

Well technically no it will not affect the power reserve, but it will make the watch stop sooner until the chrono is turned off due to the torque needed to drive the chrono function, and an unwound spring will have less torque.