Anyone wish Patek had longer power reserve?

[Bmats]

It seems that Patek prioritizes things other than power reserve on each movement tweak and iteration — many valuable things for sure. But I wonder if others wish that there was a bit more power reserve on the watches—something more than the 40ish ours they say. It would nice if it would last the whole weekend—from Friday night to Monday morning.

[Vasco]

It has never been a problem for me as I use a unique watch for a long period (I don't switch regularly). If I have a manual-wound caliber, I wind the watch fully once a day (even with a 48h+ movement). If it's automatic, I don't have to manage it at all. But I understand the "friday night to monday morning" issue, depending on our habits (I personally keep wearing my watch on week-ends) or when switching back and forth between watches every 2-3 days.

There are several factors coming into consideration for a brand, among which :

- A bigger PR usually comes with a longer mainspring (hence bigger spring barrel(s)).
This is a reason why Patek's calibers are usually thinner, especially in the standard range or the complicated versions. Excluding ultra-thin movements that usually come at a cost. The 30-255 (ref. 6119) has a higher PR with the introduction of a second barrel in parallel (but it takes room). They have an excellent accuracy but required some additional work to be implemented in a more optimized way (some infos here https://www.hightime-reviews.com/pat...-and-pictures/).
Of course, how consumption is managed will influence the PR for a same design. Making a 72h watch isn't difficult nor expensive, but accuracy has always been a main focus for Patek (at least in the modern era).

- A longer mainspring requires to master the consumption's regularity as its torque decreases overtime and can become a source of low beating regularity during the last 1/3-1/4. For instance, Fusee-chaine is a complication aiming at neutralizing this phenomenon.

Patek's movements are known to have a very good torque "curve" (hence delaying the moment it will decrease significantly). Over time, Patek has prioritized (like with the 2006 Spiromax, their Silinvar balance spring development) time keeping and reliability over PR.

[Seo]

yes... I like rotating in my 5212a during the week and unlike my other watches (Omega, Tag, Rolex) Patek runs out quite often. Also I find that the winding efficiency is low vs my other watches.

I'll be getting a winder soon.

[cascavel]

Not if it costs more money and requires a bigger case.

[jon_jon]

Patek has made 8-day and 10-day PR watches in the past.

[Crazywis]

There is a trade off between the size of the movement, the balance inertia and speed and the power reserve. Patek usually errs on the side of using more compact movements and targeting higher chronometric performance while giving up power reserve.

Here are a couple of very insightful articles on this along with choices made by different brands:
1. https://watchesbysjx.com/2020/01/qua...nt-design.html
2. https://watchesbysjx.com/2020/12/qua...esign-hdf.html

[IGY]

No, not particularly.

Power reserve is one of those quantitative things that buyers can use to compare watches, but the reality of it is that like many things in a watch's design power reserve is a trade off of other design considerations like physical size of the watch case and accuracy / time keeping consistency. The SJX articles are really good in explaining this trade off.

Really so long as power reserve is comfortably above 24 hours then I'd consider it good enough in a thin and accurate watch.

What is a different story however is the ease at which watches that have not been worn can be reset not just to display the correct time but also correct calendar and moonphase functions. In this regard Patek's reliance of push pins to set moon and dates on perpetual calendars is a PITA. Compare to someone like Moser's perpetual which requires none of that and has mechansim failsafes to prevent movement damage from misadjustment.