[SamReidHughes]

> Hell, even state of the art mechanical movement like Seiko Spring Drive suffered from being associated with Quartz watches, even despite the fact that it had nothing to do with them.

They have a quartz oscillator controlled by an integrated circuit! Replacing a motor with a generator is neat, but the real trick is that there's no way for mechanical imperfections to affect the rate, making it easier to manufacture.*

* Caveat being that I haven't made them, power reserve is the real game there, and they don't seem to be cutting corners.

[anthonybsd]

The thing with Spring drive is that Quartz oscillation in it while used for the same purpose (time keeping) is used in an entirely different fashion. Being a mechanical watch admirer I consider it more in the realm of automatics than in the realm of mechanical watches. I wouldn't give the same distinction to Seiko Kinetic though.