Review: Barrington Watch Winder
Earlier this year I wrote a post entitled “shopping for a watch snob” in which I detailed how fussy my husband is when it comes to watches and how difficult it is to buy him one as a gift. He has several criteria including having a blue face with non-pointy hands, not having any numbers of numerals, not being too big and ideally having a leather strap.
So, when it came to choosing a watch for our wedding anniversary back in August it took me a while to find a good option which suited most of his requirements. I found one on Amazon from Megalith which I thought fit the bill although this had one new feature it is an automatic self-winding watch being powered by the natural movement of the wrist.
My husband likes the new watch (thank goodness) but it is a bit too large to wear at work as he is an Osteopath and the watch gets in the way so he often has to take it off which limits the movement and therefore opportunities for self-winding. When I was selected by Barrington to review one of their watch winders – designed to mimic the motion required to wind the watch – I jumped at the chance to give it a go.
I was sent their flagship Barrington Single Watch Winder in Midnight Blue for the review. It is surprisingly stylish, coming in a range of sleek colours, and compact measuring in at just 11.5cm (W) x 12cm (H) x 16cm (D). The winder can be operated either by AC mains or two AA batteries and it comes with a British 3 pin power adapter as standard.
The Barrington winder uses a gentle rotation to wind watches and allows for a pause to avoid over-winding of a watch and potential damage to the mainspring. Gentle rotation ensures a consistent movement over a longer period of time that won’t over-wind your watch. You can choose from a range of rotation settings including clockwise, counterclockwise or alternating and has multiple turns der day: 650, 750, 850, 1,000 or 1,950 to suit any weight of watch.
Setting up the winder is pretty simple – choose the cushion which best works for your watch – it comes with a standard and flex cushion, standard cushion suits approx 70% of people and the flex is preferred if wrist size is slightly smaller – and slip the watch on and place into the winder.
When started up the winder will first turn for 1 minute and then pause, and then rotates again for 1 minute. This cycle continues for 12 hours, then rests for 12 hours, before beginning again and so on until the winder is turned off. Changing the settings via the knobs at the back of the winder will change the pause and rotation times. The Japanese motor is surprisingly quiet and has a smooth action.
If you have more than one watch which has an automatic self-winding system then it’s helpful to know about the Barrington winder ‘jump’ system which means you can connect multiple winders together via the supplied connecting cable and powered from one AC power source – a great feature for any watch collector!
If you have a bigger watch collection that requires winding then check out the multiple watch winder options from Barrington offering stylish options for 2 to 12 watches!
The Barrington watch winder has definitely helped ensure that Vlad’s new watch doesn’t run out of battery when it’s not in use. The winder is sleek and sexy looking, surprisingly quiet and simple to use and fits into our minimal interior design seamlessly. We award it 5 out of 5 stars.
