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Seiko Kinetics?

3K views 12 replies 11 participants last post by  andykannan 
#1 ·
To my understanding, Seiko Kinetics have a power reserve of a month when fully charged, but I read somewhere that it is not a good idea to let the Kinetics fully power down because it will deplete the maximum charge of the lithium ion batteries a little bit each time it is fully powered down until it can no longer hold a full month's worth of power.

I would like to know if that is indeed the case, and if so, how simple would a battery change be and how much would it cost to have someone change it?

Also, is the Direct Drive better than normal Kinetics?
 
#2 · (Edited)
The "standard" Seiko Kinteic watches have a 6 month reserve. Wearing the watch +/- once a week keeps mine @ full 6 month reserve.

The direct drive is nice, & can be hand wound, idk why they seem to only have 1 month reserves though....

This one is a year old, 3-4 wears a month, and never under 6 month reserve.



I've been (nearly) daily wearing this SUN for a couple of weeks. Was up to full charge in 1 day of wear, and a bit of swirling it...



I wouldn't want a whole collection of them, but 1-2 are easy enough to keep charged up.
 
#3 ·
I have only one, but I have had zero issues keeping a full reserve, and that is wearing the watch intermittently (once a week maybe?).
 
#5 ·
Li-ion batteries are funny little things - no matter how you treat them they seem not to like it. The absolute best way to treat them is to let them run down then give them a full charge but how far do you let the stupid things run down? - too far and you end up ruining the battery. I opt for keeping them in a high state of charge. TBH I'm not sure how well it works on watches but the elderly Li-ion in my work laptop is holding up well on the same sort of regime so I live in hope.
 
#7 ·
Having the battery changed out can get a little pricey. Seems there was a thread on here a few months ago where someone paid around $50.00 to have the battery in their KInetic replaced. I thought that was outrageous. Batteries for KInetics can be found online. Usually in the vicinity of $20.00. There have been a couple threads where people have changed out their own and included pictures. Looks about as easy as changing a battery in any quartz watch. My BFK needs a battery change. Mostly due to me letting it set and letting it get totally ran down a few times. Now it doesn't like to hold a charge.
 
#8 ·
I used to have a kinetic (Seiko Boss) and never had a problem with the reserve. I had it for a couple of years and wore it probably once a week to once every two weeks, and like others have said, it never dropped under a full reserve. A buddy of mine at work has one, and he wears it daily - same thing there of course, no issues.
 
#9 ·
Here's a great article can help you understand Kinetic better: The Seiko Kinetic: Boon or Bane?
The most informative part of this article is that it explained many different types of Kinetic movements in an easy to understand way.

To answer your questions, there are YouTube videos show how easy (or difficult) to change battery.

I would say it's a bit more complicated than changing battery for an ordinary Quartz due to the rotor.

Also I don't think the direct-drive feature makes the movement much better. It's nice to have, but not mandatory.
 
#12 ·
Here's a great article can help you understand Kinetic better: The Seiko Kinetic: Boon or Bane?
The most informative part of this article is that it explained many different types of Kinetic movements in an easy to understand way.

I would say it's a bit more complicated than changing battery for an ordinary Quartz due to the rotor.

Also I don't think the direct-drive feature makes the movement much better. It's nice to have, but not mandatory.
That's a really interesting article. With the advancements in solid state capacitors where they are being used almost exclusively in higher end PC power supplies and motherboards (electrolytic capacitors became quite notorious for popping and leaking there too) I would love to see Seiko revisit using actual capacitors in these watches as an actual solid state capacitor would last for decades and shouldn't have the problems LiOn has with needing to keep it charged.
 
#10 ·
I wore a BFK every day for about 5 years. It was a fantastic watch and never let me down. I then became more interested in watches and my collection grew from 1 to 16.

The cell in my watch eventually died and I replaced it myself with a new one. I wore it maybe once or twice a month and it ended up dying again.

In my opinion there's not much point owning a kinetic if you're not going to wear it at least 2 - 3 times a week.
 
#11 ·
I wore a BFK every day for about 5 years. It was a fantastic watch and never let me down. I then became more interested in watches and my collection grew from 1 to 16.

The cell in my watch eventually died and I replaced it myself with a new one. I wore it maybe once or twice a month and it ended up dying again.

In my opinion there's not much point owning a kinetic if you're not going to wear it at least 2 - 3 times a week.
Your's is a good point. I own two and sadly, they don't get enough time and are down to the 5 sec mark on reserve. Love the look of the BFK's but they're kinda neglected by me now :(
 
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