Cheap watch winders from China
In this blog article we write about cheap watch winders that are made in China, or other Asian countries, and are not a great investment. When you're looking to buy a watch winder then we advise you not to buy a watch winder which is too cheap and mostly offered on Amazon or Aliexpress. Why? We will explain.
Most cheap watch winders are made in China, Taiwan or Vietnam. The factories who produce them are mostly not specialized in watch winders at all. Mostly they produce watch cases and use very cheap parts in their watch winders. The reason is that they don't have the knowlegde, experience and network in the field of watch winders and automatic watches. Simply said, they don't know how to produce a good quality watch winder. These cheap watch winders are often sold by small companies which are active on Amazon and Aliexpress. You can buy them for 50-150 USD already.
Our experience, and we visited many watch winder factories in Asia and Europe, is that these factories produce bad quality products and are not interested in winding an automatic watch in a good way. These cheap watch winders often produce a lot of sound, and after some time can make noise as well. The motors are of Chinese origin and cannot compete with Japanese, German of Swiss motors. The quality aspect of these Chinese motors is an important factor.
The materials used are often cheap and easily brake down. The level of finishing is not good as there is no time during the production to deliver good work with eye for detail. Another point is that the watch holders/cushions are often not handy to use. They are not adjustable or have hard plastic parts which can damage a watch. Cheap Chinese watch winders often offer a lack of functionality. Options as selectable direction of rotation and selectable TPD (turns per day) are not available; one specific program is set. This is a real problem, as different watches demand different settings. Simply said, if the watch winder cannot be set correctly the watch won't gain energy and will stand still.
When you buy a watch winder on a platform as written and you experience a defect you have to return the unit back to the supplier or factory. Often this is quite expensive as shipping rates (and TAX/VAT and import/export charges) are not cheap. Our advise is to buy a good watch winder always from a specialist; a high end jeweller or online shop with proven experience in the field of watch winders. A cheap watch winder often results in disapointment and high costs. A waste of time, effort and money....and be honest; do you want to put your precious automatic watches in a doubtful watch winder?