The Swiss watchmaker Abraham Louis Perrelet invented a self-winding mechanism in 1770 for pocket watches. It worked on the same principle as a modern pedometer, and was designed to wind as the owner walked, using an oscillating weight inside the large watch that moved up and down. The Geneva Society of Arts reported in 1776 that fifteen minutes walking was necessary to wind the watch sufficiently for eight days, and the following year reported that it was selling well.

Breguet: 1780

Perrelet sold some of his watches to a contemporary watch making luminary, Abraham-Louis Breguet around 1780 who improved upon the mechanism in his own version of the design, calling his watches "perpetuelles" the French word for perpetual. They did not work reliably and Breguet stopped producing the around 1800.

Self winding mechanisms were more successful in wristwatches because a person's arm moves much more during daily activities than his torso, where a pocketwatch is kept; the rotor could operate every time the owner moved his or her arm.

The first self-winding wristwatch did not appear until after World War I, when wristwatches became popular. It was invented by a watch repairer from the Isle of Man named John Harwood in 1923,who took out a UK patent with his financial backer, Harry Cutts, on 7 July 1923, and a corresponding Swiss patent on 16 October 1923.

The Harwood system used a pivoting weight which swung as the wearer moved, and which in turn wound the mainspring.

The ratchet mechanism only wound the mainspring when moving in one direction. The weight didn't rotate a full 360°; spring bumpers limited its swing to about 180°, to encourage a back and forth motion.This early type of self-winding mechanism is now referred to as a 'hammer' or 'bumper'.

The Rolex Watch Company improved Harwood's design in 1930 and used it as the basis for the Rolex Oyster Perpetual, in which the centrally mounted semi-circular weight could rotate through a full 360° rather than the 300° of the 'bumper' winder. Rolex's version also increased the amount of energy stored in the mainspring, allowing it to run autonomously for up to 35 hours.

​

By the 1960s, automatic winding became standard in quality mechanical watches. Because the weighted rotor needed in an automatic watch takes up a lot of room in the case, increasing the thickness of the watch, some high end watch companies, such as Patek Philippe, continue to design manually wound watches, which can achieve a case thickness as low as 1.77 millimeters

1729: born - 1826: died

Abraham-Louis Perrelet (1729-1826), "l'Ancien," was the son of Daniel Perrelet. He has been considered the greatest master of Le Locle horology. He was apprenticed to a master watchmaker and then set up on his own. He first made tools (his father was a well-known tool-maker). He invented the rounding-up tool and other tools.

Perrelet was a founder of the precision watch industry in the Neuchâtel mountains. He became the master of all the watchmakers of that era in Le Locle. He modified the watch mechanism by using novel combinations. He was the first watchmaker in Le Locle to work on cylinder and duplex escapements. These were excellent, and he also made watches with an hour ratchet for striking the hours. Perrelet made the first repeater in the mountains.

Records showed that he supplied the PHILIPPE DU BOIS factory with watch movements, train wheel bridges, repeaters, etc. It is interesting that he did not sign his watches but it was not customary to do so in those days in Le Locle.

Perrelet was one of the inventors of the so-called 'perpedual or 'self-winding' watch, 1770-1776;

1747: born at Neuchatel - 1823: died

Started in Paris 1776, but watch No. 1 is of 1787. Breguet attracted the attention of Louis XV and set up in Paris on the quai de l'Horloge. He became a member of the Academy des Science.Very soon Kings, Princes and European celebrities were buying his watches. Breguet made the first "perfect&hibar; automatic watch, capable of running for eight years without being overhauled and without going slow.

This watch still keeps perfect time today. Breguet's inventions meant that it was possible from then on to make watches accurate to within a tenth of a second. Thanks to him, considerable progress was made in marine navigation, astronomy and physics, and his contemporaries began to look at the time in the way you look at a jewel. Breguet signed his watches in the way that Boulle signed his furniture and Rembrandt his paintings.

The extra-flat watch was one of Breguet's inventions. The perpetual or automatic watch, the perfecting of so-called "multiple complication" watches, the balance spring, were all Breguet. The "tact" watch, the constant-force escapement and the tourbillon watch were also by him. It would take hours to list all his inventions. Many watches bearing his name were made outside and finished in his workshop. There are innumerable watches being his name in forgery. He made many improvements, including the parachute ca.1790, and the tourbillon in 1801, also many self-winding watches. He was the first to make lever escapement with lift partly on the pallets and partly on the teeth. The over coil balance spring is known by his name. Draw was absent from early levers, but used after 1814.