I will give my take on seiko kinetic watches. I have owned several. What they call a capacitor is really a rechargeable battery. My original watch I wore daily for eleven years. I put it down for a few weeks and the battery finally exhausted itself and would not recharge.
The technology is a little dated. If it's a watch you will wear for daily use then it is great. I love the concept behind it generating it's own power supply. If they are worn occasionally, like a few times a month then it is not a purchase that makes sense. When fully charged it has a reserve of about 4 to 6 months. However, if not worn for a while and the power resesrve dives, it is not able to charge itself past the point it is exhausted to. I have a watchmaking background, so swapping of the battery/capacitor is easy for me, but a jewelry store is going to charge you in excess of 89 dollars or more. You should take this all into account when you are deciding to purchase this item.
It is not terribly difficult and if you know what you are doing it takes ten minutes. The capacitor itself cost about 15 dollars and the rest is labor. I think if you call around you can find a place. I would not recommend a place that you mail it to because they will charge you top dollar. Heck if you lived nearby I would do it for you. I'm not a professional but I've done this procedure about 15 times and have serviced over 100 mechanical watches, so this is quite easy for me.
Thanks a ton for posting this. As a person that only wears watches to complete the look this watch makes little sense for me as much as I love the design. I would wear it once a month for 8 hours.
I was just about to post this. This is the reason I don't own any kinetic watches and won't gift to a person who I don't believe will make it a daily piece. Thanks for the informative post!
You forgot to mention that there are induction chargers available on the market to charge the kinetic watches. This is ideal for people who dont want to wear this watch every day. In fact some people have used $10 toothbrush charges to charge their kinetic watches. Google it.
I actually have one of these toothbrush chargers. They do work but are a PITA as it is difficult to keep the watch in a steady position to charge and without the rotor getting in the way. Also, if you have 3 or 4 of these this is not going to work. There are some handsome Kinetic watches, but the technology is outdated. If you wear it frequently or want to invest 250 dollars or so for one of the Seiko induction chargers than by all means don't let me stop you. It's a novel concept, but I think even solar powered has surpassed this. By the way, I wore Seiko Kinetics for about 12 years, but I now wear mostly vintage watches from the '40s and '50's.
I just use a bit of a masking tape to hold the watch to the charger ... problem solved ... this is not too much to do every 5-6 month even if you have 3 or 4 watches.
I don't wish to knock anybody for wishing to own one, I just wanted to let a new owner know what they are up against. If it's worn for only a few times a month it will be dead in 6 months. Once the battery "capacitor" is drained it cannot be recharged and you have to take it to a watchmaker for 80 dollars or so. Fortunately I can change my own for cost, about 15 dollars. Looks like the enthusiasts have already found ways around this dilemma. There is a reason the technology has almost died out.
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